The Fate Of A Culture Without Its People

V.S. Naipaul (1932- ) is one of the most reputed as well as disputable writers of contemporary English literature. He is on the one hand widely acclaimed for his literary master hand but on the other patently refused for his contempt towards third world nations. Produced over 50 years, Naipaul's over 30 books mostly center on former colonies, which, coupled with his West Indies Indian background, attract critics with a postcolonial perspective. Such a reading is beyond reproach, yet it is undeniable that it constraints Naipaul, treating him as a regional writer. The greatness of Naipaul, in fact, is his ability to deal with human problems of universal application, drawing on a mass of local detail to make itself credible. Equally insightful is his criticism towards isolated, mimicry cultures. All are expressed with a sense of hard humor in A House for Mr. Biswas, the highly autobiographical early masterpiece.The first chapter of this paper centers on the hero's never-ending struggle to own a house of his own. It signifies human being's innate need for independence and dignity, of which an ordinary man often searches subconsciously. With Mr. Biswas'story, Naipaul not only narrates the difficulties man encounters on the way to find out his place in the world, but stresses his optimism that an ordinary man could become truly himself and attain self-dignity as long as he has something to hold on to. And the peripheral characters in the book are given their due attention in chapter two. They are mysterious beings of who only a small glimpse is permitted through the eyes of the narrator, and their vague existence tells off the invisible changes happening to the Indian culture and foreshadows its decline. In the third chapter, Naipaul's Indian figures forsake their indigenous culture to mimic the more developed west, forecasting a pessimistic future for the culture, which will disappear into void due to the erosion from within and the intrusion from without.