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Ax

M.Phil in English Language and Literature

Amrita School of Arts and Sciences

Identity Crisis in V.S Naipaul's The House of Mr Biswas

V. S. Naipaul is unique in the history of English literature. He contributed many

works which, more or less, are related to Indian identity. A House for Mr. Biswas, India: A

Wounded Civilization, A Bend in the River, The Enigma of Arrival, Half a Life, The Mimic

Men, In a Free State, A Way in the World, Magic Seeds etc. works are related to one or the

other type of identity. Naipaul is a very meticulous artist, aware of the importance of past into

the artistic whole. His focus is exclusively on the various types of identity. He originally

designs the web of identity through different characters in different situations. His way of

depicting Indianism is equally indispensable. Another significant aspect of his structural

framework of his plays is the coherence by contrast - contrast of characters principally. He is

regarded, incontrovertibly, a harbinger of Indian identity. He is a most significant practitioner

of art of fiction where he blends myth, reality, multiculturalism, Hinduism, modernism,

traditionalism and much more to give a full vent to his emotions which crave for identity.

The primary business of V.S Naipaul as a novelist is to project carefully the complex fate of

individuals, societies and cultures. To him, fiction is an instrument of analysis. Perhaps this is

why most of his novels revolved round the recurring themes of colonial psychosis,

individual's search for identity and class of culture. Naipaul's fictionn, as Dr R.A Singh

thinks, acquires "Three dimensional structure- historical, social and psychological" (Ray 37).

V.S. Naipaul’s magnum opus, A House for Mr. Biswas, can rightly be called a work of art

that deals with the problems of isolation, frustration and negation of an individual. A House
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for Mr. Biswas tells the story of its protagonist, Mr. Biswas from birth to death, each section

dealing with different phases of Mr. Biswas’s life. The life of Mr. Biswas resembles the life

of Naipaul himself, whose series of experiences of exile and alienation while living in

Trinidad seem to be portrayed through the character of his protagonist, Mr. Biswas. Yet, the

tone is not negative, nor does the reader find a pessimistic approach on the part of

the novelist in his dealing with the problem of identity crisis, a theme found also in Naipaul’s

other novels. Instead, Naipaul addresses the problem of alienation, exile and displacement

with a positive approach. He presents Mr. Biswas’ relentless struggle against the forces that

try to subdue his individuality. His struggle is long and tiresome, but in the end he is

successful in having a space he can call his own. Naipaul describes A House for Mr.

Biswas in his non-fiction book, Finding the Center, saying that it was “very much my father’s

book. It was written out of his journalism and stories, out of his knowledge he had got from

the way of looking MacGowen had trained him in. It was written out of his writing”.

Similarly, in his Nobel Award ceremony acceptance speech, Naipaul alludes to A House for

Mr. Biswas, saying that “intuition led me to a large book about our family life”. The house

can be seen as a central symbol for freedom from oppression or humiliation and a

representation of desire for self-fulfillment and self-actualization. Mr. Biswas is married not

only to Shama alone but her whole family along with her house-a house where the names of

daughters’ husbands are forgotten and they are expected to become Tulsis. In a novel

dominated by the house metaphor, Hanuman House is described as follows:

"an alien white fortress. The concrete walls looked as thick as they were and

when the narrow doors of the Tulsi Store on the ground floor were closed the

House became bulky, impregnable and blank. The side walls were windowless

and on the upper floors the windows were mere slits in the facade. The

balustrade which hedged the flat roof was crowned with a concrete statue of
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the benevolent Monkey God Hanuman." (80-81)

Mr. Biswas is the centre of the novel and the themes are closely linked with him. The

protagonist Mr. Biswas is a rather tragic figure and traces his life from his inauspicious birth

with an extra finger. He suffers many ignominies. His education is hardly, what could be

called complete. His father’s death, the splitting up the family, his mother`s poverty and his

own penniless childhood paint a very grim picture of deprivation, despair and depression.

When he meets and falls in love with Shama, he is assimilated into the rumbling household

losing their identities in the murky undergrowth of a joint family. But Mr. Biswas a most

unlikely rebel rejects this assimilation. His professional life is equally tumultuous. Mr.

Biswas hold many jobs including a driver, sub-overseer, a government clerk and a journalist

among other things. Mr. Biswas feels much alienated with the society in which he is living.

In A House for Mr. Biswas, the story is portrayed through a series of homes which

symbolize Mr. Biswas’ personal identity. Mohun Biswas continually meets obstacles and

challenges and even failures in his endeavors. His life is difficult and traumatic from the very

beginning. After his father drowns, Mohun and his family have to live with wealthy relatives.

This again emphasizes the theme of loss of freedom and humiliation. It should also be taken

into account that the society and culture in which the novel takes place is much big issue of

caste and class-conscious. Mr. Biswas never has an opportunity to develop a sense of self. He

himself finds himself in situations that made him feel powerless. He is always in situations

where he is having people tell him what to do. He never has any personal power. Mr. Biswas

realizes that with money and possession a person tends to have more power in society, In

fact, a house is a symbol of which illustrates his ability to realize a self identity and gain

personal power to take control of his personal life.

Although Mr. Biswas is an ordinary man with no outstanding features, Naipaul

succeeds in giving him a heroic status. He is in many ways an archetypal figure in that he
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embodies a universal theme - the search for identity and meaning in life. Mr. Biswas fights to

maintain his independence and feels confident that life will eventually yield to him its

sweetness and romance. The effort to achieve the ownership of the house, reflected in the

very little of the novel becomes his passion and motive of life. The element of vulnerability

and lack of certainty help to take Mr. Biswas into a human and sympathetic person as well as

a kind of everyman whose identity crisis is never ending story. During his forty six short

years, Mr. Biswas has always struggled to seek and define his sense of self but to no avail. A

House for Mr. Biswas masterfully evokes a man`s quest of autonomy against the backdrop of

postcolonial Trinidad.

Works Cited

Naipaul, V.S. A House of Mr Biswas. New Delhi: Penguin, 1992. Print.

Parag, Kumar. "Identity Crisis in V.S Naipauls's A House of Mr Biswas".n.p. Web. 2 Feb

2016.

Recep, Mehmet. "Alienation, Naipaul and Mr Biswas". Internationa Journal of Humanities

and Social Science 1.11 (2011): 115-119. Web. 2 Feb 2016.

Ray, K.Mohit, ed. V.S Naipaul: Critical Essays Volume 3. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2005. Print.