On Heterogeneous Cultural Images In In A Free State

V.S.Naipaul(1932-2018)is one of the representative writers of diaspora literature and the Nobel Prize winner in 2001.His works span the long river of history,writing his feelings about the status quo of the world between the east and the west.This paper selects Naipaul’s In a Free State(1971),which won the Booker Prize in 1971,as the research text,focusing on the heterogeneity cultures image in the novel.Through the close reading and analysis of the novel,and on the basis of the theory of Imagology,the construction process and characteristics of the heterogeneous cultural images in the works are analyzed to explore Naipaul’s cultural stance and attitude.On the basis of the relevant theories of comparative literary imagination,it analyzes the construction process and characteristics of the heterogeneous cultural images in the works,thus exploring Naipaul’s cultural stance and attitude.First,this paper takes the individual in the heterogeneous cultural environment in the novel to reveal Naipaul’s image writing and cultural critique between “self” and “other”.The blind worship of the Western world by the brothers Dayo and Santosh make them a diaspora of Western countries,while Linda and Bobby are the victims of internal wars in Africa.Secondly,this paper explores the characteristics and causes of the alien images in the novel,and reveals the reasons and cultural tolerance of Naipaul,who is the watcher,describing the two differently.The hubshi are not only rude but often chaotic;they represent backward and savage ethnic groups.African blacks are divided into western imitators and primitive blacks who stick to traditions.Finally,this paper analyzes the three foreign images in the novel in the interaction of “native” and “exotic”: the ideological image of Washington,the utopian image of London,and the modern allegorical Africa.Through the analysis of these three spatial image construction processes,it can be seen that Naipaul is aloof from the cosmopolitan cultural standpoint between the local and the alien.Starting from the related theories such as the image of the other,this paper aims to analyze the three types of heterogeneous cultural image features and their causes in the novel from the interaction of “self” and “other” as well as “native” and “exotic”.The three types of heterogeneous cultural images in In a Free State indicate Naipaul’s tolerance and dialectical critical attitude towards the Third World and the West,expressing the Naipaul’s moral concern for the equality of individuals in the world.