Discerning Effects of Cruel Optimism on lower-middle-class people in Mohsin Hamid's novel Moth Smoke

Abstract

The socio-economic issues in capitalist societies due to class difference is a very dangerous dilemma for mankind. This paper is an attempt to explore Mohsin Hamid's debut novel "Moth Smoke" (2000) and its protagonist, Darashikoh Shehzad's condition by applying Lauren Berlant's concept of Cruel Optimism to conceptually investigate how class difference affects the psyche of lower-middle-class people of Third World country Pakistan. The class distinction disturbs them in a cruel optimistic way, and they build unattainable hopeful attachments with luxurious objects for a prosperous life in comparison to rich people. The reader can analyze how these objects of desire as a set of magnetizing promises like a good life or upward mobility conjure lower-class people to step into the world of crime in their crazy struggle to get equal social status like other elite classes. These promises threaten their well-being in the precarious socio-economic sphere and become difficult to obtain for them in capitalist societies.