Theme Of Diaspora In V.s.naipaul’s Half A Life And Ma Gic Seeds

In the era of globalization and multiculture, diaspora literature and diasporicwriting has become a more attractive field for many scholars. The scholars find that alldiasporas, especially diasporic writers seek a transcendent meaning for their lives. Theyoung tries to find himself; the older attempts to regulate his long life into a harmoniousensemble—both are on a universal quest for purpose and spiritual wholeness.V. S. Naipaul, the son of an Indian family, was born in Trinidad and educated inLondon. He is acknowledged to be one of the greatest diasporic writers in the worldliterary history. Throughout his life, he traveled through Europe to Asia, then to Africa,and finally settled in Britain. His multicultural background gives him unique angle toobserve the Empire and former colonies. His works are well-examined by critics frommany perspectives, such as political, cultural, postcolonial studies and so on. Althoughmany critics have proved him a diasporic writer and made some research on his worksfrom the perspective of diaspora, few of them have studied the theme of diaspora in hisworks, especially in his latest novels—Half a Life and Magic Seeds.The current thesis is an attempt to examine the theme of diaspora in Naipaul’s twonovels from the perspective of diaspora criticism.This thesis is divided into five chapters. The preface part introduces V.S.Naipauland his works briefly. The analysis of relevant studies from both domestic and foreigncountries is also presented in this part, as well as the innovative point in this thesis. Thefirst chapter is the theoretical rationale of the study. In this chapter, a survey is madeabout the concept of diaspora and a brief introduction of diaspora criticism. Somefamous diaspora theorists such as Edward W Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, HomiK. Bhabha and Stuart Hall, etc. and their theories are also introduced in this part. Thesecond chapter mainly discusses Naipual’s multicultural background and his diasporicwriting. Naipaul was born in a Hindu Brahmin family who found its way to Caribbeanisland of Trinidad. When he was eighteen years old, he went to England for furtherlearning. It is Naipaul’s multicultural background that gives him the unique angle topresent the lives of these homeless and marginalized people in the post-colonial society. The third and forth chapters reveal the theme of diaspora through Willie’s diasporicexperience and the characters’ limbo in Half a Life and Magic Seeds. The fifth chapterpresents Willie’s effort to reconstruct his identity in diaspora but in the process ofpursuing his own identity, he lost himself. Finally, a hybridized cultural identity isconstructed and Willie arrives “the Third Space” where the harmonious co-existence ofdifferent cultures is realized. The last part concludes this thesis.Like the hero—Willie in Half a Life and Magic Seeds, it is impossible for Naipaulto maintain a pure cultrural identity since he has his multicultral background. Theisolation from his homeland and his living place makes him actually feel homeless. Hecan’t deny his indigenous culture completely while he can’t accept the host’s cultureblindly. For the reconstruction of the self, Willie drifted from one place to another.Finally he accepts his hybrid identity and arrives his spiritual homeland “the ThirdSpace”, which is a way for diasporas to resist colonialism and the Western culturaldomain. As a diaspora too, this is what Naipaul wants to show in Half a Life and MagicSeeds. The study on the theme of diaspora in the books throws the lights on theunderstanding of the phenomenon of diaspora in this more and more globalized world.