The Narrative Features Of Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul's Novel A House For Mr. Biswas

Nobel Literature Prize winner Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was born in an immigrant Hindu family in Trinidad and Tobago. Although born poor, he was fortunate enough to be tutored by his father and displayed a born gift of literature from an early age. After his high school, Naipaul won a scholarship and was able to study in Oxford University. Since his graduation, he began his career as a writer, composing literature works based on his experience in the immigrant family and his global travel. In the year 2001 Naipaul won the Nobel Prize of Literature.The novel A House for Mr. Biswas describes the hero, Mr. Biswas's life struggle for possessing a house in detail. His ancestors are Hindu immigrants to Trinidad and he is believed to kill his father immediately after his birth. Mr. Biswas grows up in poverty and dirtiness and after marriage he still has to depend on his wife's family to live because he doesn't have his own house. He makes arduous efforts to be a journalist and finally buys a shabby old house. But miserably he dies of heart attack in his newly-bought house not long after he bought it.Classic narratology emerged during the 1960s. Todorov, G. Genette, Roland Barthes, Greimas and Risa Bramon had studied the fields of narrative discourse and narrative text in great depth. From this unshakable foundation, narratology was spread from France to all over the world and has become a vital study field in literature theories.Influenced by computer technology, post-modernism and feminism, a new narratology was formed. However, we can not overlook classic narratology as a functional tool in analyzing literature works.As a long novel, the proper use of narrative skills is very necessary, otherwise, the complicated information and plots in the story can not be arranged in an organized way or conveyed to the readers clearly. This thesis aims to employ the theories of classic narratology to analyze examples based on the novel A House for Mr. Biswas, aiming to enrich the understanding of both this novel and narratology theory. In the novel A House for Mr. Biswas, Naipaul adopted omniscient point of view and internal point of view, which makes the readers change their perspective of interpretation with the variation of narrative point so that they can understand the plots of the story more easily and experience the character's feelings more deeply; and the author employed flashbacks, as well as the chronological narrative order to avoid the tediousness which often appeared in a long novel. During the process of narration, Naipaul managed to control three parallel narration clues: respectively, Mr. Biswas'personal experience, the ups and downs of Tulsis Family, and the transition of agricultural society to industrial society in the colonial community in Trinidad. In this way, the novel's content was enriched and the meaning deepened. What's more, a mixed narrative points of view and discourses are also used in describing different figures'personalities, speeches and deeds to make them more realistic.It is fair to take the novel A House for Mr. Biswas works as a good example in the practicing of narratology theories. In turn, by analyzing this novel from a narratology perspective, more and deeper could be learnt about this Nobel Prize winner's book. However, the research, especially narratology research into this novel is very scarce and the value of this book has not been fully recognized in China's literature society. In writing this thesis, I sincerely hope the narrative features of this novel could be summarized and some reference could be given to further literature writings and narratology theory studies.