A Study Of The Spatial-Temporal Features Of Naipaul’s Fictions

British-Indian writer V.S.Naipaul is getting more and more attention from the world,because of his special identity as a colonial immigrant writer,the characteristics of his works combining insightful narratives with non-secular explorations and his unique innovations in stylistic features.From the early writings surrounding the social conditions of the former colonies in the Caribbean region,especially Trinidad,to later writing the connections and comparisons of social conditions between the empires and colonies in post-colonial period under the context of globalization,Naipaul’s works are becoming more mature,skilled and stable in artistic techniques.And at the same time,the theme of his works is becoming more and more profound and complex,with a large number of innovations taking place in stylistic features.This thesis is going to compare and analyze a collection of short stories during his early creation,named "Miguel Street" and the semi-autobiographical novel"The Enigma of Arrival" in the later period,and try to further the exploration of the artistic functions of the spatial-temporal features in V.S.Naipaul’s fictions.The first reason for choosing these two works is that there is a connection and anaphora in the writing of these two novels:the second part "The Journey" of The E,nigma of Arrival is related to Miguel Street.The second reason is that these two works spanning all three periods of V.S.Naipaul’s literary creation,and as a result,the analyses of the spatial and temporal characteristics and fuctions of these two works are more representative and persuasive.This article consists of five parts.The introduction part mainly describes the research status of Naipaul’s these two works at home and abroad and points out the main ideas and innovations of this paper.The first chapter analyzes the time stagnation in two novels,including the stagnation of physical time,the stagnation of psychological time and the "failure" of time.However,the stagnation and failure of time have been making the space problems of Naipaul’s novels stand out.The second chapter analyzes and demonstrates the spatial characteristics of V.S.Naipaul’s novels.Firstly,it points out the overall characteristics of spatial features:the spatial interaction between empires and colonies and its imbalance.Then,from the status quo of immigration and mixed living,the one-way imitation,as the dominating interactive way of colonies facing empires,and the existence of"poetic" colonies in the imperial context in the interaction,the current situation of the interaction and its unbalanced conditions are explained.The third chapter is to take the former two chapters to analyze the specific temporal and spatial characteristics of Naipaul’s novels and explore the artistic functions of these spatiotemporal features.It is mainly manifested in two aspects:the first one highlights the issue of identity in the modern context.Pointing to the context of globalization,both the empire and the colony are included in the same set of discourse systems,with a common goal.So almost everything becomes more and more consistent.The second one focuses on the problem of the ubiquity of segregation in the interactions among different spaces,pointing to the "betrayal"and rewriting of the identity by the interactive subjects,having different cultural backgrounds in the same modern context.Because of the existing of the segregation,and the status quo,the interactive subjects mixed but not blended,they can still maintain and adhere to part of "themselves".Meanwhile,it is the existence of this difference and segregation that brings the possibility of vitality and new possibilities to today’s globalization.The conclusion is to sort out and summarize the full text,which points out the relevance and logic among the different chapters of this paper,and make a simpler and clearer statement on the artistic functions of spatiotemporal features.