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SECTION: STEM 12 – CURIE

Identity Crisis in V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas

1. What is the essay about?

V.S. Naipaul’s magnum opus, A House for Mr. Biswas, can rightly be called a work
of art that deals with the problems of isolation, frustration and negation of an
individual. A House for Mr. Biswas tells the story of its protagonist, Mr. Biswas from
birth to death, each section dealing with different phases of Mr. Biswas’s life. Here,
Naipaul has a more subjective approach towards the problems of identity crisis than
the objective one a reader finds in his travelogues, especially on India. Partly
autobiographical, A House for Mr. Biswas delineates the traumas of a tainted and
troubled past and the attempts to find a purpose in life, beautifully analysing the sense
of alienation and the pangs of exile experienced by the characters.

2. What literary works or cultural artifacts were discussed in the essay?

Mr Biswas's quest for a house symbolizes his overwhelming desire to claim space for
himself, organize that space himself, and determine his own life within that space.
Biswas's quest for a place of his own is symbolic of his native Trinidad's struggle for
independence. As with all anti-colonial struggles, Mr. Biswas encounters a number of
setbacks in his attempts to lead an independent life.

3. What are the major points of the essay?

This paper deals with the man struggle to make something valuable.it is a struggle
projected by the heroic effort to own is a dream house, which in the way to own his
own life. The plot of the story is that lone man struggles to free from the oppressive
force of his in-laws and failing health. Naipaul has also conveyed that the struggles
face by the man actually mold him to reach his dream. Mr. Biswas mostly lives in a
series of houses that either does not belong to him or are houses unworthy of the
 name. Each of the houses he lived is an attempt of solving a problem and each is a
wrong answer in a different way. Author projected the character of Mr. Biswas as
smart and funny but also often petulant, mean and unsympathetic. Mr. Biswas enemy,
who are mostly is relatives are largely unlikable, but they also have admirable
moments. Naipaul also drawn simple elements from the life of his father and he also
portrayed the struggle faced by him.
4. What does the essay say about postcolonialism and decolonialization?
In this novel we have an example of how different people cope with different cultures and
how they try to adopt to creole society. During the course of story, we see some characters
like Biswas who try to adopt new culture and on the other hand characters like Tulsis who
seek to perverse their culture. The impact of colonisation is everywhere in the novel. The
family structures and social customs of the Indians in Trinidad is related to political situation.
The people among which Mr Biswas is born are trapped in miserable situations and are
considered as inferior in the discourse of colonizers. It was by means of his colonial education
that Mr Biswas became familiar with the dominant values and culture of canonical literary
works and he used literature as a way of escape from bitterness of real world. A House for
Mr Biswas is a narrative of a male protagonist located in the period of British colonialism.
Much of Naipaul’s novel is given to depicting the groups of Indian people in Trinidad.
Biswas tells the story of its protagonist, Mr. Biswas from birth to death, each section dealing
with different phases of Mr. Biswas’s life. Mr. Biswas is caught between the old culture of
India and English people which are shown in many ways. In the novel A House for Mr.
Biswas Naipaul depicts the situation of the colonial 'other' to reach some sort of personal
identity. Although the characters themselves are related in the usual sense of the word, they
are noticeably separate from one another, and work against each other in the quest of their
own satisfaction. A House for Mr. Biswas describes the story of a homeless and rootless
immigrant who lacks identity and security in the colonial world. The process of colonization
brings forth new patterns of cultural behavior and value system in creole society of Trindad.
In this book Naipaul deals with shifting identities, roots, homes and changing realities of
migrants. Naipaul has written extensively about different aspects of post-colonial society,
viewed from post-colonial perspective.