A Cultural Marginal Man

V. S. Naipaul is a famous contemporary post-colonial writer in the world, whose masterpiece A House for Mr. Biswas won the Nobel Prize in2001. Since then, great critical interest has been put in this book. Mr. Biswas is a typical cultural marginal man. His forefathers, as the indentured labors, move from India to Trinidad, the colony of Britain. Born in Trinidad, Biswas receives the Indian traditional culture and the western culture. The generation of his father’s is deeply obsessed in the old traditional culture, but Biswas has different opinions, especially in Hinduism and the family authority. His difference makes him pushed out by the Trinidadian Indians and becomes an outsider of the Indian tradition. Meanwhile, he receives western education and views, longs for the western way of life and wants to blend into the western cultural circle. However, it all fails. He then puts all his hope on his son who studies in England, only to learn that the boy, just like him, feels at a loss when searching for his cultural identity in the host country.The thesis deals with the cultural identity in A House for Mr. Biswas from the angle of post-colonialism. There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter One introduces the author, V. S. Naipaul, the novel, the literature review and the structure of this novel. Chapter Two argues that Biswas is an outsider of the Indian traditional culture from his doubt on Hinduism, defiance against family authority and different daily life. Chapter Three contends that Biswas is an admirer of the western culture from his western-style education and views, favor of western way of life and persistent dream for a house. Chapter Four holds that Biswas is a cultural marginal man:the Tulsi family that he marries into fails keeping the old tradition and declines; Biswas fails to blend into the western culture and his son is left with a dim future in Britain. Chapter Five makes a conclusion of this thesis.