Hybridity: The Continuous Process in V S Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas

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Hybridity: The Continuous Process in V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas

Abstract

‘Hybridity’ is one of the most widely employed and most disputed terms in post-colonial theory which commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization. The impact of hybridity cannot be avoided. Because, now-a-days both men and women want to deal with more striking life.  For this reason, they have to go from urban to rural or one country to another as like as the hero of the novel A House for Mr. Biswas written by V.S. Naipaul who is the descendants of an indentured labourer. As an indentured labourer, Mr. Biswas has no identity of his own. He lives in the Tulsi family which is the victim of hybridization in culture, language, education, life-style, identity and religion. This paper deals with the struggling of the Mr. Biswas and the decline of hybridization. Although Mr. Biswas has struggled to free from the hybrid life, he has not succeeded at the end of the novel. Since the author has not shown any solutions towards it so this paper would like to prove that hybridization is a continuous process in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas.

Kew words: hybridity; postcolonial theory; transcultural; identity; continuous process


Introduction:

The life story of Mr. Biswas, the protagonist of the novel in A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul shunted from one decaying hut to another, a microcosm of three hundred years of West Indian history. Biswas is the descendent of Indentured labourers, people little better than slavers, subjected to centurion of dispossession, grinding poverty and the trauma of uprooting. This novel deals with two themes. One: Mr. Biswas’ struggling to establish himself in a hostile environment, and restores his identity and two: the decline of Hindu of westernization. Naipaul himself said that his work aims at the social comment and criticism. All the characters in the novel seem to lend a discord life without any kind. They are as hybridized in matters of culture, religion, language, education identity and lifestyle borrowing from each creed only what suits them. This paper has worked with this term ‘hybridity’ which is one of the most employed term in postcolonial texts and especially in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul. Before moving into the vast discussion of the term hybridity in the novel the paper will try to find out how it happens.

Methodology:

This is a library based archetypal research. For establishing its facts and arguments, the research paper has used the text of V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas the historical books of Caribbean culture and other criticisms those are primary searching as Secondary sources.

Range of the study:

The Research paper deals with the impact of hybridity on culture, education, language, identity, life-style and religion in V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas and  Naipaul’s two other novels Guerrillas and The loss of El Dorody are also studied only to add some more example about how the writer shows the impact of it.

Importance of the study:

The paper will show the history of west-Indian from the discovery of Trinidad society which is situated in Caribbean Sea, the geographical uprooting of peoples and the result of culture contact. The old culture hybridized by a new and alien one.

Hybridity:

The term hybridity refers to the creation of a new form out of two or more things. This is a mixture of different or unlike things. Hybridity may take many forms botanical, linguistic, cultural, political, racial etc. It is one of the most disputed terms in postcolonial studies. Hybridity commonly refers to the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization.

In horticulture, hybridity is the results of cross breeding of different species of varieties. In another application, hybrid is the result of the cross-fertilization of different languages.

But in postcolonial theory, these meanings have been extended to refer to the mixed or hyphenated identities of persons or ethnic communities. It also refers to this condition. Sometimes themselves employing mixed written and visual discourses. One of the critics points out that.

“Most postcolonial writing has focused on the hybridized nature of postcolonial culture as strength rather than a weakness. It is not a case of the oppressor obliterating the oppressed or the colonizing silencing the colonized. In practice it stresses the mutuality of the process. The clash of cultures can impact as much upon the colonizer as the colonized.” (Ashcroft Greffith Tiffin)

Hybridity occurs in postcolonial societies both as a result of conscious as moments of cultural suppression, as when the colonial power invades to consolidate political and economic control or when settler-invaders disposes indigenous peoples and force them to assimilate to new social patterns. It may also occur in later periods when patterns of immigration from the metropolitan societies and from their imperial areas of influence contrive to produce complex cultural palimpsests with the post-colonized world.

Not surprisingly, since such formation tend to resist ideas of pure culture of either the post or pre-colonial they have not found universal assent they have also tended to emerge most strongly where no simple possibility for asserting a pre-colonial past is available, notably in the radically dislocated culture of the West Indies. Yet these regional patterns have formed the basis for the development of literary forms which have had a wide influence, and which have been applied by critics to societies of widely different kinds such as those of settler colonies.

This term has been sometimes misinterpreted as indicating from which it springs, or as an alternative and absolute category to which all post-colonial forms inevitably subscribe. It is probably true to say that no postcolonial form has been able to avoid the impact of the shifts which have characterized the postcolonial world. Which assertions of national culture sought to articulate the dangerous politics of assimilation implicit in the colonial, theories of the hybridity of the postcolonial world assert a different and arguably more potent resistance in the counter-discursive practices they celebrate whatever one’s final view, these discussions have been the site of one of the most rigorous and fruitful critical debates in recent years.

Historical Background:

In A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul, shows a hybridized society. The novel displays the struggle for identity of an Indian person residing in Trinidad. It shows the reader how his agrarian values are challenged by the western culture when he moves to the city.

The story of this novel is self in Trinidad, Where V.S. Naipaul was born but from where he immigrated to England to study at Oxford University and subsequently to settle down there permanently. Trinidad is one of the groups of Island together known as the West Indies like the other island of this group; Trinidad is situated in the Caribbean Sea. Trinidad was originally a Spanish colony. Later as a result of the Anglo Spanish war, this territory became the part of the British Empire. In 1962, Trinidad became an independent country but chose to remain in the common wealth. Trinidad has a mixed population. There are English, French, Spanish and Portuguese setters. Many descendants went from their country to Trinidad to work as labourers in the sugarcane fields. Naipaul’s own grandfather was one of those who had gone from India to Trinidad to work as labourer. Though Naipaul’s father improved the family fortunes and status by becoming a writer and afterward Naipaul himself achieved eminence as a novelist and journalist. The story of A House for Mr. Biswas is set partly in the country side of Trinidad and partly in the capital city, Port of Spain. In Trinidad the main corruption of the people is agriculture where sugar, cocoa, coconut and citrus fruits are the chief products. In this novel, there is a reference to the prosperity resulting from the arrival of Americans in the Island. Govind, who becomes a taxi driver in Port of Spain, begins to earn a lot of money from his American passenger. The events of his novel cover the forty-six years of Mr. Biswas life, from about 1905 to 1951. Both World War I and II were fought during this period. This novel traces the struggle of Mr. Biswas to own a house which he ultimately does manage to acquire though his premature death has a touch of tragedy about it.

Theme and structure of the novel:

The division of the novel onto two parts is quite appropriate. The first part of the novel contains an account of Mr. Biswas’ life and experience in the Trinidad country side, while the second part contains an account of his life and experiences chiefly in the capital city of port of Spain with a chapter describing the stay of the Tulsi family and also of Mr. Biswas in a mountainous region called short hills. The division into two parts is legitimate also because, though the nature of Mr. Biswas’ environment and experiences changes when he goes to Port of Spain, the outcome once again is a feeling of frustration and a sense of futility. At the end it is found Mr. Biswas’ ambition own a house to have been fulfilled and yet not fulfilled. At last if is found out that Mr. Biswas had died after having won a triumph over the odds of life, and yet also with a feeling that Mr. Biswas has died a premature death.

The first chapter of this novel acquaints us with the circumstances of Mr.  Biswas birth and the movement of the Biswas family from parrat Trace to pagotes. The Second chapter deals with the account of Mr. Biswas’ schooling and the futile efforts of his aunt Tara to establish him in life first as a pundit and then as a liquor dealer. The next chapter describes the circumstances in which Mr. Biswas gets marries to one of the Tulsi daughters, the failure of the marriage and the rebellion against the Tulsi Seth Tyranny, and his expulsion from hanuman house. The next chapter describes the six years of his life at a village called the chase. In this time, he becomes the father of three children. And at the same time, he proves himself unsuccessful one. The next chapter describes that Mr. Biswas tries to build a house of his own. His desire to build a house symbolizes his urge to self-reliance and the assertion of his individuality. But the house remains incomplete, with the result that Mr. Biswas feels depressed by this failure. The brief chapter of ‘A departure’ describes Mr. Biswas’ farewell to Hanuman house. None of Mr. Biswas’ experiences in part I can be described as extraneous or unnecessary.

The various chapters in part II of this novel describe the new experiences which Mr. Biswas goes through in an altogether different environment. Here, the novel deals in with too many incidental details in the account of Mr. Biswas’ journalistic work in the first chapter. In the Second chapter describes his visit to Tara and Ajodha in a much briefer form. The next chapter deal with the winning of Anand in scholarship and the change of Mr. Biswas’ journalistic duties, the account of a new job offered to and accepted by him. There is only one important episode which is the quarrel between Tulsi and owed and his decision to quit Mrs. Tulsi’s house. There is nothing irrelevant in the next chapter called “The House” or in the epilogue with which the novel ends.

After quarrelling between Tulsi and Owad, Mr. Biswas steps to buy a house of his own in Sikkim Street but in order to buy this house, he has to take a large loan from his uncle. But he becomes the proud master of his house and he shifts into it with his family.

Although he is happy enough with his ownership of the house and with his daughters san success in life, there is much to make him feel miserable. He suffers two heart attacks, the second of which ultimately leads to his death at the age of forty-six.

A House for Mr. Biswas is chiefly the story of Mr. Mohun Biswas who comes of a humble pendant family but who get married into a rich, land-owning family chiefly because of the superior Brahmin cast to which he belongs and to which that family also belongs. The family into which Mr. Biswas gets married is known as Tulsi family. The head of which was pundit Tulsi who had emigrated from India to Trinidad not as a labourer but as a Well to do Indian who had decided to settle down in Trinidad the head of Tulsi family now the widow, Mrs. Tulsi as her husband accident. She lives with large family consisting of two sons, a dozen or more daughter and a number of sons in laws and many of her grandchildren. Having lived at Hanuman house for many years, the Tulsi family moves to its estate in short hills and then they move to another house in Port of Spain. The Tulsi family and Hanuman house represent the old Hindu culture now coming under the influence of the alien western culture. The Tulsi family is very Orthodox, but its Orthodox begins to crumble with the western influences. Mrs. Tulsi in ruling over her family is helped in her task by Seth, her dead husband’s brothers. In this family, Mr. Biswas starts to struggle in order to establish his own house as well as his own identity.

Mr. Biswas is suffering a lot in Tulsi family because of his misfit in this family. He suffers for his own identity crisis. For this reason he tries to find out the ways to go away from the Tulsi house. This is main cause of quarrel between Mr. Biswas and his wife named Shama.

Culture:

Unlike religion culture is never a fixed phenomenon. It changes and affects. When two cultures with their vastly deferent assumptions, expectations and sense of values meet, a tension develops. For example in a colonial society the culture of the story party, that is, the indigenous culture, also tried maintain the original. Out of this conflict, certain aspects of the culture through assimilation and modification may take a new form that share aspects of both the cultures. This is called hybrid culture. Actually, hybrid is not solely used for postcolonial cultures. In fact, there are some words- “There are no pure culture, all are hybrid”.

And for this coca cola is drunk in India and traditional Indian music influence records produced in America. It will be clearer to us if we think of our own culture. Today our own culture is a hybrid culture and certain element of our culture come from the colonizer as we know very well that our own country was once a British colony. For example, we cannot think of a day without taxing a cup of a tea. This habit comes to us from the British colonizer.

Indeed cultural clash is one of the most dominant theme of A House for Mr. Biswas which deals with a second generation Indian immigrants search for identity in the multi-racial society of British Trinidad. Mr. Biswas love of independence and from his faith in his own individuality but to a great extent from what he has already absorbed from an alien culture through his early experiences at school and elsewhere. In other word Mr. Biswas himself becomes partly a representative of the alien western culture under the influence of which he makes an assault upon the old Hindu culture as representative by Tulsidom. The influence of western culture on Mr. Biswas is seen specialty in this going to see a cricket match with a tin of cigarettes and matches in his hand. The two gods namely Shekhar and Owad have been admitted to a Roman Catholic college without any suggestion from Mr. Biswas. The Tulsi family itself deemed it lit to send its budding young men to a Christian missionary college. As students of this college, the two young men have already started wearing crucifixes which are a sacred symbol of orthodox Christianity.

The westernized Creole culture of Trinidadian society corrodes the Hindu customs and beliefs of the expatriate Indian community so as to produce religious ambiguity and syncretism. Hinduism is not destroyed but succumbs to the seepage from the surrounding society. The Tulsi’s celebrate Christmas in good Creole style, with English apples, cakes and ice-cream and Portuguese cherry brandy. Likewise the catholic influenced Creole custom of eating salmon on Good Friday finds unquestioning acceptance in Tulsidom. The two household goods in Tulsi family, Shekhar and own wear crucifixes while doing Hindu puja, attend the Roman culture college in port of Spain and marry westernized Presbyterian girls like Dorothy and her cousin. Govind’s wife Chinta, uses Hindu incantations in combination with a candle and a crucifix to find out who has stolen eighty dollars from her purse when sickness strikes the Tulsi’s Hindu prayers. Indian and African superstition and western medicine are all called upon to contribute their complementary offices. The Hindu rituals are still performed but the meaning has gone out of them.

When the family priest, pundit Hari dies, Anand attempts to perform mauls he does not understand. Rituals are part of a game that is only occasionally played. Finally Hanuman house symbol of the last fortress of orthodox Hinduism, breaks part as the inhabitant lose the cohesive force of their religion and try to claim part of the alien land as their own. Mrs. Tulsi discards Hindu puja for catholic practices during the last days of her life in Port of Spain and Mr. Biswas sends his own children to the Sunday school despite dismissing Christianity as a recent superstition which is being exported to savages all over the world. This sort of religious ambiguity and syncretism or ever neglect of traditional religion, is one of the earliest aspects of cultural class with which Naipaul deals in his novel. The forces of westernization and urbanization unsettle the mornings of Hinduism in Trinidad.

Towards the end of the novel paper will show that the most of the married daughters of Mrs. Tulsi have gone away to live with their husbands families. W.C. Tuttle one of the Tulsi’s sons in law is a glaring product of cultural cross-breeding. He is a Hindu but he is as interested in the material life as in the spiritual life. He has been modernized by his contact with alien culture, and plays American recorded songs on his gramophone. Naipaul’s account of the life of the Tulsi clan at short hills depicts a cultural transplantation, with Hari during a taxi and wearing western suits and with W.C. Tuttle buying a car and transporting the children to their schools in port of Spain by that car. The Tulsi’s have realized the value of education and have started sending their children to city schools.

 

 

Language:

Language is the area where hybridity occurs rather naturally, because it becomes the medium through which a hierarchical structure of power is perpetuated one of the main features of imperial oppression is control over language. The colonizers always try to impose their language into that of the colonized people. As a result, many words of the colonizers language become the words of the colonized people’s language. For example, many English words like chair and table become Bengali words. Again the colonizers had also to learn many native words for the purpose of administration. Now the paper is going to explore how the term ‘Hybridity’ used in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas.

The young generations Tulsi children speak creole English in place of Hindu. Dorothy and her daughters even speak Spanish. At the same time, the Tulsi household in Port of Spain becomes a brain improving community for the children and among adults and area for competitions over status symbols like bicycle, cars, glass cabinets, side tables and radiograms. Indeed, if does not take ever as long before Mr. Biswas beings taking pride in his suits and ties, which he like Creole society accepts no was symbols of westernization Progress and respectability. He lures his children to Port of Spain by the exoticism of European type of food. He is very embarrassed when Anand loudly declares in a restaurant that coca-cola looks like horse-pee. His pride is in his social promotion in acquiring a bicycle and when peculiar to his class. Hampers, picnics and seaside holidays are now parts of his existence. Meanwhile Shama begins to acquire suits, drop names, give gifts and talk to white women about the political and social affairs of the island. The children too are very finicky about their father’s car and think that the dropping of “Mai” for “Mummy” and “Bap” for “daddy” is a sign of cultural advancement. Yet it must be noted that even while the old system of values is passing away, a dispossessed person like dehuti still seeks recognition through her association with the Tulsi’s which she anxiously cultivates. At the same time, the old Hindus continue to dream of returning to India as they long for cultural stability and familiar patterns.

Education:

The corrosive impact of western education on the Hindu way of life cannot be underestimated. It is for instance Mr. Biswas’ exposure to western education at the Canadian mission school at pagotes which makes him think differently from him illiterate brothers and inspires him to live a life deferent from theirs. Again western education brings the two Tulsi songs, Shekhar and Owad, into contact with ideas and a religion foreign to those of their ancestors. Owad’s educational achievement automatically secures him as the head in the family on his return from England. It is in the interests of Owad’s education that Mrs. Tulsi forsakes the nest of Arwacas and goes into five days a week residence in Port of Spain and its well reputed school Tulsi retainers take advantage of this convenience and continuously migrate from the country to the town. Indeed, western education becomes the only saviour of the expatiation. Indians in Port of Spain where there is no Hanuman House to protect them. That is why Mr. Biswas learns no stone unturned for the sake of his children’s education and is very happy to find his daughter, sari, getting a lucrative job after her return from England. But western education alienates the Trinidad Indians from their cultural roots Mr. Biswas’ son. Anand, views the sacred threat ceremony merely as a convenient excuse for absenting himself from school, for he and his father known that he con not present a shaven head in school without inviting the pitiless ridicule of the westernized Creole students and teachers. Moreover Mr. Biswas encourages Anand to read school. Hindu prayers when he is called upon to do the puja after pundit Hari’s death.

Mrs. Biswas obvious and his social awkwardness make him ill at ease in the multiracial society of the capital city. He now finds himself in a word dominated by European values and ideas specious and luxuriously furnished buildings, orderly lawns and gardens; a word of antiseptic cleanliness and muted whisper. It is a word of exquisite grammatical mistake in speaking to miss logic. And the attitude of paternalistic toleration of non-whites meted out to him by the city receptionist is shored by the well-meaning miss logic whose cultural values prompt here to have second thought on taking Mr. Biswas’ family out for a seaside holiday when she beholds Tulsidom’s swarm of children.

Life style:

Tulsidom is exposed to change of course the Tulsi is to resist change at times. This shows in their objection to Dorothy’s westernized life-style. She outrages the long shirted, yielded Tulsi daughters by her unseemly short European dresses. She has European toilet habits and sells tickets at her cinema in an unbecoming manner. Her holidays in South America are an inexplicable extravagance to people to whom the concept of holiday is quite foreign and who only learn their secure and familiar neighbouring villages. Dorothy’s all right, people breezy farewell is enough to give a heart attack to those reared in the leisurely formality of forehead touching. As if that were not enough she and her daughters another outrage no sons speak Spanish among themselves, and this is so resented by the Tulsi daughters that they speak about it in a sarcastic manner.

Identity:

The most common use of the term ‘Hybridity’ occurs in relation to identity. By identity we here refer to nation or political identity which is based on the persons habitation that is, the land she/he lives in. However, in the post-colonial context hybrid identity describes a newly composed, mixed or contradictory identity. This hybrid identity is often a product of diaspora, like immigration, and exile. Examples of hybrid identities also include “hyphenated-identities” such as Asian-American, African-American, Anglo-Indian, Black-British and Turko-German communities. Now, when a black male slave for example, marries a white woman, their children share both black and white blood. Identity of their children is hybrid. Some examples of hybrid identities are:

Creole: Someone who is born in the West Indies or southern part of the USA but of French descent.

Mulatto: Someone of mixed black and white blood. (Miller n. p)

This paper is going to show the hybrid identity in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas written by V.S. Naipaul. In this novel, Mr. Biswas’ ambition to have a house of his own has been read as a metaphor of the quest for identity of the colonial individual. At last, he is able to establish his identification by making a house at Sikkim Street. This identification indicates the establishment of his identity. In order to establish his own identity, he is moved to the house of chase. But the independence of this house is deceptive, because it also belongs to the Tulsi family. Again Mr. Biswas found himself a stranger in his own yard during the house blessing ceremony. He thinks was it his own? Mrs. Tulsi and Sushila didn’t appear to think. The villagers didn’t think so. He went back to Hanuman House by a sense of isolation. After that, he went to Greenvale for his aspiration to make an own base identity.

The House of Greenvale presents the unfulfilled condition of his dream. This house turns out to be a cruel travesty of his dream house and remains unfinished. Built on land belonging to the Tulsi it could never have answered fully his need for independence. His mental breakdown is parallel with the burning down of the house. Both these disasters pare the way to start a new journey as a destitute or a homeless boy at six. However, his quest for order and coherence and his desire for freedom are still in him as he leaves his family and Hanuman House.

In the second half, there are two significant houses. The House at short hills is complete and built with proper materials. But having built it he felt uneasy. The site is not appropriate. Now does it answer the needs of the family? The new house imprisoned them in silence and bush. Besides this, the materials of this house also collected from Tulsi’s estate. However, unfortunately it also burnt. The quest then continues.

It is only to in the house of Sikkim Street that all the separate but related meaning of the symbol find fulfilment. However it is the four hundred dollars he gets for the materials of the short hills house that make it possible for him to boy this house. But it was jerry-built and highly mortgaged. However, it makes him independent of the Tulsi and answers his need for order and coherence. It also symbolizes his transition from visitor to dweller in the new land, at last he belongs. In this respect Mr. Biswas is representative of the immigrant community of Indians in Trinidad. The acquisition of the house denotes a break from the self-defeating land-cringe fort the past and a realistic acknowledgement of and commitment to the present.

Religion:

Apart from the religious hybridization practiced by the Tulsi there is the compromise made by Shekhar in the matter of his marriage. He objects to having a wife chosen for him in the traditional way and threatens to commit suicide if he is compelled compromises with a rich Presbyterian wife of Indian origin. Similarly W.C. Tuttle strikes a compromise between Hindu spiritualism creole societies. Above all, the Tulsi turns the old European estate at short hills into a modified version of Hanuman House in a ridiculous manner. The toilet is used as a sewing-room; the Electra plant is dismantled by W.C. Tuttle to make dumbbells for built in the garden. In the Tulsi family-

“Each side patronized the other and neither suspected it was being patronized, after smooth and swift negotiations the marriage took place in a registry office, and the elder god, contrary to Hindu customs and traditions of his family, did not baring his bride home, but left Hanuman House for good, no longer talking of suicide, to look after the lories, cinema, land and filling station of his wife’s family.”

(Naipaul 230)

Arguments:

Actually there is no solution of this problem. The issue ‘Hybridity’ employed in this novel is the problem of geographical uprooting of the people and the result of cultural contact. Now both men and women want to deal with a more exalting life and the opportunities of city better jobs are available in many cultures and races bean to mix and the people the more in touch with and affected by the outré words. Now-a-days, the people move from rural to urban. This movement takes place for Biswas aspiration, alienation, sense of loss, rootless and his striking House to protect them, everyone had to fight for himself in a new world where education was the only protection.” In present time, the watch word of the new generation is “Learn, Learn, Learn,” and with this motto, they troop out of their house every morning to their school.

In fact, culture is not fixed phenomenon. Everything including culture is changing as like as Tulsi family. For example, though Hanuman House reprints the traditional joint family system of the Hindu community. In course of time, the system disintegrates. Various members at the family move away from hanuman house Mrs. Tulsi shifts to Port of Spain in interest of Owad’s education. Then education becomes hybridized Mrs. Tulsi’s a Presbyterian girls becomes hybridized. Thus, they change their life-style. Besides all the members of the Tulsi family disintegrates under the impact of the western ideals of self-reliance and individual liberty. As like as Owad and Shekar, the young generation went to another country in order to gain degree, some of them marry with foreign people and make their culture hybridized.

Conclusion:

Among the issues employed in this novel is the problem of geographical uprooting of people and the result of cultural hybridization by a new and alien one. Hanuman House is the abode of the Tulsi clan which represents the hybrid culture. Though the house holds one of the oldest Hindu cultures their culture hybridized by western culture, religion, language, education. The old Hindu culture as typified by the Tulsi clan is by no means, sacrosanct or inviolable .the progressively shows us in the course of the novel A House for Mr. Biswas the sometimes subtle  and sometimes  obviously way in which the western oriented culture of Trinidad corrodes  the Hindu traditional customs and beliefs. The cultural confrontation between the Hindu customs and the western ideas leads to a hybrid culture. It is the combination of the external forces of west ionization and Hindu culture. The protagonist, Mr. Biswas, frequent mores from house to houses for the victim of hybridization, lives in is triggered by his nagging ambivalence and compulsive unease with all of them including the one he finally purchases for himself. it reflects not only his restlessness and homelessness, his dissatisfaction and estrangement with surroundings, his feeling of being “cut off” and being flung off the world. Biswas’s perpetual quest for a house as home, as a location of belongingness or his identity.

References:

Ashcroft, Bill. Griffiths, Gareth. Tiffin, Helen.  The post colonial studies reader. London: Routledge, 2003

Miller, Karl. V.S. Naipaul’s Emergent country. London: The Listener, 1967.

Naipaul, V.S. A House for Mr.  Biswas.  England Andre Deutach, 1961.

www.studymode.com/essays/Hybridity-503769.html

About the Author:

Abdul Wahab comes from Bangladesh. He has completed B.A & M.A in English Language & Literature from Jahagirnagar University (http://www.juniv.edu). He has joined as a Lecturer in the Department of English at Khwaja Yunus Ali University (www.kyau.edu.bd) in 2013.

He has been teaching Language and Literary courses for more than two years. He has organized English Language Club at his work place where people arrange seminars; publish monthly magazines & students practice English. Normally, Abdul likes to write song lyrics and short poems. He is a member of a musical band where he contributes as a lyricist. Recently, he has got admission into MA in Literature course at Lakehead University, Canada. So he is planning to join at Lakehead in Fall, 2016.

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