Introduction:-
Naipaul’s fictional world is concerned with the complex fact of individual, societies and cultures. It seeks to define the individual’s identity by change and not by order or stability. Starting with post-colonial third-world life, Naipaul has used fiction as an instrument of analysis and clarification of the reality, the confronts, the human beings. His common themes are clash of cultures, colonial psychosis and the motives with the individual which creates structure of human relationships. He introduces an individual struggling with the conditions in which he placed the
way he overcomes it. With this problem, he may succeed or fail or finally survive. Thus Naipaul’s fiction acquires a three dimensional picture, historical, social and psychological. Therefore Naipaul is three-in-one, a chronicler, a historian and a biographer.
What is a picaresque novel:-
Naipaul’s fame as a novelist rests on his four major novels, “The Mystic Masseur” (1957), “A House for Mr. Biswas” (1961), “The Mimic Men” (1967) and “Guerrillas” (1975). “A House for Mr. Biswas” is a picaresque novel. The Spanish word “Picaro” means a “rodge”. A picaresque novel is realistic in manner, episodic in structure and usually satiric in tone. It deals with a serious and adventures of the hero during his journey. Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”. Saul Bellow’s, “The Adventures of Augie March” and Cervantes’s great “Don Quixote” 91605) are the famous picaresque novels.
Written in the Picaresque Mode:-
This label is aptly applicable to “A House for Mr. Biswas”. Each chapter in this novel is a journey through the hero’s life. In the first part the following chapters are suggestive for this mode of writing, ‘Pastoral’, ‘Before the Tusis’, ‘The Tulsis’, ‘The Chase’, ‘Greene Vale’ and ‘A Departure’. The hero’s journey in the second part is in ‘Amazing Scenes., ‘The New Regrime’ ‘The Shorthill Adventure’, The Void’, The ‘Revolution and ‘The House’, These Phases of the hero’s life and important and they give us an idea of the ordeal through which he passes.
Loose and episodic structure:-
A House for Biswas” lacks in unity of action and well-knit structure. Even then it is the best work of Naipual which is remarkable for its picaresque mode, though its structure is loose and episodic. There is no interconnection among his Characters. Leaving his own family, Biswas stays with Tulsis and spends the best part of his life there. Though he is in constant contact with Tara, Ajodha and the two sons of Bhandat. He works as a link between two groups of Characters. The novel is divided into two parts. The first present the hero’s life and experiences in the Trinidad countryside and the second part deals with his life with Tulsis family in Shorthill. This division divides his feelings, frustrations, and sense of futility. Biswas acquires his own house at the end. He appears triumphant premature death.
The Relevance of the Incident in Part I :-
Each chapter in Part one and two has is own importance. The first chapter ‘Pastoral’ gives the circumstances in which takes his birth and how his family moves from Parrot Trace to Pagotes. The second chapter shows how Tara tires to establish him in life first as Pundit and then as a wine-vendor. This chapter also shows us how he becomes a sign painter. The next chapter narrates his marriage with one the daughters of the Tulsi family, his rebellious attitude and his ouster from Hanuman House. The next chapter ‘Chase’ describes his six years of life in a village, the birth of this three children and multiple anxieties. During this period he does not feel free and is dependent on the Tulsi family. In the chapter, “Green Vale” Biswas attempts to build a house of his own, but the construction work is delayed. He falls sick and needs to be nursed. “A Departure” gives him a farewell from Hanuman House.
Mr. Biswas’s Experiences in Part II .
Part Two of the novel shows Mr. Biswas in almost a different environment. In Port of Spain, he is a newspaper report, but with the change of its editor, he becomes restless till he gets a new job as a community Welfare Officer. He once again finds himself in a position to build a house of his won. He builds a house but it is destroyed but the fire and he goes to Port of Spain again to live with the Tulsi family. He does not live there for a long time. He quarrels with Mrs. Tulsi and Owad. He arranges to buy a house in Sikkim Street wit the help of his uncle, Ajodha. He does it. Misfortune never leads him alone. His son fails to get a foreign scholarship. The house lead and the failure f his son tortures him. Uptil now, he survives with the success of his daughter, Savi. He has suffered two heart attacks. The third is fats l to him and he dies at the age of forty six.
Mr. Biswas’s life as adventurous story:-
The sequence of the events in both the parts clearly shows that Mr. Biswas’s life is adventurous one and he has to pass through many ordeals and tensions. ‘The same was the case with Naipaul himself. His experiences as described his novels. “An Area of Darkness”, “A wounded Civilization and “India, Million Mutinies Now” show his futile search for his origins. He came to Indian with a hope to discover his ancestral home town from where his forefathers had migrated. But his strange encounters with the people in India, the bureaucracy and the heat and dust left him disillusioned. He says, “So it ended in futility and impatience, a merciless ant of cruelty, self-reproach and flight.”
Conclusion:-
Thus, Naipaul’s post-colonial novels such as “A Flag on the Island”, “In a Free State”, “Guerillas,” “A Bend in the rivers” and “A House for Mr. Biswas” are on the pattern of picaresque novels. They deal with average individual who have become homeless. His displaced transition heroes have on loyalty and particular society, culture of nationality. They seek existential comfort in a culture which as lost its validity and meaning. They seek status, power and security in their new roles in a n new society.
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