Postcolonial Identi/ties: A Study Of V.S. Naipaul's Major Novels

In our increasingly diverse and fragmented post-modern world, identity is a vibrant, complex, and highly controversial concept. The old notion of identity as a prescribed and self-sufficient entity is now replaced by identity as a plural, floating and becoming process. We experience our identities at global, national, local, and personal levels in very"real"ways. Postcolonial literature, among other artistic forms, is one of the most representative reflections of this floating identity.This dissertation explores the identity formation of postcolonial subjects represented in V. S. Naipaul's four major novels—A House for Mr. Biswas, The Mimic Men, The Enigma of Arrival, and A Way in the World. Drawing on Jacques Lacan's post-psychological analysis theory, Homi Bhabha's postcolonial theory, postmodern views of history, and identity theory in cultural studies, the author of this dissertation sketches a tentative route of postcolonial subjects'identification: escape—mimicry—hybridity—diaspora.This paper consists of four chapters between an introduction and the conclusion.The introduction provides a general review of commentaries on Niapual and his writings, analyzes his controversial position and points out that critics'criticism of Naipaul is closely related to his complicated identity as a Trinidadian by birth, an Indian by ancestry and an Englishman by citizenship. Meanwhile, it traces the evolution of the concept of identity and builds up the basic theoretical framework of this study.Chapter One applies Lacan't theory in the study of A House for Mr. Biswas. Born into the Symbolic system that is alien to his cultural heritage and the Caribbean reality, Mr. Biswas is doubly marginalized in his society. Independent identity, therefore, can only be a fantasy for him. The jerry-built house he finally acquires aptly symbolizes the struggles he has fought as well as the compromises he has to make with his colonial society; it is the departure of the postcolonial subject's route of identification rather than the symbol of the realization of an independent identity. Chapter Two analyzes mimicry on the colonial's route of identification as discussed in The Mimic Men. Feeling shipwrecked at the colonial homeland Singh goes to search for his independent identity in London as is taught to him by the colonial discourse. Mimicry of the colonizers, however, does not prove to be fruitful in his identity quest. Different from Bhabha, who thinks that in mimicry lies the colonial's subversive power, Naipaul is satirical and critical of colonial mimicry and does not believe that mimicry can be a way out for the colonial's identity crisis.Modern theories of autobiography view it as a process, through which the autobiographer tries to construct one identity or several identities. Chapter Three examines Naipaul's heavily autobiographical work, The Enigma of Arrival, and demonstrates that through writing Naipaul deconstructs the notion of Englishness, reconciles with his homeland, and establishes for himself a positive hybrid identity.Chapter four reads in great detail A Way in the World and shows how Naipaul deconstructs the accepted history of the colonial written from the Eurocentric perspective and rewrites it so as to de-re-construct the colonial's identity. For Naipaul, then, history becomes a stepping-stone to move beyond the land of one's birth, beyond ethnicity and nationalities, to reach for spiritual and intellectual development, and to start afresh toward a positive embracement of the diasporic identification which privileges"route"over"root".The concluding remarks briefly summarize the route of postcolonial subject's identification and analyze the three factors affecting Naipaul's identification: colonialism, his idea of history and the course of his writing career. The final conclusion is that writing for Naipaul serves both as mimicry and revolution to assert his identity. This dissertation also exemplifies that reading literary works may provide a method for people to understand the life world better, directly or indirectly.