Lalami’s Anomic World: (Dis)Engagement with Normlessness and Attempts at Recovery

Abstract

This article exposes the multi- faceted dimensions of anomie, Emile Durkheim’s highly controversial theory, and the way it applies to Laila Lalami’s novel Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005). This paper draws on Durkheim’s theory and aims at exploring the anomic world Lalami creates in her representation of Morocco during the postcolonial period and the impact of a state of normlessness on her characters’ experiences. Social norms have been blurred and common values and meanings have lost their significance and power to unite individuals due to economic difficulties, globalization, and colonization. The resulting instability and breakdown of ideals has left Lalami’s characters psychologically paralyzed and unsettled by emergent feelings of alienation, confusion, and an inability to deal with a period of cultural and social upheavals and a debilitated community. Eventually, they are forced to face a fractured society that lacks a sense of direction, a purpose in life, and the social cohesion that previously reinforced a collective conscience. The discussion mainly focuses on the disintegration of family and loss of a moral system that regulates society, and various attempts at recovery from such anomic conditions infiltrating Moroccan culture in Lalami’s novel.