| My dissertation analyzes the novels of V. S. Naipaul from The Mimic Men to A Bend In The River, tracing the new direction in his writing since his early social satires (1958-1967). I have focused on how his later fiction emerges from his acceptance of permanent exile which forces Naipaul towards socio-historical analysis as a means of confronting the problems of the larger post-colonial Third World. His later fiction thus presents an attempt to contextualize his earlier writings and to establish greater literary accountability as he works towards an art that reflects more closely the conditions of the postcolonial world and which provides at the same time a point of view that allows him to transcend the instinctive cultural responses of the old world.;The first chapter of the thesis examines the whole pattern in the development of Naipaul's writing, while chapters two, three and four analyze The Mimic Men, In A Free State, Guerrillas and A Bend In The River, focusing on the way Naipaul transforms the insights from his journalism into fiction to express the impact of colonial history on Third World societies, the clash of cultures in the encounters between whites and Third Worlders, and the ways people's consciousnesses are shaped by their civilizations.;In the conclusion I show how, without a literary tradition, Naipaul, the writer in exile shapes his writing in response to the constraints upon his relation to the world and to the problems of both personal and literary response to the Third World. His fiction is shaped by the cultural-historical meditations of his travelogues, by a dialogue with existing cultural responses to the Third World, and by an honest expression of deeply felt personal convictions. |
