A Quest For The Reconstruction Of Identity Of The Colonized

V. S. Naipaul is one of the significant writers in contemporary postcolonial literature. His deep concerns on the people and issues of Third World make him win the Nobel Prize in 2001. As an immigrant writer, he has a close connection with Trinidad in Western Indians, India in his early novels. A House for Mr.Biswas is a typical post-colonial literary text which discusses the cultural identity of the colonized. With the help of Homi Bhabha's post-colonial theories, this thesis explores the reconstruction of the colonials'identity by analyzing Biswas's case.The thesis is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, a brief introduction to V. S. Naipaul, the literary text and postcolonial theories are given. Then the second chapter covers the identity issues embodied in A House for Mr. Biswas which mainly result in the lack of material wealth and the loss of spiritual support. The third chapter refers to Biswas's way of reconstruction of the identity of the colonized. Both the awakening of the "fighting for oppression" and the quest for occupation and self-struggle for esteem and independence attribute to the personal success of the protagonist. The core of this thesis is presented in the fourth chapter. It relates to the analyses about the roots of the identity crisis. First, it revisits the history of individual and family in the postcolonial context. Their hybrid identity and the "temporality" of their life are the root causes of the identity crisis. Then it gives some comments on the strategies of reconstructing identity based on Bhabha's theories. The last chapter focuses on the obstacles in the course of rebuilding identity including the realistic problems the colony people encountered, the causes of those problems and constructive opinion on the reconstruction of identity. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of this thesis.Generally, cultural identity is a hot topic in this post-colonial world. The strategies to search for one's cultural identity and solve some post-colonial problems have practical significance. In A House for Mr.Biswas, the triumph of Biswas's struggle gives us great enlightenment in this issue.