MONTREAL-THE UNDERGROUND CITY IN RAWI HAGE’S COCKROACH
MONTREAL-THE UNDERGROUND CITY IN RAWI HAGE’S COCKROACH

Summary/Abstract: The article sets out to demonstrate how in his novel Cockroach theCanadian writer Rawi Hage deconstructs the image of Montreal as a romantichospitable city. The nameless first person narrator is an Arab exile from anunnamed country of origin (probably the author’s native Lebanon) to Canada. Thearticle first dwells on the recurrent image of the harsh weather as a symbolicequivalent of the city’s hostility. Then it focuses on the protagonist-narrator’s chiefexistential strategy of survival, namely his delusional refuge in a temporarycockroach metamorphosis, so his view of Montreal is frequently given from acockroach’s perspective. He emphasizes that the underground physical filth of thismodern city corresponds to a moral filth. He illustrates this moral decay with apresentation of the circle of Sylvie’s hypocritical friends, who pretend to benonconformists and masquerade as poor marginalized or outcast people. Theyregard the narrator as “the noble savage”, a role he self-consciously assumes, andthus his picture of the city acquires strong postcolonial accents in addition to itssocial perspective. This dimension is also enhanced by the instances of racism thenarrator gives. As an immigrant belonging to a different race he sees his way topromotion barred, and thus becomes acutely sensitive to his permanent humiliatingsubaltern position. He frequently feels he is an outcast regarded with suspicion onaccount of looking different and uses his cockroach guise to feel empowered.

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