The Spiritual Experience Of Willie In Half A Life

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul（1932-），a British writer of Indian origin，is the winnerof the Nobel Prize for literature in2001and one of the most outstanding writers in the world.The books of Naipaul are closely related to his life experience. His homeland is India; he wasborn in Trinidad; finally he settled in England. His multi-cultural background and years oftravel give him multi-cultural perspective. His works reflect the predicament that people facewhen finding cultural identity in post-colonial period. They discuss the hot topics such ascultural identity, race and feminism.This thesis takes the novel Half a Life as the object of study. It analyzes the lifeexperience of its hero, Willie, who leaves India to study in London and then lives in Africafor eighteen years. It reveals the confusion that Willie faces in searching for cultural identity.It interprets the spiritual experience of Willie from blind acceptance of western culture toconfusion in cultural conflicts, and he finally reaches reconciliation with Indian culture.The thesis is composed of five parts:The part of introduction contains the basic information of Naipaul, the content of thenovel Half a Life, and literature review.Chapter one analyzes Willie’s blind acceptance of western culture form three aspects.Although he is born in India, he despises Indian culture due to his western education. Heworships Christianity blindly, admires western lifestyle which is described by missionaries,and studies English hard.Chapter two reveals Willie’s confusion which is caused by cultural conflicts when hestudies in London. Staying in a new cultural environment, he is still influenced by Indianculture. He meets with trouble both in literary creation and his love.Chapter three analyzes Willie’s experience in Africa when it is under the rule ofPortuguese. He lives as a colonizer because of his marriage with Ana who is one of thecolonizers. However, the agony that the Africans suffer and their insistence of local cultureremind Willie the same situation in his hometown, India. So he feels sympathetic andrespectful to Africans. At the same time, he gets reconciliation with Indian culture. The last part reaches the conclusion. The transmission of western culture during thecolonial period brought great trouble to the colonized. People who are in cultural conflictscan neither blindly accept the foreign culture nor resist it completely. To solve the problem,they should respect the cultures and absorb the good elements.