Disrupting Racial Binaries: A Derridean study of Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man

Abstract Metaphysics of presence is an approach that generates hierarchies and binaries on account of its yearning to prefer what is immediate, obvious and self-evident. The pursuit of immediate self-evident presence often results in negligence of what is absent or different. Hence, due to this sort of approach, a presence/absence binary emerges that paves the way for multiple binaries, privileging left side of the slash over the right side. The matter of concern in the current study is the white/non-white racial binary where white is preferred and privileged over non-white due to the presence of whiteness as a symbol of essential purity, reason and civility, whereas non-white cultures and people are rendered with the attributes like impure, irrational and savages. This study tries to explore that how Hamid’s The Last White Man is a narrative that seems to deconstruct white/non-white and civilized/savage binaries, by rendering white skinned people, a brown complexion, making them think and experience what they have erstwhile ignored, neglected or marginalized. The study employs Derridean strategy of deconstruction by using aporia, différance and inversion as tools to deconstruct white/non-white and civilized/savage binary. The study concludes that deconstruction of the selected binaries substantiates the instability of the binary structures, hence, no privileged position or fix essential attributes can be associated with any race or culture. Keywords: Deconstruction, Metaphysic of Presence, white/non-white binary, Civilized/Savage binary, Différance, Aporia, Inversion