In Search Of The Self: A Postcolonial Reading Of A Bend In The River And Heart Of Darkness

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932- ) is regarded as a typical postcolonial writer with a complex background. He writes novels and travelogues following what he sees and contemplates. In his writings, people in postcolonial societies are struggling for creating a new national identity from the tangled remnants of colonial domination. Besides, his works are full of the ambivalent attitude toward postcolonial society and the former colonies. A Bend in the River testifies to what Naipaul describes"the great restlessness of our age", and discloses the sociopolitical turmoil of postcolonial condition of the country, which shows Naipaul's embarking on a mature phase of writing on contemporary colonial and postcolonial societies. The postcolonial reading of the novel is mainly from the perspective of Orientalism.The thesis consists of four chapters between an introduction and the conclusion. The introduction is about Naipaul the writer and A Bend in the River that we'll discuss in this thesis later.Chapter One is focused on the literature review and the aim of the writing. In this section, the author of the thesis tries to review the commentaries Naipaul has received from all over the world, and the comments on A Bend in the River. The aim of this thesis is to disclose that Naipaul has fallen, consciously or unconsciously, into the trap of depicting people in the postcolonial societies as the Other. Yet he goes further in depicting the identity of people in the postcolonial society and the using of narrative technique.Chapter Two depicts the backwardness and darkness of the African Continent. In this section, the thesis compares the similarities between A Bend in the River and Heart of Darkness. The author of this thesis holds up the idea that Naipaul follows his ancestor Conrad in depicting the people in postcolonial societies as the Other in A Bend in the River. The bush is symbolized as the power of the Africa which can erase the trace of civilization in that land. The Africans, such as Zabeth and his son Ferdinand, the president Big Man, are all depicted as the"foil"of the Westerns.Chapter Three compares the differences between A Bend in the River and Heart of Darkness, and it explores that Naipaul takes his efforts to narrow the gap between the Self and the Other through the hybridization of the identity in postcolonial countries, which is a trend in the Third World. In A Bend in the River, the identity is more complex than ever before. People in postcolonial societies are a hybrid of some sort, who is more of the Self or more of the Other.Chapter Four focuses on the narrative technique in A Bend in the River and Heart of Darkness. Following Conrad's footsteps, Naipaul uses the protagonist in the novel to act as the narrator as well. The protagonist assumes a role of the actor who carries out the action, while the job of interpretation and articulation falls on the narrator who assumes the role of the observer. Yet, Naipaul tries to bridge the gap between being a writer and being a man through writing. By the bilateral narration, the fragmented self with the double consciousness is reflected in his work. Naipaul the exile reenters the story, acquires the unfiltered experience and reviews his painful past while evaluating it from the point of view of the exile in London with the Western prejudices.In the conclusion, the thesis tries to state that Naipaul has surpassed Conrad in identifying people in the postcolonial societies, and in the narrative technique. Naipaul's writing provides the readers with opportunities to probe deeper into the identities of people in postcolonial societies, and to be more aware of the importance of connecting the Self and the Other.