An Analysis Of The Theme Of "Loss" In Miguel Street From The Perspective Of Post-colonialism

V. S. Naipaul, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in literature, is widely praised because of his numerous works depicting post-colonial people’s living conditions and state of mind. His works not only offer a unique perspective but are thought-provoking. Through analyzing the profundity of his novels, we are able to interpret his works better, and then to explore in depth how his unique literary style came into being and to summarize the particular writing style and literary features of his works.Naipaul’s first creation, Miguel Street, which is the first step for him to focus on the theme of post-colonial living conditions, is highly representative. Miguel Street portrays us a lost world. Under the oppression of colonialism and neocolonialism, people living in the street called Miguel have built a "lost world" for their own by mimicry. The loss of language value makes their native language—Creole, socially inferior to English; The loss of family value, which stems from people’s imitation of the violent means of colonial domination, results in frequent domestic violence; The loss of occupational value dashes their hope of realizing their life value and obtaining colonists’recognition. The loss of language, family and occupational value intermingling with hybridity makes people on the Miguel Street neither own their real living space nor spiritual home and live in the third space, which may seem absurd but in fact adds to the profundity of the novel. Therefore, the root cause of the people being lost in Miguel Street is the colonial oppression and domination.This dissertation is composed of five sections. The first section is the introduction, a brief introduction to Naipaul’s personal life, works and the summary of Miguel Street. At the same time, it provides the literature review of the paper. The second section is an overview of the theory. The dissertation centers on the post-colonial theory of Homi Bhabha, including his mimicry, hybridity and third space. The third section is the main body of this dissertation, which is a thorough analysis of three major aspects of the state of loss— the loss of language value,the loss of family value and the loss of occupational value. The fourth section analyzes the archetype for the state of loss in Miguel Street— the author’s state of loss in his real life including the loss of culture and the loss of identity. The last section is the dissertation’s conclusion, which advocates contemporary authors to place a high value on colonial literature and inspires contemporary readers to maintain their own culture and respect ethical equality.