Identity Crisis In V.S. Naipaul's A House For Mr. Biswas And A Bend In The River

The present author, focusing on A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul, displays an uncomfortable identity quest among people in the postcolonial Third World through an analysis of characters and some postcolonial images as a supplement in the novels discussed, figuring out the impossibilities for the colonized to assert their cultural identity in postcolonial societies ideologically overwhelmed by the western colonizer. Additionally, Naipaul's writings betray his ambivalent attitude to his ancestral land and the Third World as a whole despite his westerner's perspective and the constant exploitation of the darker legacy of underdeveloped society around the world in his oeuvres.V. S. Naipaul has been seen as one of the greatest postcolonial writers in the English-speaking world. Exposed to several cultures, he cannot identify himself with any one of them, hence a lifetime commitment in Naipaul's novels. The thesis attempts to reveal the hardships the postcolonial people endure in their search for self-identity by illustrating various means they take in the journey to obtain identities. The colonized have not discovered an ideology of regeneration under the powerful impact of colonial sentiments.Although Naipaul is inevitably critical of the Third World due to a western educational background, a writer as important as him should not be rejected with such a simplistic and superficial comment. We cannot deny the deep concerns about the postcolonial world in his works. Naipaul cannot evade his native land Trinidad for the special experience endowed him with material, inspiration, anxiety and courage to expose real postcolonial societies to the world without mercy:poverty-stricken, unenlightened, disordered and being driven into a dilemma in the wake of the metropolis.