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Amy Baron
asked:
What did the man in the closet who watched the woman sleep and then exit through the window have anything to do with the storyline? Also, what about the man in the alley who started to follow the Filipino girls feeling the metal (knife?) in his pocket? Both incidents (which occurred in different parts of the world then where Saeed and Nadia were living) seemed to not have anything to do with the story.
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Exit West,
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Tammy Davis
I think they were illustrations of the doors that transported people to other places. People just came out of nowhere and then continued on--like the way Saeed and Nadia left their country.
Rae Neill
I was puzzled by this at first and was waiting for it to connect to something in the story. However when it didn't I interpreted it as showing us that life was going on in its own sphere all over the world, a kind of parallel universe.
Elizabeth Mcnair
I was confused when I first read it, but after I got further into the book-I realized these individuals also used the "doors"-just in other locations.
Jan-Pieter
I think these episodes are illustrations of madness that we are used to, that we don't think off as strange (but the Amsterdam door seems opened to love). Migration is a new madness/problem that we most adopt/adept or, at any rate, cope with.
Tsering
This answer contains spoilers…
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Lisa
I was confused by those episodes as well. Honestly, until I read Tammy's comment, I didn't even connect them to the 'doors.' But that makes sense!
Grace
I also think that at that point in the narrative, the doors were just rumors. The characters didn't know if they actually existed or not. This was the authors way of putting in a little authority on the subject - the reader knows he doors exist before the main characters do. It gave some foundation to the whispering that the characters heard.
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