| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 90 === Abstract
Being a Trinidadian with Indian ancestry, V. S. Naipaul adopts a career of exile writer to England. His multiracial and hybridized background is reflected in the themes of his works: deracination, homelessness, and displacement. My attention in this thesis is to study V. S. Naipaul’s two novels In a Free State and A Bend in the River from an exile perspective. And by the study of the dialectics between identity and spatiality, I try to make a significant contribution to the relocation of post-colonial identity.
Chapter I is a brief survey of V. S. Naipaul’s cultural and racial heritages. From his example, I note that in this hybridized and migratory era, the ontological static “Home” is no longer existent or traceable.
Chapter II is a testifying of V. S. Naipaul’s authenticity of his exile writing. I argue that from his “outsider” vision, V. S. Naipaul is privileged to see the aspects which those inside are blind to, and further penetrate the pretenses to the heart of matters. The issue of “casualty of freedom,” how people fall prey to the post-colonial insecurity, is also brought forward by the discussion of three stories in In a Free State.
Chapter III shows Africa’s quagmire of being trapped in the dilemma between essentialism and colonial mimicry. Being vividly delineated in A Bend in the River, the shallowness and uncertainty have cast the Third World countries and their people into a devastating circle.
Chapter IV is a diagnosis about the impropriety of traditional application of temporality to identity. First, through the deconstruction of rigid race and nation discourse, I try to release post-colonial identity from the fetters which ideologized history has endowed and further redefine it more liberally. Second, I further argue that to achieve a meaningful relocation of post-colonial identity, one has to reconsider identity from the perspective of space, rather than that of time.
Chapter V is an affirmation of the literary achievement of V. S. Naipaul, who insists on unveiling wretched situations in the Third World, and meanwhile incessantly offering heartfelt concerns for those sufferings. He urges people to wake up from the myth of history and discard the hindering ideology. Only through the relocation of post-colonial identity can they find a better chance for next generation. At the same time, by devoting himself in the process of writing, V. S. Naipaul can eventually find a harbor to rest his agitated soul, after so many perturbing journeys on furious seas.
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