A Marginalized World: A Postcolonial Reading Of The Mimic Men

Trinidad-born English novelist, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, a descendent of Indian immigrants in Trinidad, has a complicated cultural background. Naipaul grew up in the conflicts and fusion of postcolonial Indian culture and European culture. In many of his writings he presents the past and the present situation of the postcolonial societies and focuses on the sufferings of the former colonies.Published in 1967, The Mimic Men is one of his early works and won him the W. H. Smith Award the next year. As a representative masterpiece in postcolonial literature, this novel depicts the predicaments of the island Isabella in the course of transition from a British colony to an independent country. Cultural displacement, identity crisis and dependence on the metropolitan country contribute to its unreal independence. During the transitional period from a British colony to an independent country, both the people and the country are forced to resort to mimicking the Western model in people's identity search and political reconstruction.The main body of the thesis is composed of three chapters. Chapter one describes people's anxieties in postcolonial world. Cultural displacement and identity crisis put people in the situation of being marginalized. Besides, the former metropolitan country's political and economical control makes the situation worse. Chapter two focuses on the role plays of people in postcolonial period. Former colonized people cannot drive away the influences left by the colonizers. Chapter three analyses the reasons that contribute to Isabella's plights even after it gained independence. Through the description of the sufferings of the former colony Isabella, this thesis reveals there are still predicaments which face both Isabella and its people, and further analyses the reasons for the plight.