| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系 === 103 === The spiritual state of the colonial people was always an important subject matter in the third-world literature. This MA thesis is centered upon Mr. Biswas, the novel's protagonist whose life is a broken colonial subject, filled with instances of postcolonial identities. His house is given as a symbol of his independent life. Along with fear and humiliation, Mr. Biswas and his family suffers colonization, alienation, futility, identity crisis, ambivalence of authority and social mimicry. His final success in the house is highly dependent on his strong will. Using Homi Bhabha's theory of mimicry and cultural ambivalence and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's theory of language and self-definition, this MA thesis aims to analyze the themes in the novel: the hope of independence, alienation, futility, identity, ambivalence, and mimicry. There are over a hundred scenes in the novel, each based on the rhetorical and imagery parts of the action. The novel underlines the assertion that location brings identity; that the representation of themes will be focused on the items about his dwelling, his thoughts and feelings on the houses that he stayed. Naipaul's treatment of the colonial life is a harsh journey of existence. In this thesis, themes are discussed in order to gain a clearer view on the subjectivity of the colonial spiritual condition in the identity crisis.
|
|---|
