Order and Chaos in Colonial Trinidad: V. S. Naipaul's Novel "A House for Mr Biswas"Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Trier, 25 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit dem ersten gro en Roman des aus Trinidad stammenden, in England lebenden Literaturnobelpreistr gers Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas. Naipaul schildert aus der Erinnerung den Lebensweg seines eigenen Vaters im sp tkolonialen Trinidad, der gekennzeichnet ist vom Kampf um Unabh ngigkeit und Eigenst ndigkeit, von der Suche nach Orientierung und einer g ltigen Ordnung in einer von gesellschaftlichen Umw lzungen gepr gten Umgebung. Biswas' individualistische Suche spielt sich ab vor dem Hintergrund einer traditionellen hinduistischen Gro familie. Das einzigartige gesellschaftliche Gef ge der Westindischen Inseln in der ersten H lfte des 20. Jahrhunderts und insbesondere das Vorhandensein einer zahlenm ig betr chtlichen indischen Minderheit bedarf zun chst einer knappen geschichtlichen Herleitung. Die Strukturen und Ordnungsprinzipien der indischen Gesellschaftsgruppe - und die Entwicklungen, denen diese unterworfen sind - werden dann anhand der Tulsis, der Gro familie, in die Biswas einheiratet, n her beleuchtet. Im Anschluss daran folgt eine Auseinandersetzung mit Biswas selbst. Zum besseren Verst ndnis seines Charakters erfolgt zun chst eine Untersuchung seines eigenen famili ren Hintergrunds. Dieser bildet eine Erkl rungsgrundlage f r Biswas' Orientierungsversuche. Verschiedene Orientierungsangebote, die sich ihm im Laufe seines Lebens er ffnen, werden auf ihre G ltigkeit f r Biswas hin untersucht. Abschlie end wird neben dem Versuch einer Kl rung der Ausgangsfrage - konnte Biswas' Sehnsucht nach Ordnung gestillt werden? - auch den Besonderheiten des Autors Naipaul, der Leser und Rezensenten in Ost und West gleicherma en fasziniert wie polarisiert, einige Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. |
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Common terms and phrases
already Anand attempt authority awareness background became become beginning Bipti Biswas Biswas's brothers caste child colonial concept course culture daughters early East Indian easy equal especially expected experience extent fact fails fall father fear feeling followed gave give hand Hanuman House Hindu husband idea important individuality Jairam lack land later learned least leave less lived looked lost matter means mind mother move Naipaul needs never notion novel offer once outsider patterns political position protection pundit readers regarded religion religious respect responsibility ritual role rules seemed sense serve Shama Shorthills shows sisters situation social society soon Spain stability taken talk things thought traditional Trinidad Tulsi turn understanding V. S. Naipaul wanted West writing
Popular passages
Page 60 - How terrible it would have been at this time, to be without it: to have died among the Tulsis, amid the squalor of that large, disintegrating and indifferent family, to have left Shama and the children among them, in one room; worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one's portion of the earth, to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.
Page 32 - For the next thirty-five years he was to be a wanderer with no place he could call his own, with no family except that which he was to attempt to create out of the engulfing world of the Tulsis.
Page 60 - And during these months of illness and despair he was struck again and again by the wonder of being in his own house, the audacity of it : to walk in through his own front gate, to bar entry to whoever he wished, to close his doors and windows every night, to hear no noises except those of his family, to wander freely from room to room and about his yard...
Page 24 - They could not speak English and were not interested in the land where they lived; it was a place where they had come for a short time and stayed longer than they expected. They continually talked of going back to India, but when the opportunity came, many refused, afraid of the unknown, afraid to leave the familiar temporariness.
Page 6 - The most attractive and immoral move however has been Naipaul's who has allowed himself quite consciously to be turned into a witness for the Western prosecution. There are others like him who specialize in the thesis of what one of them has called self-inflicted wounds, which is to say that we 'non- Whites' are the cause of all our problems, not the overly maligned imperialists" (Salmagundi Spring-Summer 1986, 53).
Page 31 - ... which he had left that morning cumbered and unbroken, had been cleared and levelled and forked. The black earth was soft and stoneless; the spade had cut cleanly into it, leaving damp walls as smooth as mason's work. Here and there the prongs of the fork had left shallow parallel indentations on the upturned earth. In the setting sun, the sad dusk, with Bipti working in a garden that looked, for a moment, like a garden he had known a dark time ages ago, the intervening years fell away.
Page 48 - osis', and ever afterwards an oasis meant for him nothing more than four or five date trees around a narrow pool of fresh water, surrounded for unending miles by white sand and hot sun. He learned about igloos. In arithmetic he got as far as simple interest and learned to turn dollars and cents into pounds, shilling and pence. The history...
Page 37 - Tulsi had only one servant, a negro woman who was called Blackie by Seth and Mrs Tulsi, and Miss Blackie by everyone else. Miss Blackie's duties were vague. The daughters and their children swept and washed and cooked and served in the store. The husbands, under Seth's supervision, worked on the Tulsi land, looked after the Tulsi animals, and served in the store.
Page 55 - And whenever Mrs Tulsi was away Shama made claims of her own. She was unable to faint like Mrs Tulsi but she complained of fatigue and liked to be attended by her children. She got Savi and Anand to walk on her and said in Hindi. 'God will bless you,' with such feeling that they considered it a sufficient recompense.