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A House for Mr Biswas Summary

A House for Mr Biswas´follows the titular character from his unlucky birth in rural Trinidad, through his repeated displacement,

unsatisfying marriage to´Shama Tulsi, lackluster parenthood, and financial missteps in his quest for a´house, to his death in the

city of´Port of Spain´at the age of 46. Throughout his life, the romantic and insatiable´Mr Biswas, who is prone to pride,

disappointment, irrational optimism, and despair, dreams of finding financial stability and a house for his family. When he finally

buys the house he always wanted, it turns out to be a scamthe house is ill-constructed and nearly uninhabitable, and Mr Biswas

is unable to pay his mortgage. His health declines, he gets laid off from the´Sentinel,´and he dies in a heart attack.

In the prologue, Mr Biswass tale begins where it ends, with his firing, debt, and beautiful but crumbling house, which he bought

after one nighttime visit that strategically hid its flaws. Still, it was a much better place to die than the Tulsis house full of

relatives. Although Mr Biswas passed away with little more than the mortgaged house, at least he didnt die as one had been

born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.

Indeed, Mr Biswass birth was decidedly unlucky: at midnight, the most inauspicious of hours, he came out six-fingered, and

born in the wrong way.´Pundit Sitaram´warned that he would be a lecher, spendthrift, and liar; that he would lead to his

parents ruin; and that he should stay away from trees and water. He receives the name Mohun, but the narrator insists on

calling him Mr Biswas even from his earliest days. His father,´Raghu, was a miserly sugarcane worker who buried his earnings in

jars underground and superstitiously insisted on staying home from work whenever Mr Biswas sneezed. While his elder

brothers´Pratap´and´Prasad´joined their father in the cane fields, Mr Biswas was too sickly and weak to work, until his

neighbor´Dhari´needed someone to look after his new calf. While he was busy gazing at a shallow stream one day, the calf

wandered off and drowned; too afraid to tell anyone, Mr Biswas hid under his fathers bed until the whole village assembled at

the lake, and Raghu began diving for the missing animal and boy. He pulled up the dead calf but drowned while looking for Mr

Biswas just as the protagonist arrived on the scene. With the neighbors hunting through the familys garden at night, looking for

Raghus buried jars of money, Mr Biswass mother´Bipti´decided to sell the land and move to her sister´Taras house in the

town of´Pagotes.

In Pagotes, Mr Biswas was fortunate enough to go to school, where he learned to read from the authoritarian teacher´Lal´and

began a friendship with a local boy,´Alec, who taught him to draw letters exquisitely. After getting kicked out of his pundit

apprenticeship with´Jairam´and his job at a rumshop with Taras brother-in-law,´Bhandat, Mr Biswas decided to work with Alec

painting signs. Mr Biswass sign-painting took him to the Tulsis magnificent´Hanuman House´in the town of´Arwacas, where

an intimidating man named´Seth´hired him to paint signs in the Tulsi Store. Mr Biswas immediately fell in love with one of the

Tulsi daughters, a girl of sixteen named Shama, and wrote her a love note. However,´Mrs Tulsi´intercepted his note and, to his

surprise, promptly offered him Shamas hand in marriage. He accepted the offer and immediately regretted his decision, but
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of family members cohabited in a tenuous but relative harmony. Mr Biswas immediately hated his new surroundings, antagonized

as many Tulsis as possibleincluding Shama; Shamas sister´Chinta; Chintas husband,´Govind; a devout and orthodox

brother-in-law named´Hari; and Mrs Tulsis two studious sons, whom she paid special attention and he disparagingly nicknamed

the two gods. After spitting and throwing his food onto´Owad, the younger god, Mr Biswas received a hearty beating from

Govind and an order to leave the house immediately.

After his eviction, Mr Biswas went to a remote village called´The Chase´to run a new store the Tulsis had purchased there.

Shama initially resented him for trying to paddle [his] own canoe and landing them in a tiny house in the middle of nowhere.

However, they began to find some common ground, and she soon became pregnanttheir daughter´Savi´was born soon

thereafter. But business was turning sour at The Chase, especially given Mr Biswass willingness to sell to the townspeople on

credit. Eventually, Mr Biswas lost all his savings when a local stick-fighting thug,´Mungroo, sued him for damaging his credit. With

his whole familyShama, Savi, and his new son,´Anandat Hanuman House, and his sense of isolation at The Chase growing,

Mr Biswas began to cherish the community he found among the Tulsis in Arwacas and let Seth talk him into insuranburning

(insuring-and-burning down) the store at The Chase.

Mr Biswass next destination was´Green Vale, an estate near Arwacas where he worked overseeing workers under Seth. He

found his work tedious and his home life, in a tiny room in a shared barracks, exceedingly miserablehis only solace lay in

reading the newspapers that the resident before him decided to use as wallpaper, and he began dreaming of building his own

house behind a grove of trees nearby. He unsuccessfully fought to claim Savi from Hanuman House and then, after a nervous

breakdown that culminated in his attacking Shama, turned his attention to Anand, who agreed to stay. He had already invested all

his money in constructing a rudimentary house from reclaimed materials with the help of a local builder,´Mr George Maclean;

while there, the father and son quickly found a shared affinity for literature, philosophy, and science experiments. But soon

thereafter, after Mr Biswass puppy´Tarzan´showed up dead on their doorstep, a severe lightning storm tore the house to

pieces, leaving Mr Biswas again without a home. The Tulsi brothers-in-law brought him and Anand back to Hanuman House,

where he recovered and began to feel safe and even a little adventurous, perhaps for the first time in his life. Although he was

finally united with all his childrenincluding two new daughters,´Myna´and the infant´KamlaMr Biswas walked out of the house

with a small suitcase and no idea where to go.

Mr Biswas jumped haphazardly onto a bus to Port of Spain, where he stayed with his sister´Dehuti´and her

husband´Ramchand´in their ramshackle house on the periphery of the city. He stumbled into the office of the´Sentinel, a

newspaper where an old friend from Arwacas worked for some time. Although it took him a day of unpaid sign-painting to

convince´Mr Burnett, the editor, to give him a shot at reporting, Mr Biswas landed himself an unpaid months trial. His initial

stories about dead babies were uninspiring, but after DADDY COMES HOME IN A COFFIN, Mr Burnett was impressed and

Mr Biswas became a full-time reporter. Mr Biswass family agreed to move to Port of Spain, and Mrs Tulsi offered Mr Biswass

family the spare rooms in her vacant house there for only eight dollars a month.

Soon, a new rˆ'gime took over the´Sentinel: Mr Biswas was no longer allowed to write sensational reports, but now was called

to REPORT NOT DISTORT. Management assigned him to cover cricket matches and court cases, always in bare-bones
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ing with their family in the countrysidefirst with Tara and her husband´Ajodha, and later with the Tulsis at Hanuman House.

Because of fights with Seth, the Tulsis abruptly decided to leave Hanuman House for an estate at´Shorthills´in the North of

Trinidad, and Mr Biswass family got kicked out of Mrs Tulsiss house in Port of Spain. Once again, Mr Biswas came to live with

the Tulsis, although this time he found it rather inoffensive, particularly because Mrs Tulsi was aging and indifferent. However, the

glorious estate began falling into deeper and deeper disrepair, threatening the familys survival. Eventually, Mr Biswas was

forced out of the house after being accused of stealing. He promptly had his own house built nearby; unfortunately, the familys

attempt to burn the brush surrounding the new house led them to burn the house down instead.

Luckily, however, Mrs Tulsis home in Port of Spain was again available, and Mr Biswas moved back there with Govind, Chinta,

their children, all the Tuttles, and a widow named´Basdai. The three brothers-in-law quarreled endlessly but indirectly, and

Govind and´W.C. Tuttle´both grew rich working for the Americans who built military bases and oil infrastructure in Trinidad during

World War II. Mr Biswas started writing a column for the´Sentinels Deserving Destitutes Fundhe visited poor Trinidadians

and picked one every day to win a sum of moneybefore losing his mother Bipti and grieving deeply for the love and connection

he felt he never shared with her. Anand became one of his schools star pupils, beating his cousin´Vidiadhar´in their rivalry by

winning an exhibition scholarship to the local college.

When Anand started college, Mr Biswas found a new job conducting surveys for the Community Welfare Department under the

ambitious and beautiful´Miss Logie. Just as he began to feel like the most prominent of the houses brothers-in-law, Mr Biswas

learned that W.C. Tuttle bought his own house across town and Mrs Tulsi was moving back in preparation for Owads return

from England.

When Owad arrived, he quickly took control of the family, winning everyones attention and reverence for his endless stories

about medical adventures and politics in England and Russia. He soon alienated and angered Anand and Mr Biswas, and Mrs

Tulsi forced the Biswases to move out. One day, a´solicitors clerk´told Mr Biswas about a house he was trying to sellthe

same house where the protagonist died in the Prologue. Mr Biswas talked himself into buying it and borrowed more than four

thousand dollars from Ajodha to make the purchase. He moved his family into the new house, only to discover that it was shoddily

constructed by the solicitors clerk himself and much worse than comparably priced houses in the neighborhood.

The epilogue summarizes the last five years of Mr Biswass life: Anand and Savi went abroad for college, Mr Biswas finally grew

to respect Shamas rationality, and he suffered two heart attacks that left him hospitalized and sedentary. Savi returned from

university and found a job that paid far more than he ever made, and the adamantly secular Mr Biswas wondered, How can you

not believe in God after this? He died shortly thereafter; family from all around Trinidad attended his cremation and then went

back to their respective homes.

A House for Mr Biswas Character List

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, is an Indian born in rural Trinidad and is pronounced unlucky by the pundit at his birth due to the presence of six fingers and

because he was born in the wrong way. Mohun goes through a series of life changes as his father dies and his family moves

away. He finds a number of jobs throughout his lifetime and finds a passion for writing. Mohun likes to think of himself as a

modern man with no belief in orthodox Hindu practices, but he feels greatly victimized when he is not paid any dowry for marrying.

He is easily duped but, he doesn’t listen to his wife’s advice, out of spite for her family.

Shama

Shama is the wife of Mr. Biswas. He sees her in her family shop one day and writes her a note. Soon, he is made to marry her.

Though they have little in common and do not even really like each other, she stays with him out of duty. She comes from a family

of many daughters. The daughters are usually ignored and married to prospects simply because of their caste. She is apologetic

throughout the novel for the aggression of her husband.

Anand

He is the only son of Mohun and Shama. He is found to be brainy and is enrolled in exhibition classes, in which he excels. Later in

the novel, Mr. Biswas grows quite fond of him.

Savi

She is the eldest child. She is naughty yet resourceful. Although she is older than Anand, she is given less importance than

Anand.

Raghu

Father of Mr. Biswas, he is considered a miser. He is extremely superstitious about Mr. Biswas because he suffers a number of

mishaps around him. He dies of drowning while searching for Mr. Biswas in a pond.

Bipti

´›Mother of Mr. Biswas, she remains a strange figure to him as he is constantly out of touch with her due to his multiple vocations.

She is a weak character who always tried to please her sister, Tara.

Pundit Jairam

The pundit to whom Mr. Biswas goes for education in scriptures and rituals. A pompous and suspicious man, he makes Mr.

Biswas eat a bunch of bananas as punishment for eating two of them without asking him for permission.
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ara

Bipti’s sister. She’s married into a rich family but is childless; she takes care of Bipti and her children after Raghu’s death.

Ajodha

Tara’s husband. He is shrewd and a good person. He is obsessed with keeping one’s body fit.

Mrs. Tulsi

The head of the Tulsi family, she is a widow with 2 sons and 14 daughters. She places importance on her sons and marries her

daughters off to people she hardly knows, simply because of their caste.

Seth

He is the husband of Mrs. Tulsi. He takes care of the estate and other businesses. He is a shrewd person and later grows apart

from the family.

Dehuti

Mohun’s sister. She managed to marry a low-born boy, Ramchand, thereby going against the whole society.

Pratap and Prasad

Brothers to Mohun Biswas. They didn’t support Mohun Biswas when he was in need.

Dhari

Neighbor of Raghu who gave Mohun the job to take his calf for grazing. The calf drowned due to Mohun’s negligence.

Lokhan

When Raghu died in an attempt to find Mohun in the stream, Lokhan took out Raghu’s body from the stream.

F.Z. Ghany

He provided fake legal certificates to people.

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Bhandat

He is the brother of Ajodha who owns a wine shop. He is very much afraid of Tara. She keeps a close eye on the shop.

Miss Logie

She is the head of the Community Welfare Department where Mohun worked. She is a young lady who features prominently in

the novel.

Sushila

Widowed daughter of Mrs. Tulsi; she takes care of Mrs. Tulsi all the time, while remaining personally neglected.

Chinta

Another daughter of Mrs. Tulsi. She is a weak character and remains unresponsive whenever her husband, Govind, beats her.

Owad

Younger son of Mrs. Tulsi. He went abroad to be a doctor and married a cousin of Dorothy.

Shekhar

Elder son of Mrs. Tulsi who lives with his wife, Dorothy.

Dorothy

The wife of Shekhar represents modernity. In the novel, she is as a free woman and performs the work traditionally assigned to

men, like selling tickets at the cinema. She compelled her husband to live with her in her own house. She breaks values, wears

frocks, and dresses in ways objectionable to her society.

Myna and Kamla

Younger daughters of Mohun Biswas.

A House for Mr Biswas Themes

Status of women
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A very important theme in the book is the treatment of women. Though the majority of characters are women, the women are

mostly treated as caretakers, conspirators, or just faces in the crowd. They hardly have any kind of aspirations. The daughters of

the Tulsi household are married to men simply because of their caste. The financial stability of the prospective grooms is not

considered, nor is any care given for girls’ age or consent. A pecking order of women is created in the household where the

women with most affluent husbands are seen as better than others. Hence, the windows are forever worried about their future and

are trying to start businesses of their own. There is a constant fear of bringing stress on´Mrs. Tulsi, and the women often punish

their kids to make others "satisfied"which is just a way to let out their frustration with their current station.

Aspiration

Mohun Biswas, though neither hard-working nor talented, wants to make it big in the world and constantly strives to make it work

for him. However, as he matures, his dreams start to get more realistic and he begins to dream simply of a home where he can

keep his family without multiple other relations around, and without the constant jabbering of women or intrusion on the privacy of

his children.

Family

The theme of family is twisted to the point that it becomes dysfunctional. All the families depicted in the book are dysfunctional in

varying degrees. Mohun is almost forced into marrying´Shama, and even though he is sexually active, Shama’s pregnancies are

surprising to him and all his children feel like a burden to him. The Tulsi are a big family, in which the daughters and their resident

husbands are mostly treated as servants and the two sons rule like kings.

Housing

From his first move as a child to his aunt’s house following the death of his father onward, Mr. Biswas finds himself either living in

a relative’s home or in a ramshackle excuse for a house of his own, neither of which is able to last long before he has to move

again. Especially since he forms a family with Shama so early in his life, Mr. Biswas’ life is heavily impacted by the conditions in

which he lives; as a contrarian, he desires private accommodations, while as a fairly impractical man, he often depends upon

others in order to have accommodations at all.

Education

Although Mr. Biswas receives some training from a pundit and learns to read English at a school, he never goes so far with his

education as to be able to gain the kind of social mobility that becomes open to his son,´Anand. Mr. Biswas and the Tulsi family

understand that, along with the decline of the family structure and the economic changes in Trinidad, educationnot for

themselves, but for their childrenis the key to independence and prosperity.
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From very early on, Mr. Biswas feels that he is being duped by others around him, especially the Tulsi family, against whom he

complains incessantly even while living under their roof, almost to the end of his life. Part of this distrust may come from the fact

that, without a substantial source of income and a residence of his own, he knows that he depends upon the means of the Tulsi

family; therefore, they have a certain stranglehold on his life.

Secularism

The story portrays religion in Trinidad, whether Hindi or Christianity, in wryif not outright satiricalterms. Hari, the pundit, is

ridiculed by Mr. Biswas for bringing bad fortune upon houses and people he blesses; and´Dorothy, the westernized wife

of´Shekhar, is disdained by Mrs. Tulsi’s daughters for her pretentiousness.

How does Naipaul use literary devices to develop the character of Mr. Biswas and convey the significance that owning a home

has for Mr. Biswas?

Answers´

A house is perhaps the most important motif in the story. Throughout his life, Mohun lives in lots of places, some grand and some

merely a room with leaking roofs. His yearning to have a house of his own is a symbol of his need to make a mark in the world. He

came to the world unplanned and created a lot of trouble for everyoneeven before he actually´did´anything, merely by being

born on an unlucky hour. His life is considered unnecessary and a burden on his parents. He wishes to die in a place he can call

of his own, where he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his privacy or existential comfort for someone else.

Mr. Biswas’ intense, lifelong desire for a house of his own is more than a literal desire for a place where he can live: it’s a

metaphor for the deep desire many of us feel for self-determination in a modern world that often makes people feel as if their own

lives are largely out of their control. The tragic irony of this story’s structure, in this regard, is that the titular characterthe one

around which the entire narrative should presumably pivotis apparently doomed to be defined and determined by the other

people in his life, rather than himself.

A House for Mr Biswas Imagery

Hanuman House

Hanuman House was huge in comparison to many other houses in Arwacas. It had a forbidding demeanor, windowless and

thick-walled, and a huge statue of Hanuman was situated atop (the house’s namesake). Not a lot of people were invited inside, as

the Tulsi were very conservative and so the house was shrouded in mystery. It was bigger than it looked, with many rooms.

Certain big rooms were divided to accommodate different families. Some rooms, better furnished than others, were reserved for
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nting at the double personality of the residents.

Shorthills House

The Tulsis moved into this house after their quarrel with Seth; the house was distant from the village, as well as the town, and was

surrounded by a lot of trees, whose fruit was often stolen and sold by the sons-in-law. The Tulsis tried to use the different trees

around them in food and for other purposes, but they failed. There was also a swimming pool, which wasn’t used. The whole

scenario evokes the image of an adventure gone downhill.

Sign-Painting

Mohun takes a job as a sign-painter and begins to paint signs in Arwacas. He paints many signs, and he is proud of his work and

the effort he puts in it. His signs are described in substantial detail, hinting at the level of commitment he has to work.

Wall at Greenvale

The room where Mohun lived during his time as Seth’s driver had a wall covered completely with newspapers. After Shama

leaves him, tired of his incessant ranting about her family, he begins to grow obsessed with the wall, reading the same lines over

and over so much that the lines begin to haunt his thoughts and he begins to associate the very concept of journalism with those

specific articles.