V. S. Naipaul’s "Enigma Of Arrival"

V. S. Naipaul (1932-), winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature in2001, is a typicalimmigrant writer with multiple identities in world literature. He is an Indian by blood, aTrinidadian by birth, a Briton by citizenship. So the three cultures of Trinidad, India andBritain have a great influence on him. His multicultural background and uniquepersonal experiences create for Naipaul a special way of thinking and thus anextraordinary writing style. His complex background also leads to his uncertainty abouthis cultural identity and his crisis in cultural identification; therefore, many people callhim a “rootless writer”, or a “rootless man”. Naipaul has published more than30worksin50years. The background of his works is very wide. He has tried his hand at manygenres, covering fiction and nonfiction. He writes about his life, travels and thoughts ina postcolonial world in an autobiographical way. His works present a unique culturalvision of the post-colonial period. Naipaul was praised by the Nobel Prize in Literaturefor “having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compelus to see the presence of suppressed histories.”This thesis tries to interprete Naipaul’s heavily autobiographical novel The Enigmaof Arrival from the perspective of post-colonialism. It explores an ex-colony writer’sefforts to find the cultural attribution and spiritual home for himself.The Enigma of Arrival is the only book representing Naipaul’s own life and literarythoughts when he had stayed in Britain for more than30years. This book is consideredas Naipual’s transitional work, in which he experiences a revolution in his identity. Withthe first-person narration, it expresses Naipaul’s discoveries and changing views aboutlife in Britain. In this important book, Naipaul re-examines the mixed cultural elementsof his identity. The re-examination also makes him go through a painful process ofaccepting his hybrid identity. Based on the postcolonial theory of identity, Naipaul’sarrival is analyzed. Thus the enigma of arrival is the enigma of his obtaining a hybridcultural identity.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter offers an introduction toNaipaul, including a review of the related literature about the researches on his worksboth at home and abroad, in which the author analyzes his controversial position, andpoints out that critics’ criticism of Naipaul is closely related to his complicated identity.Chapter2analyzes Naipaul’s seeking for arrival by applying the theory of post-colonialism as well as some related concepts. It builds up the basic theoreticalframework of this study. Chapter3is a recollection of Naipaul’s recursive journeysthrough life. He starts his journey from Trinidad to England because of hisdisillusionment with the distorted West Indian colonial education and the influence ofhis father. But then he finds that there should be more travels, because he loses hisidentity in the clashes of Western and Eastern cultures, and cannot find his cultural andspiritual belonging. Then there are journeys back to the Caribbean and India, where hestill experiences the fragmentation of self, the split of man and writer. Finally he returnsto settle in rural Wiltshire as his sojourn. So many years’ exile has made him change hisview about himself and the world. He finds that his fantasy is finally reconciled with thereality. Chapter4unlocks the enigma of Naipaul’s final arrival through the analysis ofthe whole structure of the novel, some images and the painting of “The Enigma ofArrival”. It observes Naipaul’s arrival as a writer and man, thus leading himself toaccept a positive hybrid identity and to obtain a tranquil mind for both his life andwriting. Chapter5is a brief summary of the whole thesis.The Enigma of Arrival is concerned over the topic of “arrival”. The word “arrival”in Naipaul’s sense points rather to a spiritual fulfillment than the actual getting to adestination. In the tide of globalization, the efforts Naipaul has made about finding hisroot or identity may inspire some people who have been living in alien cultures to facesuch questions as how to locate themselves in different cultures and how to make theirlife meaningful in the new environment.