Indianness and the quest for identity in V. S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrjss.2026.v06.n01.010Keywords:
Indianness, Identity, Diaspora, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Cultural MemoryAbstract
The concept of Indianness occupies a central position in V. S. Naipaul's novels. Although he was born in Trinidad, a Caribbean island country, Naipaul inherited a deep Indian cultural legacy from ancestors who migrated as indentured labourers. His father was an unpaid labourer on a sugarcane farm. In A House for Mr Biswas (1961), Naipaul depicts Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian character seeking to establish his identity in a colonial, culturally fragmented society. This paper explores Naipaul's representation of Indianness through family traditions, religious practices, cultural memory, and the pursuit of self-awareness. It contends that Indianness in the novel functions not merely as a hereditary attribute but as a dynamic force shaping the protagonist's consciousness and quest for belonging.
References
Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. Routledge, 1996.
Johura, L., and S. M. Hossain. “Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas: A Study of the Complications of Cultural Identity as well as Existential Struggle.” 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.54922/IJEHSS.2024.0778
King, Bruce. V. S. Naipaul. Macmillan, 1993. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22638-2
King, Bruce. V. S. Naipaul. Springer, 2003. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4039-3768-1
Mishra, Vijay. The Literature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorising the Diasporic Imaginary. Routledge, 2007.
Naipaul, V. S. A House for Mr Biswas. André Deutsch, 1961.
“Naipaul's Writings and the Diasporic Vision.” The Academic.
