V. S. Naipaul: An exile at home

V. S. Naipaul is unique among the exiled writers of the West Indies in his acceptance of "homelessness" and "statelessness." His writing builds upon many levels of alienation, while his work becomes a paradigm of twentieth-century life and art. This study is an exploration of the theme of homelessness, which, through central to Naipaul's work, is most graphically and intensely dealt with in three major works, A House for Mr Biswas (1961), The Mimic Men (1967), and In A Free State (1971). These three novels also mark three distinct phases in Naipaul's artistic growth and development as a modern writer.; The first chapter, NAIPAUL: MAN AND ARTIST, is an introduction to Naipaul's writing, as it reflects upon his life. The second chapter, A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS, focuses on Naipaul's dramatization of the failure of uprooted cultures to survive in an alien environment. Central to the novel, A House for Mr Biswas, is the story of one man's struggle to overcome communal and colonial pressures and to give meaning to his existence. Biswas' desperate fight to attain his own "house" is symbolic of his desire to develop a unique identity to replace his lost cultural heritage.; The third chapter, THE MIMIC MEN, focuses on the experience of a politician who escape his disordered colonial island life in quest of "order" and "identity," but confronts, instead, a greater disorder and homelessness. Through the central character, Singh, Naipaul has found a new identity as a permanent exile. From his own role as a permanently exiled artist, Naipaul explores the freedom of alienation in his next work, In A Free State, the focal point of the fourth chapter.; The concluding chapter acknowledges Naipaul's artistic contribution to West Indian prose fiction, but focuses on his refusal to acknowledge a "home" anywhere except in the writing of his fiction. The postscript, which deals with Naipaul's most recent work, The Enigma Of Arrival, provides a coda on his preoccupation with homelessness and the importance of self-definition.