Abstract
Abstract
This article attempts to find representation of individuality crisis in V. S. Naipaul’s workMimic Men.And this article attempts to associate how this novel is full with the subject of individuality crisis. Furthermore, the analysis of the novel’s genre and characters declare subjects that are coloured by postmodern trait of atomization, which is discussed on a theoretical base with a focal point on the subject of individuality crisis. V.S. Naipaul has ever represented a denial of the third-world spirit, and has represented societies that have late emerged from colonialism. He describes the manner these societies function in the post- colonial order. Though imperialism has passed and the settlements have attained an independent position, but these states of the Third World faces a batch of jobs like economic, societal and political, and these are emerged individuality crisis in the society. As a post- colonial novelist, Naipaul concentrates on major subjects related to the jobs of the colonised people. As an perceiver and translator of the ex- settlements, he clarifies the insufficiencies of such societies. In his novels,The Mimic Men,the subject get a catholicity and observes and presents the atomization and disaffection go on to be the cosmopolitan location of adult male in the present twenty-four hours universe.
Introduction
Some high Third World critics concentrate chiefly on Naipaul’s development as a originative creative person who picks up issues associating to the Third World. His works throw visible radiation on the Post-colonial and post- imperial worlds that have shaped the modern-day societies and provides of import penetrations associating to them. Naipaul’s novels lead to a better apprehension of the jobs that are faced by the post- imperial coevalss. InThe Mimic Work force, it has been observed that, as in the novels studied in the old chapters, the characters every bit good as state of affairss inThe Mimic Work forceare dealt with by an “ambivalent approach” . The larger accent, nevertheless, has been seen to be laid on Singh’s attitude which creates “ambivalence” individuality crisis by underscoring his teeter relationship to Isabella and London. For case, in the Attic scene, Singh has been observed to hover between the “magic” and the “forlornness” of “the metropolis, ” which is London, the “heart of Empire” . Then, in the forward scene, Singh on the one manus criticises his colonial island for being a “transitional” and “makeshift” society that “lacks order, ” and on the other manus, he describes London as “the greater disorder” and the “final emptiness.” While Singh finds the natural elements of London, such as the snow and the “light of dusk” gorgeous, he detests London’s obtuseness and deficiency of coloring material. Soon after Singh has left Isabella with the purpose ne’er to return, he states that London has “gone sour” on him and that he longs for the “certainties” of his island, although this is the topographic point from where he one time wanted to get away. These early scenes, so, which pass during Singh’s stay as a pupil in London, tell about Singh’s disenchantment with London, to where he has come, “fleeing upset, ” and “to find the beginning of order.” In a 2nd flash-forward, nevertheless, as Singh arrives at Isabella, he calls his journey to and from London a “double journey” and a “double failure.” This “ambivalent situation” indicates that Singh is nowhere at place, and it is an indirect unfavorable judgment towards the “coloniser” , who can be said to be the original cause of Singh’s “rootlessness” , individuality crisis, because he has “displaced” colonial people like Singh. This statement is reinforced by an illustration given by Singh, where, to compose his life, he prefers the dull suburb hotel of London to the pastoral chocolate estate on Isabella. Singh calls his return to Isabella a error, but he believes that the cause of his error has been the “injury inflicted” on him by London, where he can ne’er experience himself as anything but “disintegrating, pointless, and fluid.” This is another illustration that shows to what extent Singh has been affected by the coloniser’s pattern of “displacing” people. Leaving Isabella, Singh feels alleviation. But as he arrives in London Singh feels he is “bleeding.” For the 2nd clip he senses the “forlornness” of “the city” on which he has twice “fixed so of import a hope.” Twice he has come to the “centre of Empire” to happen order, but twice he has been disillusioned.
Identity crisis
The individuality crisis that his characters face is due to the destroying of their yesteryear and those who finally overcome the crisis are the 1s who have recovered their yesteryear or someway managed to enforce an order on their histories and moved on in life. Naipaul’s attitude to civilization has ever been progressive. It is the Third- World’s blind apery of the West that he can non stomach. He lashes out at the defects of Third- World societies, which have their roots in their traditional civilizations, but are forgetful of them in their blind followers of the West. They are therefore able to keep a distinguishable individuality. But for the coevals born in expatriate, life in the foreign dirt proves about fatal, as they have non been blessed with the insulation of their sires, who went at that place from India. For the new coevals, India loses the sense of world that it had conveyed to their ascendants. The major subjects that emerge from a reading of his novels are related to the jobs of the colonised people: their sense of Alienation from the landscapes, their individuality crisis, the paradox of freedom and the job of neocolonialism in the ex-colonies. The people who can no longer place with a cultural heritage lose the confidence and unity which the turn uping racial ascendant provides. In add-on, the rough conditions of colonialism have left the West Indian bad conditions under the load of poorness and ignorance. Because psychological and physical conditions correspond so closely, the unhoused, poverty afflicted West Indian is so frequently culturally and spiritually dispossessed every bit good. His lone option is to endeavor after the civilization of his ex-colonial Masterss even though he is unable to place with their traditions and values. InThe Mimic work forces, nevertheless, Kripal Singh is non handicapped by poorness, ignorance, a deficiency of natural endowment or the persecution of a hold oning Hindu household. He has gained the stuff success, public distinction and evident independency that Ganesh, Harbans and Biswas all longed to hold. In add-on, because of his university instruction and his exposure to a more sophisticated society in London, he is better able to acknowledge and joint the many ailments of his native back land. but his clearly superior position and ague consciousness do non do him any less vulnerable to the subtle, yet over powering effects of his psychologically disconnected and confusing yesteryear. In fact, his ability to apologize his ain status sharpens instead than cut down his entire disaffection from his environment and his concluding rejection of an active life.The Mimic Work force, nevertheless, is more than a mere amplification of Naipaul ‘s ‘ old West Indian novels: it is a profound rhenium passage of the growing and nature of the East Indian, west Indian mind and its reaction to the three civilizations, Indian, Creole and English, which influence it. In the procedure, Kripal Singh, the storyteller, confessor and airy, remarks on power, political relations, societal and racial interactions, sex, instruction, supplanting, isolation and individuality crisis as experienced by the ex-colonial. Each subject is used to light a aspect of his head.
Decision
To summarize what has been argued above, Singh is disillusioned about both Isabella and London, because he is a member of a colonized people that has been “displaced” individuality crisis on a colonial “slave-island, ” with a racially and culturally assorted population. In the period before Singh comes to London, he vacillates between his yearning to get away from the island, where he feels “displaced” and “rootless” , and the feeling that experience yesteryear on the colonial island however attaches him someway to it. During Singh’s political calling, the “ambivalent attitudes” in Singh and Browne have shown that, while they seem to knock the “colonised” and the settlement, their “ambivalent attitude” really indicates that the existent beginning of the mistakes criticised in persons and the society is to be found with the “coloniser” . Finally, Singh escapes from his “artificial home” to the “imperial centre” and claims to hold found fulfillment at that place, but his “ambivalent attitude” once more shows that these are non existent fulfillments, but merely alibis used by Singh to happen a “sense of attachment” in a certain “location” of the Earth. However, even during this looking via media, Singh makes his of import statement that eventually attaches him to his ain civilization and non to the 1 of the colonizer.
Mentions
Bongie, Chris.Islands and Exiles: The Creole Identities of Post/Colonial Literature.
California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Harney, Stefano.Patriotism and Identity: Culture and the Imagination in a
Caribbean Diaspora. Kingston: University of the West Indies, 1996.
Naipaul, V.S.The Mimic Work force. London, New York, etc. : Penguin Books, 1969. ( First
published 1967 ) .
