Naipaul's Culture Identity And Narrative Language

Naipaul's multi-culture identity is primarily decided by his specific culture background and experience. His grandparents came to Trinidad from India. And he looks like an Indian. He was born in Trinidad, married an English woman, received college education and makes his permanent residence in Britain. He also travels extensively in the world to explore the social life of different countries. All the above shapes his unique feature of "multi-roots"and "multi-homes", among which, India culture and English culture exert the greatest influence on him. He received education from English when he was very young and learned to evaluate the Third World by the standard of English culture. At the same time, he is Indian in blood and his Indian family background stamps a marked brand on him. His specific culture identity cultivates his sensitivity to cultural perspectives and insights and meanwhile influences the formation of the feature of his narrative language.Naipaul's specific culture background and experience enable him to enjoy four homes at the same time: Trinidad, India, Britain, and Africa, among which Trinidad, India and Africa belong to one world - the Third World while Britain belongs to another - the First World. His master pieces on his Third-World home-writing are "A House for Mr Biswas", "India: a Wounded Civilization", and "A Bend in the River". By analyzing the narrative language in these three master pieces, readers can experience Naipaul's unique culture perspective, his feelings and emotions. On the other hand, his narrative language enables readers to make in-depth analysis of Naipaul's culture identity. Naipaul's culture identity was formed gradually following a long process: from his experience and admission of ego in "A House for Mr Biswas", through the experience and admission of the Other after suffering from culture shock in "India: a Wounded Civilization", to the experience and admission of multi-culture identity between the two worlds in "A Bend in the River". Naipaul demonstrates multi-culture features in his narrative mode and narrative language. Naipaul introspects his own world from inside, and reflects on the poor and lagged-behind situations in the Third World from outside, thus giving his works a dark and shocking feature. In a word, his multi-culture identity is demonstrated in different narrative languages in his works. Naipaul describes the poverty and underdevelopment in the Third World countries in a sarcastic style, which is often shown in the images of "darkness"in his works. In addition, Naipaul frequently uses irony, and various rhetorical devices in his writing. As Naipaul adopts different culture identity in writing about his three different homes, his narrative style and narrative modes are different from one anther in his three representative works. His three master pieces also show great difference in style and narrative language.