On The Characterization Of Mr. Biswas In A House For Mr.Biswas Under Fromm's Character Theory

V. S. Naipaul is one of the writers who have concerns about human beings especially human beings under contemporary post-colonial background, so he became a famous writer and was given the Nobel Prize in 2001. Although he is studying,living and writing masterpieces in England, he has the root of India in Asia and Trinidad in Western Indians. The novel named A House for Mr. Biswas is one of the most outstanding one of his works.In the book Man for Himself, Fromm puts forward comparatively systematic analysis methods of character orientations, with classification of the character types and examples.The previous studies about V. S. Naipaul and his novel, A House for Mr. Biswas,can be divided into two main research directions. At first, researchers care more about Naipaul's complex culture background. They focus on the rootless feeling and tragicomic fate of the characters portrayed by Naipaul. They show details to illustrate that immigrants living in post-colonial society who lose their root, independence and freedom, so they are miserable, struggling in the lower social class. Later, researchers move forward to find out and prove how the characters pursue independence, identity and freedom. However, less attention is paid to the connection between the facts and the reaction taken by those rootless people. It is the psychology growth, change, and development that help to form the certain characters that influence people's reaction to the facts which happen to them. In order to find out what influence the main character's choices at every turn of his life and why he makes these choices, it is necessary to study the protagonist Mr. Biswas' character.Based on Fromm's character theory, this thesis will study the dominant character orientation in different life stages of the protagonist Mr. Biswas through analysis of his life experiences and big events. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is to give a brief introduction to the author of A House for Mr. Biswas, his writing, and his study focus. The significance and structure of this thesis will also be introduced. In chapter ?, some literature review about this genre will be illustrated, and this chapter will discuss the Fromm's character theory. Chapter ? goes to the target. In this part,three main issues will be discussed about the formation of Mr. Biswas' character orientation. The three main issues are social history background, social economic background,and Mr. Biswas' personal experiences. Chapter IV is to analyze Mr.Biswas' character orientation types and its function in Mr. Biswas' choices to fight for equality, independence, respect, freedom and etc. Chapter V works as a conclusion.It is found that Mr. Biswas has different dominant character orientations in the various stages of his life,which is influenced by the change of his living place,opportunity to be educated, special talent of writing print letters and etc. These dominant character orientations are non-productive orientation including receptive character orientation, hoarding character orientation, marketing orientation, and productive character orientation.It is helpful to know the connection between social environment and character orientations. It can help to adjust and control one's character to positive orientation and form productive character in order to choose a better way to react to the society.Once the characters are known by us, can we gain sense of belongings, safety,accomplishment easily,which can make a contribution to a stable society.