The Analysis of the Theme of Marginal People in A House for Mt. Biswas from the Perspective of Post-Colonialism

李胜楠

Abstract: Naipaul has published his famous workA House for Mt.Biswasin 1961.  Having a distinctive characteristic of autobiography, Naipaul depicts a process in which a marginal people pursues the independence of individuality and recognition of cultural identity with his fathers life experience as a model. This work reveals that post-colonialism has resulted in the universal lack of a sense of belonging and the crisis of cultural recognition, and presents the revolutionary spirit to the extent that the marginal people continually pursue their dreams in the dilemma.

Key words:A House for Mt.Biswas;post-colonialism;  marginal people

1.Introduction

Nailpaul, regarded as a writer of post-colonialism, has been awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001. From a Brahmin family of the India, he was born in a small town in Trinidad and Tobago, an ex-colony of the Britain. His childhood and adolescence spent in the capital of Trinidad, Port of Spain, become an unforgettable memory for him. It is worthy to notice that the street at which he spent most of his previous life finally becomes a prototype of his novelThe Miguel Street. There, he enrolled in the government-run Queens Royal College, a well-regarded school which was modeled after a Britain public school. Upon graduation, he won a Trinidad government scholarship which has allowed him to study at any institution of higher learning in the British Commonwealth. He chooses the University of Oxford in which he has unhappily spent four years of college life. He majors in the English literature which has made a solid foundation for his later literary creation. Although Naipaul is from a Brahmin family of the India, he knows nothing about the Indian culture. As an Indian, he lives in the Trinidad as an outsider. Furthermore, as a person from the country of the ex-colony, he also studies in the Britain as an outsider which inevitably gives rise to the lack of the sense of cultural belonging. Therefore, he deems himself as a writer without a root and a citizen of the world. “He is to a very high degree a cosmopolitan writer, a fact that he himself considers to stem from his lack of roots: he is unhappy about the cultural and spiritual poverty of Trinidad, he feels alienated from India, and in England he is incapable of relating to and identifying with the traditional values of what was once a colonial power.”the Nobel judges said(2001). The traditional Indian culture which is deeply rooted in his heart of hearts, the culture of colonizer,and the marginal culture of the colony, all of these have made Naipaul miserable and confused, which can be reflected in his later literary creations. The main themes of his novels concern about the cultural confusion of the Third World, the problem of an outsider, a feature of his own experience as an Indian in the West Indies, a West Indian in the England, and a nomadic intellectual in a post-colonial world. Regarded as a semi-biographical work,A House for Mt.Biswasnarrates a story of Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian, who continually strives for success but mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only find himself dominated by it, and who finally set the goal of owning his own house. As far as the creation ofA House for Mt.Biswas, Naipaul has frankly proclaimed that he takes inspiration from his childhood memories of his father. In addition, he holds that it is this work that ranks top in all of his works in terms of the degree of reflecting his real life.( Naipaul V. S. 2003)The content described in the novel is what he sees and hears in his early life. In the novel, the image of Mt.Biswas is characterized as a marginal people. He lives a miserable life without dignity in which he encounters all kinds of misfortunes and is often teased and disregarded by the surrounding people. Mt.Biswas lacks of the sense of safety, although he is backed by the Tulsi family. As a member of the family, he can not find a sense of belonging in the house which inevitably leads to the fact that although placed in the crowd of people, he is always dominated by the feeling of loneliness. Of course, Mt.Biswas is absolutely not the only person who possesses this sort of feeling. There are many marginal people existing in that society just as Biswas. What has resulted in this phenomenon? We can illuminate it by analyzing the historical background,  social background, and the family background in which Biswas lives from the perspective of the post-colonialism theory.

2.Post-Colonialism Theory

The landmark of the development of post-colonialism is the publication of Said sOrientalism which marks the real formation of post-colonialism. The distinction between the colonialism and post-colonialism lies in that post-colonialism attaches the importance to the colonizers cultural hegemony but the colonialism pays attention to the influence of colonial power on the aspects of culture, politics, and economy and so on. More and more author employs this theory to engage in the creation of work.

3.Historical background

The period in which Mt.Biswas lives is called post-colonial period. This period is marked by the termination of the colonial power in the colony and the forced withdrawal of colonizers from the colony. Nevertheless, there is a long way to go for  the colonials to utterly get away from the impact of colonial culture. “ The nations of contemporary Asia, Latin America, and Africa are politically independent but they were when ruled directly by European powers.”( Said,1994) In spite of the collapse of the colonial system, a lot of Western values which are advocated by the colonizers are still remained in the cultural community of ex-colony such as some discriminative concepts distinguishing cultivation from barbarism, the advanced from the less developed and so on. These concepts have naturally made the colonial people generate a sort of inclination sense to appreciate the Western culture and despise their traditional culture. Moreover, this phenomenon is rather ubiquitous. When Mt. Biswas is in primary school, he can recite many English poems and read the Christian Lord s prayer in Indian. His son named Anand receives education in Britain from childhood and adolescence and often obtains scholarship( V.S.Naipaul,2002). Influenced by the Western thought of alleged equality and liberty and tempted by the temporary benefit provided by the Western countries, people living in the Third World unconsciously enters into a state of cultural colonization. They blindly hold that the Western culture is superior to their traditional culture. They extremely value the opportunity of getting the education in suzerain. In addition, the experience of studying abroad is often regarded as a precious capital to show off. We can easily notice that the degree of threat of the ideological oppression is no less than that of direct plunder and war because compared with the influence of bodily bondage, that of psychological slavery is more durable. Psychological slavery has made them lose the ability of thinking independently and distinguishing the truth from the falsehood. They passively accept the notions propagated by the Westerners without thinking twice. Undoubtedly, the final result is the deficiency of the identification of the traditional culture( 杜丹，2012）.

4.Social Background

Trinidad is a poly-ethnic society consisting of Indo-Trinidadian, Afro-Trinidadian and some minorities of Amerindian, Europeans, Chinese, and Arab descent. Therefore, the constitution of Trinidads culture is rather diverse and complex. As an Indian immigrant, Mt. Biswas is far away from his motherland and Indian culture. Facing the strike of diversification and complexity of culture, Mt. Biswas cannot find the feeling of identification in these various cultures. Immigrants are usually regarded as unfamiliar intruders as for a foreign countrys custom, language, religion, and belief. Bearing the stamp of immigrant in their deep hearts, these immigrants are deemed as out-comers by the aborigines all the way. Both the active integration into society and the passive integration into it, being superficial, can not change peoples preconception that immigrants are out-comers. Nevertheless, for the purpose of surviving in the brutal society, they are still struggling against the troubles and obstacles in the lives longing for the integration into the local life materially and psychologically.

5.Family background

Mt. Biswass parents are farm workers at a sugar plantation. Born with six thumbs, Mt. Biswas is considered as an inauspicious person whose existence is harmful to his fathers life. Therefore, although he has nothing to do with his fathers death, he is blamed by his family members. On account of the destitute living condition, his two elderly brothers have become child labors since they are just ten years old. After his fathers death, he and his two brothers have been adopted by other family in order to reduce the burden of his mother. An imperfect marriage becomes a source of complaint for him when he grows up. Without his own house, he has to marry into and live with his wife s family, Tulsi family, a traditional Indian family. People living in the family try their best to preserve the tradition of Indian culture. Just like a cultural island floating outside the Trinidadian society, the family is permeated with the Indian cultural atmosphere. As a son-in-law of Tulsi family, he is always considered as an outsider. He does not have his own status, identity, and dignity in Tulsi family. People living in the family have strife openly and secretly. The features of warmth and sweetness which should be attributed to the family are replaced by the strife and inharmony in the Tulsi family. Mt. Biswas is deprived of the basic right of having his own private space. Therefore, the status and dignity in the Tulsi family are luxuries which are hard to get.

We can notice the importance of the word ‘house by looking at the name of the novel. As a matter of fact, the house is a critical image in the novel. On one hand, it refers to a concrete entity which can be freely dominated by Mt. Biswas. On the other hand, it stands for a spiritual and abstract existence, a kind of independent character signifying identity, value, dignity, and status. The longing for a house profoundly reflects Indo-Trinidadians craving for a sense of belonging. For Mt.Biswas, possessing his own house is an ultimate goal which guides him continually overcome difficulties and obstacles one by one even if in most cases failure are final results. He is completely dominated by the feeling of loneliness wherever he is. In the family, he is not considered as a family member but an outsider who is employed to work for the family. He even does not have the right to give the name to his son. The small model of house as a gift which he gives to his son is brutally destroyed by other family members out of jealousy. In the work he is diligent and dedicated. He carefully observes the rules set by the government as the principles of surviving. Nevertheless, the government has never valued his role in the work and often assigns him some laborious tasks to finish. For example, he is often demanded to write something hollow, vilifying, and distorting. However, he is ruthlessly abandoned and rejected to continue to work when he is attacked by a heart disease. As an Indo-trinidadian, he wanders outside the Indian culture and the local culture and is deemed as a second-class citizen. His innermost feelings and the surrounding environment turn him into an ambivalent person. He longs for the Western lifestyle but is afraid of and is fed up with the indifference, selfishness, voracity, and competition behind this lifestyle. He can not escape from the Tulsi family but curses the family with the most malicious words. He knows the fact that the immigrants will not be accepted by the government but still claims himself to be an official in the social welfare department and shows off his job. The obtaining of a sense of safety comes from not only an available house but also identity, culture recognition and the religious belief. Compared with the circumstance of having no definite residence, the state of mental wandering is more scaring. Without the shelter of the hometown and the motherland, the wanderers destiny is just like a kite without the connection with the thread. The different sorts of houses with which Mt. Biswas has encountered stand for not only  his differently difficult situations but also the era in which the Indo-Trinidadians live. For Mt. Biswas, the process of pursuing a house which can provide not only a shelter against the wind and rain but also a place which enables him to live a happy life with dignity can be regarded as that of searching for the status and dignity. As a rootless wanderer, the house is nothing less than a symbol of status, identity, value, dignity, and personality.

6. Conclusion:

Through the analysis of the historical, social, and family background in which Mt. Biswas lives, we can easily and clearly conclude that it is the post-colonialism that results in the appearance of marginal people. For the nations from the Third World the political independence does not bring the independence of mind to its people who are still dominated by the Western concepts. People awkwardly live in an ambivalent state in which they express both their admiration and abhorrence to the Western society. In the work, the image of Mt.Biswas is not only the epitome of people in Trinidad but also that of people in the Third World. Naipaul presents us a host of marginal people struggling at the marginal area in order to prove their value of existence and obtain status and dignity. In a new era, it is necessary for people not only to own a material homeland but also to have a spiritual homeland which allows them to accommodate their spirit. The desire of getting rid of the sense of alienation and of obtaining the feeling of belonging, the eager of integrating into the heterogenous culture and living a happy and steady life are the problems that not only the colonial people face but also the people all over the world must carefully consider about.

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