Identities And Spaces In A House For Mr.Biswas

Born in Trinidad,V.S.Naipaul receives western education and then settles in England.With extensive experiences at home and abroad,he has created abundant literary works and been awarded Noble Prize in Literature.Among these works,A House for Mr.Biswas,modeled on Naipaul's father,is widely regarded as a representative work in his early times.The novel delineates intertwined spaces where residents gradually develop distorted identities respectively.Naipaul reveals his ambivalent values towards colonies,especially his birthplace Trinidad,which has set the tone for his writing career.This thesis consists of three chapters.The first chapter demonstrates the multilayered colonial world by analyzing different physical spaces in the novel.The traditional Hanuman House signifies the imprisonment in the fetters of tradition,those temporary dwellings symbolize the struggle in the turbulence of transition and Mr.Biswas' s own house stands for the dilemma in the hypocrisy of modernity.The second chapter features the main characters' distorted identities by concentrating on their mental spaces.As physical spaces change,Mr.Biswas,Shama and their children constantly convert their original identities,forming respective mental spaces actively,passively or unconsciously.The third chapter unearths Naipaul's ambivalent attitudes towards the colonial world by unfolding various social spaces in the novel.When characters pursue their mental spaces,both social progress and retrogress emerge,covering racial issues,rank systems and gender problems,which reflects Naipaul's complicated attitudes towards the colonial world.The thesis demonstrates that different physical spaces have merged in colonies such as Trinidad.Living in such a society mixed with tradition,transition and modernity,the inhabitants have to forsake their former identities and start to seek for alternative identities.Faced with their distorted identities,Naipaul reexamines the spaces of race,class and gender,during which he expresses satisfaction with social progress and shows concern about social problems.Therefore,the novel not only reflects residents' distorted identities caused by multilayered society,but also reveals Naipaul's ambivalent values towards colonies by establishing the relationships among physical space,mental space and social space.