A Study Of V.S.Naipaul's A Bend In The River From The Perspective Of New Cultural Geography

Africa in V.S.Naipaul's(1932-2018)works is always presented as a dark place with the characteristics of barbarism,backwardness,chaos and hopelessness.Among Naipaul's works on African themes,A Bend in the River(1979)is the significant and representative one.Naipaul's construction of the image of Africa in this novel continues his African tradition.This thesis explores dark Africa in A Bend in the River from the perspective of natural landscape,cultural landscape and spatial study of new cultural geography.First of all,this thesis studies natural landscape in A Bend in the River,focusing on natural features,man-nature interaction and cultural connotation.Natural landscape in A Bend in the River is full of rich cultural connotation and human emotion endowed by Naipaul.Through the study of African natural landscape in this novel,this thesis expounds that the dark Africa under Naipaul's description is closely related to African natural landscape.Secondly,this thesis further explores the dark Africa under Naipaul's description with studying the material cultural landscape and the non-material cultural landscape.Cultural and political activities influence the formation and development of cultural landscape in a specific region.After the independence,Africa's culture,politics and society fell into a state of turmoil.The development and changes of the material cultural landscape in this novel record the chaotic state of Africa after its independence.At the same time,African non-material cultural landscape shows the backwardness of African traditional culture and the chaos of African legal system,which is also an aspect of dark Africa in this novel.Finally,this thesis explores space in A Bend in the River through spatial study of new cultural geography.With studies on spatial practice,representations of space and representational spaces,the dark Africa in this novel is explored.The cultural connotation and social significance of space mutually construct Naipaul's dark Africa.Through studying the theme of dark Africa,this thesis finds that the dark Africadescribed by Naipaul in this novel is closely related to the cultural connotation of African natural landscape,cultural landscape and space.The innovation of this thesis lies in the study on the dark Africa and the research on this theme based on new cultural geography.To study Naipaul's A Bend in the River from new cultural geography could provide a new research perspective and direction to studies on Naipaul and other literary works.