An Exploration Of Cultural Identity Crisis In A Bend In The River From The Perspective Of Post-colonial Theory

Naipaul is one of the most influential contemporary postcolonial writers. As animmigrant writer with special background, Naipaul pays much more attention to theThird World in his works and won Nobel Prize for Literature in2001. A Bend in theRiver is one of Naipaul’s representative works. As a typical postcolonial novel, it hasbeen read and studied extensively by many scholars since it was published. The noveldescribes the predicament in a newly independent country and the cultural identitycrisis people encounter. With the help of Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theory, theauthor intends to make a further exploration on the root of the cultural identity crisispeople encounter in the Third World and warns people that blindly pursuing themainstream cultural identity and abandoning one’s indigenous culture may causecultural identity crisis.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter introduces Naipaul, hisnovel A Bend in the River, Homi Bhabha and postcolonialism. The second chapterdiscusses the failure of the intellectuals’ quest for mainstream cultural identity. On thebasis of the first two chapters and with the help of Homi Bhabha’s theory, the thirdchapter makes a further exploration on cultural identity crisis encountered by theThird World people, especially the intellectuals. And through the study on culturalidentity crisis, this thesis tries to warn people that the blind pursuit of the mainstreamcultural identity and the abandonment of indigenous culture will cause the culturalidentity crisis. The last chapter is the conclusion of this thesis. In the era of world culture integration, cultural identity issue has become anincreasingly hot topic and become an unavoidable problem to the immigrants. So it ismeaningful and crucial to make a further exploration on the cultural identity issue andits practical meaning.