The Loss And Reconstruction Of Identity

V. S. Naipaul is a world-famous post-colonial writer. His unique multi-cultural identity, incorruptible scrutiny and perceptive narration require us readers to sweep away the dust of history and get an insight into the true nature of distorted social history. As a British writer of Indian Brahmin origin, he makes careful and insightful observations into the Empire and former colonies objectively, from the perspective of the other being. In his works, he tries to present the living conditions of those rootless and marginalized people like the author himself in the post-colonial society, and their colonial predicament in the search for home and identity. In this way, he successfully subverts and deconstructs all the values and ideology of the Empire, which have been imposed on the former colonies.This thesis, in which the identity issue has been focused on, presents an interpretation of Naipaul's novel Haif a Life from the post-colonial perspective. In this paper, Edward Said's concepts of the Other and cultural resistance, and Homi Bhabha's theory of hybridity are applied to the interpretation and analysis of the on-going process of the loss and recovery of identity on the part of protagonist Willie in the novel. Willie has lost his identity as the Other, and is obsessed with the sense of alienation. At the same time, he reconstructs his identity in hybridity. As for those marginalized people like Willie, the loss of identity is inevitable, yet its reconstruction is necessary and possible. Through Willie's search for his identity, Naipaul expresses his persistent concern with the spiritual life of the marginalized people in the post-colonial society, and shows his re-examination of the complexity of his own colonial predicament.The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one introduces the significance, literature review and structure of the thesis. Chapter two presents a brief introduction of Naipaul and his work Haif a Life. In this chapter discussion is devoted to Naipaul's life experiences, his literary creation and position as well as the background information of the novel. Chapter three reveals the theoretical rationale of the study. In this chapter, treatment has been given to an overview of the post-colonial theories including their major views, representative theorists and their application into the field of literary criticism, such as Said's concepts of the Other and cultural resistance, and Bhabha's theories of hybridity and mimicry. Chapter four offers an interpretation of the loss of identity on the part of the protagonist Willie based on Said's concept of the Other. Willie loses his identity as the Other in ethnicity, language and culture. Chapter five presents Willie's reconstruction of his identity based on Said's concept of cultural resistance and Bhabha's theory of hybridity. Hybridity, for the marginalized people, is a way of cultural resistance to colonialism and the Western cultural domain. Willie's hybrid cultural backgrounds, which result from his mimic experiences, help him to reconstruct his identity. For the recovery of the self, Willie drifts from one place to another. With the hybrid identity, he examines and affirms himself. Chapter six draws a conclusion that cultural imperialism is the main cause for pre-colonized people's marginalization, their sense of alienation and loss of identity. Those marginalized people reconstruct their identity through their constant cultural resistance to the dominant value of the Empire in which hybridity is an effective way. Willie's journey of identity search in the novel represents that of Naipaul, and all the marginalized people in the post-colonial society.It is impossible for Naipaul to maintain a pure cultural identity, because of the ambivalence and hybridity of his identity. Therefore he can not accept the host country's culture blindly, and at the same time can not take oppositional attitudes towards it by tightly sticking to his indigenous culture. Instead, he is supposed to embrace the two by cherishing a national sense and absorbing some elements of the alien culture to form cultural syncretism which would enrich his national culture and make it more enduring. One's cultural identity is just formed in this dynamic process of intercultural dialogue. This is what Naipaul wants to show in Half a Life. The theme of the novel throws light on the understanding of the chaotic modern world which becomes more and more globalized.