'Orient' Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul

‘Orient’ Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of theRequirements for the Award of the Degree of

Master of Philosophyin

English Studies

bySumitha Nair

(Reg. No. 1034110)

Under the Guidance ofMrs. Sreelatha.R

Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH CHRIST UNIVERSITYBANGALORE, INDIA

January 2012

Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

Dissertation Approval for M.Phil

Dissertation titled ‘Orient’ Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul by Sumitha Nair, Reg. No.1034110, is approved for the degree of Master of Philosophy in English Studies

Examiners:

1. ___________________ ___________________

2. ___________________ ___________________

Supervisor (s)

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Chairman:

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Date: ________________

Place: Christ University

(Seal)

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Certificate

This is to certify that the dissertation submitted by Sumitha Nair (Reg. No:1034110) titled

‘Orient’ Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul is a record of research work

done by her during the academic year 2010-2011 under my supervision is in partial fulfilment

of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Philosophy in English Studies.

This dissertation has not been submitted for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship,

fellowship or other title. It has not been sent for any publication or presentation purpose.

Christ University Mrs Sreelatha.R

January 2012 Assistant Professor

Department of English

Christ University

Bangalore

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Declaration

I hereby declare that the dissertation titled ‘Orient’ Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V.

S. Naipaul is a record of original research work undertaken by me for the award of the degree

of Master of Philosophy in English Studies. I have completed this study under the supervision

of Mrs. Sreelatha.R.

I also declare that this dissertation has not been submitted for the award of any degree,

diploma, associateship, fellowship or other title. It has not been sent for any publication or

presentation purpose.

Christ University Sumitha Nair

January 2012 Reg. No. 1034110

Department of English

Christ University

Bangalore.

iii


Acknowledgment

I express my sincere gratitude to all those who helped me in the successful completion of my

research project titled ‘Orient’ Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my research guide Mrs Sreelatha. R for

providing guidance and support throughout this endeavour.

I thank the Head of the Department, John Joseph Kennedy and other faculty members of the

Department of English Studies, Christ University for their support.

I am grateful to Mr Anil Pinto and Ms Anupama Nayar, Department of English Studies, for

their valuable suggestions during the course of my presentations.

I am grateful to Mr Joshua G, Course Co-ordinator for M Phil, for representing the interactive

and congenial spirit of Christ University.

I would like to thank all my friends from M Phil batch 2010-11 for their constant

encouragement. A Special thanks to Sreyashi, Madhu, Anjali and Arnila for their

unconditional support and motivation. It would have been next to impossible to complete this

task without Sanoobar Shaikh. It’s your willingness, enthusiasm and guidance that motivated

me constantly throughout my work. I am deeply grateful for your generosity and support.

Words are too short to express my deep sense of gratitude to my Mother who has constantly

showered love and care on me. My father has always been my inspiration. He was someone I

could always look up to for advice in a difficult situation, Baba I miss you.

I am truly indebted to my husband Babu Francis who encouraged me to pursue the M Phil

course. He has been my life line who constantly pushed me and kept me going.

I would extent my gratitude to Gagan Maheshwari, who willingly devoted his valuable time

and generously helped me with printouts. I owe my thanks to my sister Shruthi for compiling

and sorting the printed copies.

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Last, but not the least, I thank Lord Almighty, for giving me the strength and endurance,

without which the study would not have been possible. May your name be honoured and

glorified.

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Contents

Certificate iiDeclaration iiiAcknowledgement ivContents vi

Chapter IIntroduction 1

Chapter IILiterature Review 13

Chapter IIIUnmasking the ‘Orientalist’ in The Masque of Africa

by V S Naipaul 30

Chapter IV 75Conclusion

Works Cited 83

viiProperty of Christ University.

Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

1

Chapter- 1

Introduction

Postcolonial literature centres on the bewilderment and confusion of the modern people that

has been caused by the collision of multicultures. The current study in postcolonial

diasporic literature asserts on the consequences of the empire and its various impacts on

people and culture.

Resting upon his own travelling experience, Naipaul records lives of the people in

the colonies and their struggle. Naipaul is a dominant figure in Diasporic and Post-Colonial

Literature. He reflects the expression of discomfort of the people who face the

bewilderment and confusion caused by the mixture of multi-cultures. Therefore, his loss is

closely connected with his expression of exile and travel.

“I was completely satisfied with what I had seen of the mountain and turned my

inner eye toward myself. From this hour nobody heard me say a word until we arrived at

the bottom.” (Petrarch 31) One of the earliest records of travel writing is Petrarch’s records

of his climb of Mount Ventoux in 1336. Petrarch1 an Italian scholar who was well known in

the humanistic movement documented the accounts of his travel, which was purely for the

sake of travel. He compares his travel to various aspects of human life. The work was a

prime narration of the Renaissance ideas and outlook towards life. Therefore, it suggests

human struggle, historical change and personal goals. It is interesting to note how travel

writing denoted the ideologies and expressions of the age and society it belonged to.

Travel literature as a genre is diverse in cultures, places and people that span across

the globe. It is interdisciplinary in nature and has been an interesting area of study. Within

1 Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) Italian poet, scholar and earliest humanist.


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the post-colonial context, it is linked to diaspora, identity, gender, history and hybridity. It

is the narrative accounts about an individual or about a group's encounter with a foreign

place, from the familiar to the unfamiliar often in the search for identity, self and the other.

These writings are also referred to as travelogues which recounts in detail the writer's

experiences and perceptions of the place travelled. Travel Writing and Empire: Post-

colonial Theory and Transit edited by Steve Clark examines the interface of travel theory,

post colonialism and new historicism. Similarly, Writing Women and Space: Colonial and

Postcolonial Geographies, edited by Alison Blunt and Gillian Rose discuss the relationship

between gender, feminism and race. However, the genre is broad and this research focuses

on travel literature written by V S Naipaul. Naipaul’s writings manifest his indulgence and

he responds through his journeys to various places and their cultures.

Naipaul has always been accorded the title of being an Orientalist by the literary

world. Be it his fictions or non-fictions, he looks at the places he travelled through the

Oriental lenses. But in his most recent travelogue on Africa titled The Masque of Africa, he

develops the narrative of a single consciousness. Naipaul looks at the continent with a new

attitude. He not only sympathizes but empathizes with the continent. His Caribbean roots

and Indian ancestry finds a solid ground in Africa for his writing to explore different

aspects of the post-colonial ethos.

“The older world of magic felt fragile, but at the same time had an enduring quality.”

(Naipaul, The Masque 16)

In The Masque of Africa, Naipaul writes about his journey through Uganda, Ghana,

Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Gabon and South Africa. The research primarily deals with Naipaul as

the narrator and how his narratives preoccupied with once colonised countries sees a shift in

understanding. Many writers have attempted to write about the colonised countries and have


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projected in their writings about their dilemma to move ahead. But what sets Naipaul apart

from the others is his travel writings which constantly negotiates where an individual is

situated.

Within this context this research has been developed. The fundamental objective of

this research is to trace the change that is prevalent in his writings in the conceptualisation of

the Orient. The research focuses on his trilogy on India, An Area of Darkness, India: A

Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now and his latest travelogue on Africa

titled The Masque of Africa. In his last travelogue on India, the narrative has visibly and

evidently shifted and trailed closer to a more sealed and harmonious coexistence of the

individual with the country. This research also attempts to challenge the notion that has been

accorded to Naipaul by the literary world. Can he still be called an Orientalist? Or is it just a

cloak to conceal the conflict? The research also attempts to explore what lies beneath this

cloak and what this conflict is.

Relevance of the title of the book The Masque of Africa channelizes the readers to the

shedding of one’s identity and adorning another one. The idea is the celebration of the

oblique exaggerated Self, which leaves behind the understanding of the past and the present.

Naipaul through this work is giving a face and he tries to project an identity that leaves

behind the past. The real Africa was hidden behind the masque and when the masque is

dropped, the narrator is able to relate to the Africa, which is bound by time. He exposes the

real continent which is an amalgamation of many entities that are linked together in a

continuum of the past and the present. It is an ever altering state of being. The research

attempts to analyse the ‘mask’ and ‘masque’ and tries to establish their relationship and

meaning in correspondence with the narrator of the travelogue as the other, and the subject of

the travelogue as a stage for performance and acting out where the need to entertain and

appease takes precedence over the understanding of the internal life. The masque here


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survives and lives only as long as the act continues. Outside the act, the reality is less bound

by the expectation of the spectators and more by what is not defined by the performance.

Edward Said2 in his essay “The Intellectual in the Post-colonial world: Response and

Discussion” accuses Naipaul,

On the basis of his being a Trinidadian, (Naipaul) has had ascribed to him the

credential of a man who can serve as witness for the Third World, and he is a very

convenient witness. He is a Third Worlder denouncing his own people, not because

they are victims of imperialism, but because they seem to have an innate flaw, which

is that they are not white. ( qt O’Brien 70-71).

Edward Said’s basic argument in his book Orientalism is that, the study of Orient by

the Western scholars had conveniently divided the world into two halves, the civilised and

the uncivilised. The Europeans were considered supreme, and they used Orientalism to

define themselves.

On receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, Naipaul expressed mixed

reaction. Although he has been strongly applauded by the West, the East has been rather

critical about his writing. Being the most critical writer of the times, his works have been

constantly accused of being insensitive to his own people. On one hand, he has been

criticized on his books on India and Islamic world, stating that he has shown insufficient

understanding of the place and culture. On the other hand, West has found his books, sharp

and unbiased. “My aim was truth, truth to a particular experience, containing a definition of

writer self. Yet I was aware at the end of that book that the creative process remained as

mysterious as ever.” (Naipaul “On Being”)

2 Edward Said (1935-2003) Palestinian-American literary theorist and author of Orientalism.


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This research deviates from the mentioned notion of Edward Said by taking into

consideration Naipaul’s travelogues on India with reference to his recent travelogue on Africa

titled The Masque of Africa. Naipaul has always been a problematic figure, loved admired

and hated at the same time. Reviewing Naipaul's works are certainly in the true sense of the

word, experimental, discreet, picturesque and observant be it in his early comic creations or

in his masterpiece A House for Mr Biswas, which was based on the literary strivings of his

father. His travelogues are always a pleasant surprise because here unlike his fictions which

were works of pure imagination, his travelogues intend to supplant real certified credible

existences to all these complexities.

Naipaul expresses his sheer confusion on how he became a writer. He states how his

ambition to become a writer cropped in him long before he knew what to write. He rather

understands the responsibilities of being a writer, stating how crucial it is for a writer to be

original. He seems to have drawn inspiration from James Joyce, observing how he too found

it difficult initially to understand and comprehend English language. However, he states that

for him, his language was not as much as a problem as the form and vocabulary was. Born in

a small town of Chaguanas in Trinidad, he earned his scholarship to Oxford and spent hours

and years in Oxford absorbed by the wish to be a writer. Naipaul was the editor and presenter

in BBC London and he also started his first manuscript Miguel Street. There have been

innumerable Doctoral dissertations, Master’s thesis and books on Naipaul’s works. Some

have compared his works to other contemporary writers and their works; while some have

analysed the political context in his books and novels. His works have been reviewed and

studied by students and scholars throughout the world. He has won prestigious awards and

his books have been translated to other languages. Keeping his earlier days of writing in

mind, one cannot negate his apparent prejudice towards the West. However, the attempt is to Property of Christ University.


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study a shift in the narrative on the ‘Orient’, which might not look like a radical shift but a

gradual one.

The objectives of the research are divided into five parts, first is to trace if there is a

transition in his narratives on the ‘Orient’ and to do the same, his travelogues on India and

Africa has been analysed. Secondly, to examine the various layers that lie beneath the

orientalist mask donned by Naipaul in the portrayal of the places he travels to. Thirdly, to

understand what the motivation is that leads to this change in his narratives, therefore

establishing a relationship between the subject and the narrator. The research attempts to

highlight the relevance of the title, The Masque of Africa and its relationship with the narrator

and the narrative. Finally, to examine how The Masque of Africa posits him to the center of

the post-colonial dilemma, where contrary to his prior understanding of the continent, he

chooses to embrace his beginning.

Naipaul’s works with reference to his travelogues on India and the latest one on

Africa and interprets how his works tell a tale of his fragmented identity, but towards his

latest travelogue his narratives tries to find a unified self. His travelogues are always over

brimming with social and cultural realities. “… Naipaul the social and political commentator

discomfits critics, leading them to wedge between Naipaul as a great stylist and Naipaul as a

political figure.” (Chang 3)

This research argues how he constantly felt this discomfort within him. This could be

the reason why he makes an effort to expose the religious illusions of the countries he travels

and thereby find solace in them. In An Area of Darkness he takes a harsh view of the caste

system and Hinduism in India. He records his first encounter with his ancestral land. In India:

A Wounded Civilization, he writes about the past and how colonization has deeply wounded

the country. But in India: A Million Mutinies Now, he appreciates India and creates a new


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vision of independence. When he wrote the book nobody could have imagined that in the

next 10-15 years India would elevate into a global consciousness. He saw it then and wrote

about it in 1989. Similarly in The Masque of Africa (2010), his narratives observe the

conflict between the native and foreign religions in Africa. It attempts to bridge the gap

between the two worlds. Tracing his experiences in Africa, the research also tries to

understand what could possibly instigate him to keep advocating the traditional religion of

the continent.

Chapter Two titled ‘Literature Review’ studies the various research and scholarly

works on Naipaul’s travelogues. Naipaul has explored various themes like displacement,

homelessness, exile and alienation in his works. Employing these themes, from short stories

to essays, to autobiography, fiction, and journalistic reporting, Naipaul presents the harsh

legacy of colonialism on personal, societal and political levels. Many scholars have worked

on reasoning why Naipaul’s texts have been unable to go beyond this postcolonial setup. In

the second chapter, taking into consideration some scholarly works, the researcher has tried

to explain how different her research would be. To put it in another way, she has based her

arguments on these articles, journals to argue if Naipaul has been successful in fulfilling his

objective, which he wishes to explore in the beginning of the book The Masque of Africa. The

researcher has also tried to make a brief comparison between the works of other diasporic

writers who have explored similar themes. The researcher has reviewed Stuart Hall’s The

West and the Rest: Discourse and Power in which Hall states how Europe divided the world

into ‘Self’ and ‘The Other’. The researcher has referred this book in particular to build her

theory. A part of this chapter puts forth research on Naipaul as an exile writer in which

Cristina Emanuela Dascalu in her book Imaginary Homelands of Writers in Exile: Salman

Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee and V S Naipaul are reviewed. This work explains how

historical violence of the past by the empire reflects in the literature of the descendants who


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were forced to move out. The final part of the literature review will take into consideration

some research already done on African culture and Naipaul as a travel writer. In this section,

Chinua Achebe’s Home and Exile, S R Santiago’s V S Naipaul’s Vulcanization of Travel and

Fiction Paradigms and M Patil’s V S Naipaul: The Travel Writer, The White Traveller under

the Dark Mask by Fadwa Abdel Rahman (2006), “Naipaul’s - Darkness” by E W Des

Magister Artium (2001), and Tropics of Candor by Peter Huges have been reviewed. These

books have certainly added to a better understanding of V S Naipaul. Every article is

different from the other, and touches upon various aspects of Naipaul as a person and as a

writer.

Chapter Three, titled “Unmasking the ‘Orientalist’ in The Masque of Africa by V S

Naipaul” starts with ‘Changing Landscapes and Mindscapes in the works of V S Naipaul with

particular reference to The Masque of Africa’ where the researcher discusses how there has

been a shift in the narrator’s understanding of the continent. This change has been analysed

on the basis of language, imagery and themes. To understand the same the research has taken

into consideration Naipaul’s books on India, An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded

Civilization, India: A Million Mutinies Now, and his recent travelogue of Africa The Masque

of Africa. India and Africa play a crucial role in shaping the narrator’s identity. He spent his

childhood in the Caribbean which consisted of both the African and Indian identity and

ancestors from India; therefore, he has been closely travelling to both India and Africa and

hence relates himself to both.

Chapter Three also goes into the details of the travelogues. The researcher analyses

that the narrator’s past is deeply ingrained inside him, and no matter how much he travels and

portrays himself to be insensitive and arrogant, he does not seem to have forgotten his past.

This could be the reason why the narrator in his travelogues is constantly seen recollecting


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his memories. The chapter analyses the narrator’s childhood which he spent mostly in the

post-colonial society. He has travelled all over the third world explaining the various aspects

of life there, but he ends up dealing with the identity crisis of an individual and his constant

effort to bridge the gap in order to rediscover a new identity for himself.

‘Language and Identity’ explains the shift in language. The research refers to the St

Augustine of Hippo’s On Christian Doctrine to understand how Naipaul’s travelogues be it

India or Africa has been exposed to various signifiers. But these signifiers show an obvious

shift from repulsion to reconciliation. Further one realises how initially he uses words like

“defecate” and “low” to signify India and towards his last travelogue on India, the narrator

signifies the country in a positive light. His narratives portray a yearning to connect with his

ancestral land. Similarly in The Masque of Africa, the narrator seems to be attracted to the

splendour of the forests. There is a tone of empathy and regret as the traditional religion of

Africa was being washed away because of the advent of Christianity and Islam. The second

part, ‘Shifting Images’, studies the use of images in his travelogues. His portrayal of the

country, the landscapes and cultural hybridity has been explored implementing Bhabha’s

theory of hybridity. His narratives are the collection of his first hand experiences with the

countries he travels to. Towards his first travelogues in India he feels “faceless” in the crowd;

in his last travelogue on India, he sees India beyond poverty and filth. In The Masque of

Africa too he states how the old African ways should be honoured. The third part, ‘Thematic

Motif’ will concentrate on the themes the narrator has explored in his travelogue and how

these themes show a gradual acceptance towards the countries he travelled to. His themes of

poverty, caste system and colonisation are seen predominantly in his first travelogue on India

and in his last travelogue on India, he appreciates the mutinies and revolts in India. Similarly

in The Masque of Africa his theme is to understand and learn about the belief system of the

continent.


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The second part of the analysis ‘Naipaul and Africa’, gives a brief history of the

influence of Islam and Christianity in the continent. It discusses how the traditional religion

has been declining due to the advent of Christianity and Islam. It is certainly not the first time

Naipaul writes on Africa, as the continent has been a familiar ground in many of his fictions.

This chapter also investigates the shift in Naipaul’s attitude towards Africa.

This section ‘Influences on Naipaul: Joseph Conrad’ understands how Naipaul is

often compared to Conrad by his critics and the rest of the world. Naipaul is seen following

the Conradian style of echoing the past in the present, in A Bend in the River. In The Masque

of Africa Naipaul seems to be handling the continent with sympathy and patience.

‘Naipaul’s Africa: Then and Now’, examines how Edward Said has always

denounced Naipaul, since Naipaul holds strong views against Islam. The research attempts to

refute this notion by tracing Naipaul’s Africa from A Bend in the River to The Masque of

Africa. This enables one to notice visible changes in his narrative of the continent. References

have been made to writers like B Wainaina, who wrote How to Write about Africa.

‘Naipaul: “the Self’s” Quest to Find “the Other” ’, studies how in his latest

travelogue, The Masque of Africa, the narrator in him is shedding ‘the Self’ and letting ‘the

other’ relate and communicate with the continent. This section will also analyse the

understanding of ‘the Self’ and ‘the other’ with reference to the book The Masque of Africa.

The narrator in his portrayal of Africa keeps shifting centres in the novel. In some parts of the

travelogue he identifies himself as ‘the Self’, when he is seen cribbing about the guides,

temperature, hotels and garbage. Yet there are some parts in the novel where he recognizes

himself with ‘the other’, especially his discourse with the locales and his constant lamenting

the loss of the traditional religion and the cleared forests. There seems to be a constant

struggle within Naipaul which comes from his root identity. This section analyses how the


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‘Self’ in him, is just a projection that blankets ‘the other’ in him. Therefore in his latest book,

he tours the continent to lament the loss of the traditional religion. He is shedding the ‘Self’

in him and letting ‘the other’ relate and communicate with the continent. This could be the

reason why the narrator is still seen travelling, hopefully in search of something which he has

still not got.

The last part of the analysis ‘Defining African Belief’, gives a detailed understanding

of the belief system and how this belief system differs from one person to the other.

However, all belief systems are formed in the childhood which becomes the bedrock of

human life. The section studies the narrator and his belief system and how his experience of

his childhood and living in a colonized country creates a different attitude in him towards the

Third World. In the previous section one can see how his narratives shows a considerable

change in his understanding of the colonised world, tracing the change from his first

travelogue on India to the last one on Africa. But this section analyses and studies what

brings about this change in him. The chapter also uses the theory of cultural hybridity and

bases the study of the writer and the portrayal of multiculturalism in his novels.

The section also goes into the details of the travelogues and analyses the narratives on

Africa and the constant reference to the history of the continent. Although the narrator

portrays himself to be insensitive and arrogant, he does not seem to have forgotten his past.

This could be the reason why the narrator in the travelogues is constantly seen recollecting

his memories of the continent. The section will also analyse Naipaul’s childhood, which he

lived, most part in the post-colonial society. He has travelled all over the Third World

explaining the various aspects of life there, but he ends up dealing with the identity crisis

faced by an individual. The narratives bring out the beauty of the African forest. The

wildness and the fragments in the forest suggest the forest inside the narrator. He seems to be

attracted to the splendour of the forests.


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The last chapter titled ‘Conclusion’, studies how this shift in attitude and response in

the narrator and in his portrayal of the continent pave the path for a new way of looking at

Naipaul’s texts. He certainly sees a replica of the Caribbean when it comes to cultural

displacement, but he is also able to detach himself. Since The Masque of Africa is his latest

book, the study will add to the understanding of Naipaul’s earlier works.

The findings of Frantz Fanon, in his work Black Skin, White Masks have been used as

a theoretical framework to examine how Naipaul’s writings bring forth ‘the other’ that dons

the white mask, but deep within is a non-white individual. Edward Said’s work Orientalism

has been used to understand and examine the change in Naipaul’s narratives of the orient and

to evaluate if the Naipaul adorns the white mask of an orientalist on the surface.

Stuart Hall’s Cultural Identities and Diaspora is used as a framework to investigate

the various identities that emerge of the narrator in his narratives. Hall establishes how

identity is a never finished product and it constantly keeps evolving. The research refers

Homi Bhabha’s theories on social agency, identity and cultural hybridity to establish and

analyse the narrator and his travelogue The Masque of Africa.


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Chapter - 2

Literature Review

“Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve

out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their

vision.” (Naipaul).

It is Naipaul’s unique attitude to understand the world better that led him to rediscover

the world. Through his travel books, he intends to reconceptualise the world around him.

Although his works are praised for his honest portrayal and analysis of culture, he has been

criticised for the pessimistic representation of the developing countries.

“He had travelled to troubled parts of the world and written scathing accounts about

them.”(Achebe). Naipaul closely draws on all these themes in his latest work. His travelogues

are brimming insights to the places he travels. He has extensively written about Africa in his

previous fictions and non-fictions. Naipaul’s travelogues always develop on an intellectual

theme. Therefore, The Masque of Africa is a journey through Africa to understand and follow

the belief system in the continent. Although Naipaul reaches Africa with a romanticised

picture about the continent, one can see the obvious shift in the understanding of the

continent through his writing. He travels all across India and Africa and the central idea of

the narrative was to explore and understand the culture and history. The research however

attempts to analyse this shift manifested through the understanding of the ‘Orient’ emerging

through the writing. Is the Orientalist identity in him just a projection that blankets ‘the

other’? Is it just a camouflage or a façade?


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In the article “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power”, Hall (2001) explores the

establishment of a “discourse” where Europe divided the world into ‘Self’ and ‘the Other’.

He goes on to explain the meaning of discourse and how the term has been used to represent

the West and “the Rest”. Hall deviates from the conventional definition of discourse stating

that it is a “practice of producing meaning”. He goes on to second Foucault who believed that

all discourses were involved in the practice. To get a better understanding of Foucault, Hall

points out that such discourse not only makes one the subject of the discourse, but such

discourse is an open system that imbibes elements from outside and modifies it into its own

meaning. These differences and relationships between the statements within a discursive

formation must be regular and systematic, and this Foucault calls a ‘system of dispersion’.

Going on to Discourse and Ideology, Hall agrees to what sociologists believe in the

similarity between the two, which means a set of belief that is produced in the interest of a

group. He raises the question: then why do we use discourse instead of ideology? To answer

the same, Hall refers to Foucault. Foucault prefers discourse to ideology because he believes

that the statement about the political and social world is rarely so simple to be classified into

true or false. He establishes a connection between discourse, knowledge and ability. Foucault

states how discourse is a process through which power generates. Hall goes on to examine the

book of Orientalism by Said and he states how without understanding Orientalism as a

discourse, it would not be possible to understand how the Orient was created. He observes

how Orient is not a subject of free thought and action. Hall then goes on to examine the

discourse of “the West and the Rest” between fifteenth and eighteenth century, taking into

consideration Said and Foucault’s understanding. Hall draws on four sources, the traditional

knowledge, the religious and biblical, myths and travelogues.

To conclude, Hall understands how this understanding of the far East gradually

“improved in accuracy” (Hall). The rest came to be defined as everything that the west was


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not. Hall understands that discourses are evolving and changing in nature. He concludes how

this discourse of the West and the East still exists in the modern world and is usually seen in

writing.

Research on V S Naipaul as a Writer in Exile

Cristina Emanuela Dascalu in her book Imaginary Homelands of Writers in Exile:

Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee and V S Naipaul explain how historical violence of the

past by the empire reflects in the literature of the descendants who were forced to move out.

She considers Salman Rushdie, Bharati Mukherjee and V S Naipaul as writers in exile. She

states how these writers simply do not consider exile as a post-colonial term but as an

integral part in the understanding of ‘the Self’. After explaining the double identity as a

prominent theme in Rushdie’s writing and exploring migration as a question of negotiation in

Bharathi Mukherjee, Dascalu states how both Rushdie and Mukherjee can be considered as

traitors because both are accused of becoming American.

She points out how Naipaul travelled throughout the world, and he yet remained

homeless. She discusses in particular how exile takes a structural role of difference in the

system of identity and nationality. She also states how the concept of exile within an

oppressive situation poses a threat to colonial discourse. To conclude, Dascalu explains how

the three writers explore the condition of subject and culture. Their novels always have a

dual purpose of how the exile continues his or her wandering and secondly the opportunity it

provides.

Farhad B Idris (2003) in his work The Traveller and His Hushed Companion:

Problems of Narration in An Area of Darkness writes “An intriguing aspect of V S Naipaul’s

first book on India, An Area of Darkness, is the combination of autobiography with


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travelogue.”(Idris 138) He refers to V S Pritchetts observation of the text to be the narration

of “one of those disturbed egotistical travellers who hit upon their necessary enemy [India in

this case].”(361) He ponders over the word ‘darkness’ stating that it refers more to the

narrator than to the country he has travelled. He refers back to Naipaul’s first travel book, The

Middle Passage and states that “the text is relatively free from an attempt to identify roots.”

(135) He also refers to Paul Theroux who refers to Naipaul’s companion in his journey,

probably his wife Patricia Hale, to be his “marginalised companion in Darkness”. (136) But,

he detects the presence of the companion more often than Theroux, especially in his chapters

on Kashmir where Naipaul acknowledges his companion many times. The reason why he

feels that Naipaul mentions his companion and does not give a voice to her throughout the

book is because there are several places in the text “which would fail to illustrate his notion

on India if she is not in them.” (137)

He also observed the representation of India in the book which had an Orientalist

outlook. He argues that Naipaul’s An Area of Darkness is as replica of Heart of Darkness. He

analyses Naipaul’s motif behind the travel writing stating that the third world countries are

constantly trying to ape the west; therefore he dissects the word ‘mimicry’ used by Naipaul.

He thus states that mimicry “exists at the fundamental level in the Indian psyche.”(140)

Farhad observes how the text does not portray the credible India, in a distinct chronological

manner. He concludes with reference to Naipaul’s later travelogues India: A Wounded

Civilization, and India: A Million Mutinies Now.

Roshan Cader (2008) reviews four key texts by Naipaul; The Enigma of Arrival, The

Mimic Men, A Bend in the River and A Way in the World to study the notion of exile and

homelessness in his study V S Naipaul: Homelessness and Exile Identity. She draws from

postcolonial theory to understand the texts. The purpose of her study has been to understand

Naipaul’s representation of rootlessness from his own diasporic situation. She also considers


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how Naipaul like most of his main characters is a product of colonial condition. She applies

the theories by Homi K Bhabha, Edward Said and Frantz Fanon as a framework to his work.

Cader studies how Naipaul’s engagement with the text is purely not aesthetic but also

interfaces political and personal boundaries. She points out Naipaul’s complicated and

abounding relationship with the past. Finally in A Way in the World, she notices how Naipaul

shifts cultural boundaries with ease. She reads A Way in the World as a text that depicts how

the whole world has been possessed and dispossessed at some point of time.

Cader observes how Naipaul’s work apprehends his own nomadic existence. He keeps

lingering in the liminal space unable to establish a place for himself. She also focuses on the

encounter between the politics of writing and subjectivity in the four texts. She points out

how Naipaul’s narratives in the four texts that she has taken up, depicts melancholy and

despair. She also expands on the notion of exile in relation to the works of Naipaul. This she

feels is the outcome of his own unsettled condition.

Works and articles on African Culture and Travel Writings

Chinua Achebe in his book Home and Exile (2001) cites Cary, Joseph Conrad,

Huxley and Naipaul and their portrayal of Africa in their books. Achebe negates the tradition

of the long history of romanticising Africa and sensational writing about Africans by the

European travellers. Therefore he decided to present the continent from a unique African

perspective.

The book is an introduction to the African literary scene from 1950’s. Originally the

three lectures by Achebe which was compiled into a small book in which he described his

homecoming to the continent. From his dais, he tries to convince the writers to stay back at

home and write about it. He discusses the complexities of African culture and discusses the

devastating impact of European cultural imperialism on the African life. He writes about his


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own experiences in the Nigerien schools as a student. “In the end, I began to understand.

There is such a thing as absolute power over narrative. Those who secure this privilege for

they can arrange stories about others pretty much where, and as, they like.” (Achebe 24)

Early travel, writings were informative in nature; it reflected the society and culture of

the place travelled, however, over a period of time the intention changed. The colonisers

manipulated the intention to their benefits. V S Naipaul’s travelogues represent the

postcolonial societies. His writings revolved around the reality and conditions of living in

these societies.

S R Santiago (2001) discusses travel narratives with reference to Dissayanke and

Wickramagamage’s views on how travel writings can be a misrepresentation of “the Other”.

In his work V S Naipaul’s Vulcanization of Travel and Fiction Paradigms, Santiago aims to

correlate Naipaul’s travelogues with his fictions. Therefore he explores that Naipaul’s

fictional elements transform into his travelogues and vice versa. He also states how Naipaul’s

assumptions, his style of narration and the strategies he adopts to travel are necessary to

understand Naipaul’s travelogues. He refers to how Naipaul is authentic in his ethnographic

observations. In the Loss of El Dorado: A History (1969) Naipaul gives a historical treatment

to his Caribbean subjects pondering over the theme and myth of ‘El Dorado’. But Santiago

observes how Naipaul combines historical outlook with personal ideas about Caribbean in his

travelogues and fictions. He later states how man’s homelessness is not only an external fate

but also because of the country’s historical circumstances.

Santiago states how the travel informers and contacts are an essential part of

Naipaul’s travelogues. He observes how the tinge of philosophy in Naipaul’s narratives gives

his travelogues a philosophical authority. In, An Area of Darkness, Naipaul is preoccupied

with “the Self”. His narration remains biased towards the country. He observes how

Naipaul’s early works are sprightly and buoyant, but with A House for Mr Biswas the


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imagery has evolved. Santiago addresses Naipaul’s tone in his fictions, and his treatment of

irony, humour satire and mockery and how this was seen in his travel writings. Santiago

notices difference in Naipaul’s earlier travelogues and his later works. Santiago

chronologically discusses Naipaul’s works and how he has evolved as a writer. There is a

constant comparison of fiction and travelogue which Santiago adopts in his article. He goes

on to say how these phenomenal images brought together by Naipaul in Guerrillas and A

Bend in the River might be acquired during his travel.

In Tropics of Candor: V S Naipaul, Peter Hughes (1997) tries to understand Naipaul’s

writings and states how all he wrote was an attempt to see and explore what was beyond the

traditional fictions. This was according to Hughes the intention behind his travelogues. He

understands how Naipaul’s constantly places himself in the centre of the world that he has

mapped. He also states how Naipaul has been closely influenced by Samuel Johnson and

Edward Gibbon.

M Patil (2001) examines in Naipaul V S: The Travel-writer how Naipaul writes

extensively about the third world countries. He observes how his novels weave around the

themes of “personal and political” freedom. Patil examines Naipaul’s novels starting with

The Mystic Massure, The Suffrage of Elvira and The Miguel Street and understands how

these novels capture the ravaged and barren life in Trinidad. He examines how Naipaul’s

works are understood and easily appreciated by all and has earned him many literary awards.

He understands that Naipaul is a “born traveller”; therefore, he enjoys it and depicts what he

sees through his travelogues. He has travelled all over the world, from Pakistan, India, Africa

to Far East. He also states how these travelogues are graphic, picturesque and vivid. His

enthusiasm can easily be compared to that of Marco Polo, Defoe and Hakhuyt. He

extensively studies An Area of Darkness and understands how the degree of degeneration

continues. He brings out various scenes from the novel that shows Naipaul’s prejudice


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towards India. Patil takes serious offence to that, stating how this representation of India by

Naipaul is not reliable and states how this prejudice towards India that begins in an Area of

Darkness continues in India: A Wounded Civilization in which he visits India in 1975.

He states how the country is wounded by the foreign invasions and refers to great

cities in ruins. In his later travelogues, Naipaul writes about the change and developments in

India. Patil concludes by stating how Naipaul’s other travelogues are equally appreciated and

readable and which reflects Naipaul’s character. Thus, if one wants to know a country, one

could refer to Naipaul’s travelogues and his representation of the country in them.

Dr Ashok Kumar Bachchan (2003) in V S Naipaul’s Travelogues reviews how

Naipaul is a wanderer, in his travelogues that have a sense of responsibility which is not

common to many travelogues. He understands how all Naipaul’s works put together is

fragmented. He understands that the West Indies groups are divided into ethnical groups.

Listing some of Naipaul’s travelogue Bachchan feels that his travelogues are at par with his

novels when it comes to creativity.

He states how Naipaul believes that each travel is not only an intellectual adventure,

but also human in nature. His characters are people from real life and understanding and

presenting them in his novels are through interactions with them. Naipaul grew up between

two entirely opposite worlds. Therefore, he explores Naipaul’s dilemma of rootlessness and

homelessness from the point of cultural anchorage. He explores how this sense of

rootlessness is imposed on his travelogues. He compares Naipaul’s style with the Chaucerian

style of writing. He goes on to state that in Middle Passage, Naipaul writes about Trinidad,

not as an outsider. He goes on to study Naipaul’s travelogues on India and states how it is not

exactly a nostalgic journey, but it is about uncovering one’s root. In India: A Million

Mutinies, his records are a triumph of the subaltern India over the age old Upanishadic India. Property of Christ University.


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Naipaul explores and establishes a proof of the emergence of a new identity. He understands

that this book is an “elegy to Brahmanism” (Bachchan).

He goes on to understand Naipaul’s journey in the Muslim world. Through his

journey, he brings out the religious fanaticism among the Muslims that has created havoc

among the life of people living there. To conclude, Bachchan states that Naipaul’s Finding

the Centre is not a travelogue, as its subtitle states Prologue to an Autobiography. He states

how he does not fully conform to all the ideas that Naipaul exhibits in his books, but he

surely applauds the creativity in them.

Malak ponders over the fact that Naipaul in his fiction and nonfiction expresses a

strong despise for politics and culture of many third world countries in his study Naipaul’s

Travelogues and the “Clash of Civilization” Complex. He notices how Naipaul in his books

on Muslim countries, Among the Believers (1981) and Beyond Belief (1998) anticipates

multiplicity of a culture like Islam. He attempts to bring out a holistic picture of the culture

through the individuals he interviews.

He goes ahead with Naipaul’s second book on Islam, Beyond Belief: Islamic

Excursion Among the Converted People and states how Naipaul makes a speedy and loose

statement by putting the whole Muslim population under one umbrella “Converted”. He

argues how Naipaul fails to see that all cultures have gone under a process of evolution and

change at some point of time. Samuel Huntington’s essay, “The Clash of Civilization” states

the fundamental conflict among human kind is cultural conflict. Huntington refines Naipaul’s

statement that “Western civilization is the ‘universal civilization’ that fits all men”

(Hungtington 40).

Malak states how Naipaul and Huntington both share a common attitude towards the

non-western culture, grading them to be non-progressive. This presentation of “the other” by


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both of them is not approving. But he goes on to state that both differ in their methodologies.

While Huntington grades the global culture and civilization into eight groups among which

the Western being the privileged, Naipaul comes to a generalised conclusion about the

countries he travels through the individuals he interviews. Malak concludes how Naipaul’s

Beyond Belief carries two views, firstly Islam being an Arabic religion in its origin and its

values as well and secondly, Islamic imperialism is worse than the European imperialism. He

relates how in Naipaul’s letters to his father, he expresses his dislike towards the Muslims

and the Blacks. He enquired to the Swedish academy which awarded Naipaul, if they would

have done the same if Naipaul blamed Judaism for converting people. He concludes that

Naipaul is a talented writer and not the only writer who is prejudiced about certain religions.

Both Naipaul and Hungtington are at some time being transformed into prophetic characters.

They could declare whatever they felt about “the Other” in their works. Finally, Malak ends

the article in a bleak note “that the dialogical voices of tolerance, understanding, and respect

have history on their side.”( Malak)

W O Shea-Meddour’s article “Gothic Horror and Muslim Madness in V S Naipaul’s

Beyond Belief: Orientalist Excursion Among the Converted People” is in response to the

favourable response, recognition and Nobel Prize that Naipaul received by the West after his

writings about the Muslim world in his books Among the Believers and Beyond Belief.

Therefore, she draws examples from the nineteenth century literary convention, gothic genre

and neurosis that represented Islam to come to a conclusion that Naipaul’s representation of

Islam must be reassessed.

She attempts to expose how Naipaul’s attitude towards Islam has been interpreted as

judgement and gives a revolutionary reading of Beyond Belief. She observes how travel

writing is full of fictional devices and narrative conventions. She goes on to state how West

believe that Naipaul’s travel books would give the actual insight of the country, therefore,


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Beyond Belief has been read as a fact. She observes how Naipaul adopts the style of narrative

displacement in his book Beyond Belief which was similar to the style adopted by Charlotte

Bronte in Jane Eyre, while she presents the moods of the main character with which the

backdrop also changed representing the mood of the character. Therefore while writing

himself as the main character, for example, when he confronts Muslim practices in Beyond

Belief, he suffers from breathing problems and it is accompanied by a change in the quality of

air. Shea-Meddour notices how Naipaul feels choked when he enters the library and study of

Saleem, indirectly calling Islamic learning claustrophobic in nature. Naipaul also responds to

the tradition of learning as to how to read the Holy book Quran, stating that he felt so

insecure and uncomfortable that he rushed back to his hotel. Therefore, she states that

Naipaul’s dislike for Islamic culture is so intense that he kept looking out for a comfortable

zone, be it his hotel room or an open window in the library. She later states how Naipaul

employs gothic narrative in the book, especially in the part where he is waiting for

Immadudin in his house.

Naipaul’s use of gothic elements is the fear and biases in him. Naipaul keeps insisting

how Islam demands the people to erase their individuality. She brings out another similarity

between Beyond Belief and Neurosis, which is a part of the nineteenth century literature. She

concludes how Naipaul spoils the nineteenth century novel by presenting a distorted image of

the Muslim world. Therefore, she advises that in order to find love and honour for each other

among the Muslims and Non-Muslims, this book must not be read as a factual account of

Muslim world.

Dolly Z Hassan (1988) starts her article “The Messianic Leader in V S Naipaul’s

West Indian Works” by what she understands by the term messiah, it is this messiah that

offers spiritual comfort and social reforms. It was during Naipaul’s childhood that the

messianic conventions had developed. Naipaul dissents this idea and believes that as long as


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the Caribbean people allow themselves to be deceived, they would not prosper. She observes

how the political campaigns during 1956 and the racial tension between East India Company

and the blacks paved the path for the emergence of Rastafarians which was an assertion of the

importance of being African and it did not go unnoticed by Naipaul. She studies how

Naipaul’s earlier works can be seen as a protest which finds completeness in his later works.

Hassan observes how Naipaul through his works portrayed how religion was used to

route political fame. She goes on to state how Naipaul’s the Middle Passage bridges the gap

between his previous and later books. The messiah movements are intensely treated and

scanned. Naipaul argues the black racial attitude has moved closer to Rastafarianism and

believes this to be unhealthy in the Caribbean territory.

“Naipaul’s fascination with ruin- he once described himself as an ironist rather than a

satirist.” (Nixon 113). Nixon in his article “London Calling: V S Naipaul, Postcolonial

Mandrain” observes Naipaul’s attitude to imperialism contradicting. He reviews Naipaul’s

three travelogues, An Enigma of Arrival, A Turn in the South and India: A Million Mutinies

Now.

EW des Magister Artium introduces his work “Naipaul’s - Darkness” (2001) Africa

with reference to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and how by the nineteenth century it was

common for Africa to be referred to as a place of darkness. He gives examples like Henry M

Stanley’s Through the Dark Continent (1878) and In Darkest Africa (1890). Artium

understands how while Stanley and Conrad wrote of Africa during colonisation, Naipaul

wrote about decolonisation and he does that by extensively travelling in Africa. He

understands how travelogues are means of information about a foreign country. He observes

how Stanley looked at the positive side of colonisation that is progress and development and

Conrad exhibited the self-centred attitude of the colonisers.


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In the first chapter of his thesis, Artium presents the features of colonial discourse. He

analyses Naipaul’s texts where he compares In a Free state to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

He refers to Naipaul’s essay “Conrad’s Darkness” and tries to understand the title and realises

that like Conrad, Naipaul also represents Africa as a place of darkness. The idea is to study

the dichotomies that characterise ‘the Other’ as the backward and primitive. The study

analyses later texts of Naipaul on Africa. He focuses on selected parts of the text that talk

about Africa and Africans. He explores themes like magic, violence, rituals and sexuality

which is an integral part of Naipaul’s representation of Africa. He also observes the existence

of different cultures in Africa and comments on the level of personal relationship that is

existing there. A part of the work is also devoted to studying the relationship of Europe and

Africa. The thesis also studies if Naipaul’s attitude and understanding of Africa has evolved

in A Free State to Half a Life.

Champa Rao Mohan (2004) in Naipaul’s Vision of the World in Guerillas and A Bend

in the River understands how Naipaul’s novels one political in nature. In the study of the two

novels Guerrillas and A Bend in the River Naipaul exposes how politics dominates sexual

relationships, which ends up in violence. Analysing the characters in both the above novels,

Rao understands how political status becomes so powerful that the warmth and the closeness

in relationships fails to exist. He observes how both the novels end up showing its readers a

bleak vision of the world. The physical description of the landscape finds a mortal alignment

in the novels and the characters. He understands how Naipaul’s novels are surrounded by

themes like homelessness, displacement and marginality even as he unfolds race and politics

in A Bend in the River. He observes a noticeable change in Naipaul in the treatment of his

African characters. He is not only more sympathetic but also tries to look at Africa and its

problems in the post-independence era. He studies how Naipaul enters the characters and

exposes them. Naipaul exposes emptiness of the Black movement in Caribbean through the


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character of Jimmy. Naipaul shows through the novel how a society that is divided like

Caribbean have no “internal source of power” (Rao).

Rao observes how the characters in the novel and their quest for freedom end up in

despair. There is a sense of hopelessness. This could be as he says are after effects of his

visits to India, which led to disillusionment within him. His cherished dreams of his

motherland later led to discontent. Naipaul writes extensively about Africa in the two novels,

and the only part where he writes about modernisation in Africa is in the form of mimicry. He

exposes the vulnerability of modernisation through the characters who are African, picked up

from the bushes and placed in a more sensitive situation. Rao says that through his characters

Naipaul portrays the condition of uprooted exiles who have nowhere to go. He also observes

how Naipaul offers less hope to his vision of the Third World.

Zahiri a professor by profession starts with how it is to teach literature to college

students. He discusses the writing of V S Naipaul in The Rediscovery of India: V. S. Naipaul

and Making and Remaking of the Third World (2005) and how his writings are cultural

interpretations. The article particularly deals with the shift in Naipaul’s works particularly

taking into consideration his earlier and the later books on India. He states how Naipaul and

the Third World are intertwined. The major themes dealt with in his fictions and non-fictions

have been the Third World. He explains how Naipaul’s authenticity and personality as a

writer is bound with the idea of the Third World. Naipaul constantly represents the Third

World in his works. He traces Naipaul’s career which starts as a striving writer to a traveller.

He points out how these travel spots are politically and socially backward. He also states how

the representation of these Third World countries makes Naipaul an essentially rational

traveller.

The unsympathetic attitude of the writer towards these countries is predominant in his

works. He further points out how Naipaul’s views on newly independent states have been


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negative. This view has always been pleasantly accepted by the western readers. His

representation of India, in An Area of Darkness can easily be compared to Conradian way of

representation. Conrad has always been Naipaul’s mentor. Naipaul’s textualises the East to be

chaotic and disappointing. In India: A Wounded Civilization, he is analytical and culturally

oriented. He is constantly seen scrutinising the Indian culture. He claims to identify the

inadequacy in India and provides a solution to it. In his third travelogue on India, India: A

Million Mutinies Now, he travels to all the places in India where mutinies could be found. He

covers all types of mutinies from Naxalites, Dalits to Sikh activism. The journey certainly

brings out a different Naipaul. Zahiri points out how Naipaul brings out a positive

representation of ‘the Other’, which certainly speaks of a promising future for India. The

article aims to analyse Naipaul as a writer, his prejudice towards the Third World countries

and if at all Naipaul’s views have evolved over a point in his writing career.

Fadwa Abdel Rahman in her work “The White Traveller under the Dark Mask”

(2006) observes how Western travel books have constantly followed the stereotype concept

of the white traveller discovering the “Darker counterpart”. However, she states by changing

the white traveller for the dark one would not totally eradicate the false representation. This

she says could be because of the “scars left behind in the colonial psyche.” Rahman states

how Naipaul considers himself as a “cosmopolitan writer” who is free of biases and

prejudice, since he does not belong to any ideology. In the article he also points out how

Naipaul is aware of the fact that he lives in England and that his audience resides there, “he

has spared himself the trouble of falling on the ‘wrong side’, of being a marginalized voice.”

The article also observes how in all Naipaul’s works, the natives are backward and constantly

trying to ape the supposedly elite class. The article studies Naipaul’s views on Africa, which

he considers being inferior in all terms. With special reference to A Free State, he observes Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

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how Naipaul believes that Africa is capable of progress but at the end achieves nothing. In

this article, Rahman examines Naipaul’s works on Africa chronologically.

Research on the Effects of Islam and Christianity on Africa

John O Hunwick’s book Religion and National Integration in Africa: Islam,

Christianity and Politics in the Sudan and Nigeria are based on a series of papers presented

in a conference held at North Western University Illinoise. Out of the four papers presented

two were on Sudan and the other two on Nigeria. The papers presented were by several

eminent African intellectuals including Abdallahi An-Na'im, Francis Deng and Ibrahim

Gambari. One paper each was presented by a Christian and a Muslim respectively from each

country. The book focuses on the Sudanese civil war and the religious tensions in Nigeria.

The participants explored the political and sociological pressures that gave way to Islamic

fundamentalism, and the philosophical dilemmas associated with Sharia law.

In Edward W Blyden’s work Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, he presents the

historical perspective and current understanding of the continent with special light on the

present day conditions and realities. He negated the whole idea of the Muslim being

dehumanised and brutalised. He dismisses the twentieth century western scholars and their

writing which were full of prejudices, ignorance, bigotry, and anti-Islamic slanders. It is a

brilliant assessment of the subject matter and gives well researched work on Africa, Islam,

Christianity and American and African American history.

His writing is concerned with colonial subjects who have been exploited. Naipaul

believed that society and its writers must investigate their past to a historical examination.

There is a certain shift in his attitude towards his latest journey in Africa.

There has been many research works and journals on V S Naipaul, and it is difficult to

bring them all under one canvas. Although most of Naipaul’s works have been extensively


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researched, this research will focus on his most recent work The Masque of Africa and trace it

back to his previous travelogues on India. The attempt is to find if Naipaul finds a solid

ground for himself in this continent. Naipaul has evolved as a writer and he is seen sticking to

his intensions which are clearly laid down before the travel. The question whether the book

has any new insight to add to the already existing understanding of Naipaul’s work has been

answered through this research. Applying the theories of Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Stuart

Hall, Saussure and Fanon, this research has made attempts to contribute to a better

understanding of Naipaul as an individual and also as an immigrant writer. This research

establishes that Naipaul’s Oriental identity is just a facade and brings out the writer hiding

behind a persona. Unravelling this part of his identity within the context of The Masque of

Africa has definitely helped in giving the research a completely new dimension.

The research is not preoccupied with the discourse of belief in Africa, but how it has

surrounded the traditional belief system of the African continent. The observations of his

travelogues induce an understanding generated by the evidence collected from his narratives.

The observations establish that the narratives present the identity of the narrator/ traveller not

as an objective witness of his subjects but puts forth Naipaul as a biased and clouded

chronicler choosing to don an Orientalist lens.


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Chapter – 3

Unmasking the ‘Orientalist’ in The Masque of Africa by V S Naipaul

“To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this

or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture to support the weight of a

civilization.” (Fanon 17- 18)

Naipaul’s writing has been accused of being infested with Orientalist streaks. The

research examines this apparent Orientalism in his earlier works. Orientalism has been a

definite structure that holds the content in his writing. However, it is important to dissect the

nature of Orientalism adopted in his narrative and the possible purpose and presuppositions

behind the aspired Orientalism. There is also a relinquishing of this supposed Orientalist

trajectory in his travelogue The Masque of Africa.

The research studies this dissection of Orientalism as used in the narrative of Naipaul

analysing the concept in the light of Edward Said’s Orientalism, where the division of the

absolutes first surfaced. The research analyses Orientalism as understood by Said, who has

accused Naipaul of being one. However, the research here differs and argues that Orientalism

prevalent in his narratives is not an outlook but a carefully cultivated approach. In order to

substantiate this statement the research employs Frantz Fanon’s book Black Skin White Mask.

Fanon discusses the emergence of the black man’s Orientalism. He concedes that the black

man has fallen prey to the absolutes as defined by the West. The very fact that the blacks

accept the division and aspire to project a culture in comparison to the White proves the

adherence to this absolution. He argues that, much against the defined ideas professed by the

West, there is no such thing as black but blacks. But this diversity has been compromised in

favour of the strictly compartmentalised approaches. Property of Christ University.


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He states that it is accepted and prided over when a black man aims to reach the

standard set by the West. In the process of redeeming the loss, the course taken by the black

man, “the Other” brings him at crossroads, where adapting the culture in the mould of the

absolutes becomes and decides his progression. The Other assumes an identity that leaves

him at the intersection of the binary. He tends to internalise the assumed identity to such an

extent that he becomes it. The motivation and the purpose of assuming this ‘white mask’ is to

posit his culture at the level of the white man’s and salvage it.

To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. The Antilles Negro who wants to

be white will be the whiter as he gains greater mastery of the cultural tool that

language is. Rather more than a year ago in Lyon, I remember, in a lecture I had

drawn a parallel between the Negro and European poetry, and a French acquaintance

told me enthusiastically, 'At the bottom you are a white man.' The fact that I had been

able to investigate so interesting a problem through the white man's language gave me

honorary citizenship (Fanon 38).

Naipaul’s narratives brings forth “the Other” who on the surface has adorned this

white mask, but beneath that struggles with his predicament as a non-white individual in the

world dominated by white infusion. The research examines the unravelling of this tightly knit

and assumed identity. The white mask of “the Other” is discarded in the narrative of The

Masque of Africa.

The narrative functions at investigating what lies beneath the masque of the African

surface, belief and cultural identity. Here there are traces and echoes of a bygone era. The

narrative is resonant with duality and diversity of the African life. The masque here therefore

is an emblem of a new, changing and resolute face of the culture, hiding underneath itself

layers of preoccupations with a traditional existence.


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The research delves into analysing the employment of the ‘masque’ in the travelogue

The Masque of Africa. The investigation attempts at understanding the relevance of the title

in the narrative. It is important to analyse masque and mask, before establishing the diversion

from Orientalist outlook and the unmasking of “the Other” in The Masque of Africa. Masques

in their earliest representation were a part of the Italian intermedio, a form of a pageant, in the

fifteenth century. However, their most popular form which is still known today was in the

sixteenth and seventeenth century courtly festivities. The masques were known to have

political undercurrents and motivations in their performance. In England they served the

function of ensuring unity and concord between the monarchy and the kingdom. The masque

becomes a mode of performance to appease and solidify the stature of monarchy. However

the masks have their origin in primitive mythology. The conceptualisation of masks and

masking is radically different from that of masques. Where masques were adorned for purely

entertainment and allegorical purposes with crisp political subtext, masks were a direct

acknowledgement and identification of a superior cosmic existence and the merging with

one. Two elements stand out in the process of masking; first, the wearer is a different being

who only puts on an identity which is distinct from his own. Second, the mask symbolises a

more powerful existence beyond the reach of the one wearing it.

In the light of the aforementioned investigation of the ‘mask’ and the ‘masque’, it is

important to examine how the narrator of the travelogues, The Masque of Africa, An Area of

Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now adorns the mask

of the white man and gradually discards it. In conjunction with the unmasking of the narrator,

there is a conscious and deliberate attempt at investigating what lies beneath and what

constitutes the masques of the African cultures.


33

Changing Landscapes and Mindscapes in the Works of V S Naipaul with Particular

Reference to The Masque of Africa.

“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels

in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and

fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves.” (Lawrence, Escape)

D. H. Lawrence explains how human beings are trapped in their ego. Therefore, they

are able to see only what their ego tainted glass shows them about the world they live in. He

uses “glass bottle” metaphor to illustrate how one can see the world outside through the glass

bottle but has no freedom to explore the world. Similarly, the squirrel has the power and

energy but can run only within the limited space of its cage. He explains how coming back to

the forest gives human beings the desire to escape into the original and the wild. Therefore,

when they come back, they recover something of what they were and something that was

long lost.

Keeping the aforesaid in mind, the research will focus on the gradual shift in the

narrator’s observations and knowledge of the ‘Orient’ tracing it from his early travelogues on

India to the latest one on Africa, The Masque of Africa. Naipaul yearns to come back to the

forests of Africa and regain his identity through them. His search is for something that he

never experienced throughout his life. The change and his longing to belong will be analysed

on the basis of language, theme and symbols used by the narrator in his works. His first

travelogue on India written in the 1960s to his latest one on Africa in 2010 has seen a

significant variation in terms of reasoning, relating and responding.

Today, Naipaul is one of the most talented prose stylists of the twentieth century.

Naipaul writes about the tragic legacy of colonialism on individual and society on the whole.

His earlier works are based on his own experiences of growing up in Trinidad. He has gained


34

popularity for the narrative skill, colourful use of West Indian dialect, and humour. His

characters remain culturally deprived which he believes is the result of colonial history. They

are seen constantly trying to create a shelter they can call their own. Naipaul's later novels are

social commentaries based on his travel throughout Africa, Asia, South America, and the

Caribbean. He continues to explore the relevance of the loss of cultural identity with colonial

imperialism.

His travelogues reveal a keen observation and an open, descriptive style. His early

travelogues have garnered harsh criticism for their often bleakly negative assessment of

cultures ravaged by centuries of oppression and of the regions he describes. The Masque of

Africa envelops a larger role of acknowledging human shortcomings starting with his own.

Therefore, one can see visible changes in his acknowledgment of the continent. This change

has been a gradual one which was seen in his earlier travelogues on India. Language, image

and theme have been studied cautiously in his works to detect the changes. One can see how

the narrator is rediscovering a new identity for himself as he tries to understand and mourn

the loss of a traditional religion in Africa.

The narrative presents painstaking collections of the problems faced by the native

people. It was Naipaul’s bias towards Islam that brought him criticism from Edward Said.

Therefore, Edward Said in an on-going talk about Intellectuals in the Post-colonial World

mentions Naipaul, “…. The most attractive and immoral move, however, has been Naipaul's,

who has allowed himself quite consciously to be turned into a witness for the Western

prosecution.” (O’Brien 70-71). Said condemns Naipaul’s portrayal of the Third World. He

finds Naipaul’s work deficient in conviction and empathy. He believed that Naipaul breached

all moral ethics of analysing the colonies. He also condemns the respectable position that

Naipaul was given which he believed Naipaul did not deserve in the literary world.


35

With the above thought in mind, the research attempts to deviate from the same in

considering V S Naipaul’s as a narrator and his narratives on the Third World. In The Masque

of Africa, the narrator takes a self-searching journey, where he intends to achieve “the

beginning of things” (Naipaul The Masque 1). He is seen making continuous attempts to

connect the gap in order to rediscover a new identity for himself.

Language and Identity

"Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination

and liberation." (Carter 43) The voice given to an ethnic group, a cultural entity or an

individual within these limits or outside it, becomes the defining element in the process of

that group/entity/individual’s quest in finding an identity related to the confines of these

boundaries, or outside in opposition to it. This way it either becomes a powerful tool with a

definite shape, which either dominates or liberates. There is another aspect to this, the

midway or the claustrophobic recess that belongs to those who are unable to find firm fertile

ground on which they find their roots. The rootlessness here gives rise to a search of a

different kind. Therefore the language that often becomes a means of this inner turmoil,

plainly reflects the varying plains of identity. Language is typically used to convince,

influence and change others point of view. Therefore, language becomes a powerful tool.

Each word used can infer knowledge. Language also carries the potential to reveal a person’s

identity. Analysing Naipaul’s travelogues, they are not just travel books but they are valuable

studies of ideology and discipline. They are not just description of a landscape but they

combine history and social criticism.

Augustine of Hippo in his work On Christian Doctrine conceptualises sign which he

states are, “Things used to signify something.” (Norton 188) He classifies signs into natural

signs and conventional signs. These signs also portray the feelings and expressions of the


36

speaker. Therefore he states, “A multitude of innumerable signs by which men express their

thoughts.” (Norton 189).

The narratives, be it on India or Africa, the ‘sign’ always is the country the narrator is

traveling to. But in each and every book it is important to observe how the country is exposed

to various signifiers. When the narrator arrived in Bombay, India in 1962 he came with an

intension of looking for his roots. “We made no inquiry about India or about the families

people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it

was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father’s side; I know that some of them

came from Nepal.” (Naipaul Two Worlds 10)

However, on his first visit he seems to be getting attracted towards the idea of India

but bounces back immediately leaving records of his experiences in An Area of Darkness

(1962); India: A Wounded Civilization (1975) and India: A Million Mutinies Now in which he

explores the India of the late 1980s. He returns only to discover that there were "many

revolutions within that revolution". With India, there is a visible positive closure evident in

the narrative where the attitude from sympathy to empathy is evident.

In An Area of Darkness the narrator finds that caste system as a cause for stagnation

and sterility in India. He refers to R K Narayan’s book The Vendor of Sweets and dismisses

Hinduism. He goes on to blame Gandhi for taking India to a pedestal from where coming

back seems impossible. He mocks Gandhians and does not conform to their attitude. He

discusses the bureaucratic inefficiency, the urban-rural divide, the wretchedness of the poor

over the course of the book. Compared to his earlier non-fiction on India An Area of

Darkness in which he writes,

Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. But

they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the


37

riverbanks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover. Muslims, with their

tradition of purdah, can at times be secretive. But this is a religious act of self-denial,

for it is said that the peasant, Muslim or Hindu, suffers from claustrophobia if he has

to use an enclosed latrine.... (Naipaul An Area 74)

He uses the term ‘defecate’ again and again which signifies anger and irritation. To

defecate, on one hand means to remove impurities to become pure and clean, but in this

context his narrative signifies India with “defecate everywhere” where he is always making

an effort to defecate India out of his system, while he seems to be purposefully trying to

extricate the Indian part of his identity. The narrator’s use of description of people defecating

is in free space, but it seems to be confined space. There is a strong implication of both

vacuum and claustrophobia. By ‘riverbank’ and ‘hills’ Naipaul suggests open space but, it

implies squalid conditions which denotes little progress. This acknowledgement of a

deficiency and degeneration of a culture that defines the narrator is also an acknowledgement

of the need to take it towards a progression. The white mask is visible here. “The Other”

finds a sense of release only in the act of declining his culture and appraising the superiority

and need to imitate the white culture.

Naipaul came to India in 1960, when the initial bliss of independence had vanished

with the outburst of Chinese war which crushed the economy of the country. His narratives

portray disgust and doom in his observations. But he returned to the country again where he

belonged to make peace with the civilization. In India: A Wounded Civilization, he comes

back to his origin, almost ten years later, but the anger and shock is still a very important part

of the claustrophobic overtones of the narratives.

My feelings went the other way, In richer countries, where people could create

reasonably pleasant home surroundings for themselves, perhaps, after all, public


38

squalor was bearable, In India, where most people lived in such poor conditions, the

combination of private squalor and an encompassing squalor outside was quite

stupefying, It would have given people not only a low idea of their needs—air, water,

space for stretching out—but it must also have given people a low idea of their

possibilities, as makers or doers. (Naipaul India: A Wounded 347)

The narrator gives readers a snapshot of India, and the poor conditions in which

Indians live. He also writes about poverty and rubbish. In India: A Wounded Civilization one

cannot ignore his uneasiness when he experiences the issues of race and caste system. To him

caste system was nothing more than a bitter and brutal division of labour.

"Indian poverty is more dehumanizing than any machine: and, more than in any

machine civilization, men in India are units, locked up in the straitest obedience by their idea

of their dharma.” (Naipaul India a Wounded 171). About the caste system, he states how

these ancient rituals and customs are decaying the country. He believes that it was the caste

system in India that stopped India from progressing. He expresses criticism on the elements

of Hinduism and dharma. He believed that the ideas and teachings of the caste system were

nothing more than a curse to the progress of the country.

"Men might rebel; but in the end they usually make their peace. There is no room in

India for outsiders...." (Naipaul India a Wounded 171). In India: A Wounded Civilization, the

narrator understands how there is no opportunity for flexibility and discovery in India. There

are constant references and illustration of the culture of the other as stunted and incapable of

movement giving it an almost stale and unproductive quality. Here again the expectation of

progress is directly associated with the concept of the absolute. Any resistance that erupts

will come to an abrupt end, and since the acceptability for the new is narrow in the country,

he assumes there is no room for outsiders. The narrator considers himself as a foreigner here


39

and persistently fails to relate to India. He comes back to India for the second time, but in this

travel too he is unable to establish contact with India.

Finally towards India: A Million Mutinies Now, Naipaul refers to Mr Ghante who

lives in the slum and is an organizer for Shiv Sena who displays a brilliant element of social

activism and complains about his neighbourhood and the lack of civic sense among them. He

interacts with Subramaniam a Brahmin scientist, whose grandfather was a Hindu priest of the

Hindu society, and his father was into India's political- reform movements, and now

Subramaniam's own generation, the most accomplished and westernized were not

disappointed victims of those reforms.

There is a change in the narrative of the country compared to his previous visits.

Therefore, he uses phrases like "a country of a million little mutinies," and "rage and revolt,"

which signifies a positive attitude towards India. Revolt here can also declare an uprising

towards a better living. Rage also signifies willingness. Rage and revolt also reflects

Naipaul’s state of mind. His identity and his relationship with India is going through the

similar passion as India is. He constantly yearns to establish a contact with his ancestral land.

Therefore, he comes back to India for the third time.

On his return in 1990, he is more mature, wise and discerning. He ends the novel on a

positive note. He sees change everywhere in India. The narrator seems to be finally at peace

with India, the very essence of his heritage and his creation. India: A Million Mutinies Now is

quite a revealing book as it exhibits how he celebrates various aspects of life in India. The

narrative now finds peace and assurance prevailing amidst chaos and poverty.

Change is present everywhere, India was now a country of million mutinies. A

million mutinies, supported by twenty kinds of group excess, sectarian excess,

religious excess, regional excess: the beginnings of self-awareness, it would seem the


40

beginnings of an intellectual life, already negated by old anarchy and disorder.

(Naipaul India: A Million 24)

The narrator’s attitude towards the same place seems to change towards his last non-

fiction. There is a stark contrast from “defecate everywhere” to “Change everywhere”. He

clearly sees development in India which is positive. His earlier description in An Area of

Darkness was surrounded by a sense of claustrophobia in the words and expression but in

India: A Million Mutinies Now there is a sense of relief and productivity. He portrays more

liberating spaces. His narratives does not seem to stay with just the description of the place.

He goes on to meeting and analysing what compels the Indians to be what they are. He

discloses how, "The idea of freedom has gone everywhere in India. . . . There was . . . now

what didn't exist 200 years before a central will, a central intellect, a national idea." (Naipaul

India a Million 517).

Towards the end of the travelogue, there is a definite acceptance of the new emergent

culture of India and appreciation of the struggle. The narrative clearly sees the sign as a

progressive growth and while the narrator watches India identify, he reaches a new identity

for himself. He realises that when one sheds an identity and adapts to another identity a new

identity is formed. He moves on from losing an identity towards the new identity. The

narrator studies how in post-independent India there are many revolutions within a

revolution. All over India there are buried disparities of religion and caste which have

surfaced and given way to conflicts. This he says has resulted in million mutinies. He

understands how these ‘mutinies’ cannot be ignored. These mutinies pave a path to the

beginning of a new way.

"The Indian Union was greater than the sum of its parts; and many of these

movements of excess strengthened the Indian state, defining it as the source of law and


41

civility and reasonableness." (Naipaul India a Million 518). This statement not only sets his

last travelogues on India apart from India: A Million Mutinies Now but also throws light on

how Naipaul successfully relates and responds to India.

The warmth and empathy seen in India: A Million Mutinies Now in which the narrator

discovers his Indian identity is similar to his latest book The Masque of Africa. However in

the beginning of the book, the writer finds the place “eluding” him but by the end of the book

by realising, “that after apartheid a resolution is not really possible until the people who wish

to impose themselves on Africa violate some essential part of their being.” (Naipaul The

Masque 325).

His narratives come to a sublime acceptance by the end of the tour where he realises

how everyone in the world has a borrowed identity. This enables them to bridge the gap

towards discovering a new identity. The Masque of Africa develops the idea, so fostered and

raised by him to a different drift. He seems to abandon all his prejudices and reaches a

position where he relates to the continent.

He is always seen lamenting the loss of a traditional religion in the book. He brings

that out through his conversation with different inhabitants of the continent. The Pa-boh

states, “Traditional religion in Ghana is dying slowly.” (Naipaul The Masque 164). The

narrator displays the plight of their disappearing ethos. He brings out the thoughts and idea of

African belief through his interviews in the book. The contempt in his language goes well

with the sympathiser in him. “Dying slowing” signifies the incomplete, hollow state of their

being in a country stunted and stopped in time.

In The Masque of Africa, the narrator tries a different approach at explaining the

subject. As the title suggests, the book identifies performance as one of the key aspect of

some African religions. The book has parts in which the prose is raised to the level of


42

Naipaul’s other fictional masterpieces, especially when the narrative depicts the Fang of

Gabon, making their journey with the gombi harpists. Their instrument is made with the

intestines of the first ancestors:

to me now to understand, what nearly everyone there would have understood, what

the strings of the harp stood In the roar of the dancing yard I saw him as a minor

figure, contributing little. I noticed him and then I didn't look at him. It was shocking

to me now to understand, what nearly everyone there would have understood, what

the strings of the harp stood for. (Naipaul The Masque 170)

The narrator introduces his readers to the essence of Africa when he mentions about

music and dance. By exploring superstition and witchcraft in the continent, he navigates the

complexities and conflicts in the religion. But his purpose remains to revive this religion,

which he believes is dying. It is important to note that the narrative brings out the African

histories as a live and breathing part of their culture. This is probably the first glimpse into a

surface beneath the masque.

In The Masque of Africa, “Chapter Five: Children of the Old Forest”, the narrator

brings out the beauty of the African forest. The wildness and the fragments in the forest

suggest the forest inside him. He seems to be attracted to the splendour of the forests. “I

imagined myself sleeping in the narrowest of clearings between mighty trees, among whose

buttressed roots small, friendly people moved in and out of their small huts: pigmies.”

(Naipaul The Masque 257). On seeing the clear forests in the continent, the narrator feels let

down. He wonders why have the forests been cleared and where have the villagers

disappeared. He seems to come back to the continent looking for the barbaric life which

makes him feel comfortable. However, on seeing the changes he feels highly disappointed.

There seems to be nothing he could relate himself to.


43

For the narrator, there seems to be darkness outside as well as within him, which

makes him an anxious being constantly on the move. “What was past was past. I suppose that

was the general attitude.” (Naipaul). The narrator in the book The Masque of Africa seems to

be unable to let go off the past. He always laments the loss of the traditional religion. This

chapter attempts an understanding “the Self” and “the Other” in the narrator. This chapter

also analyses how and why he keeps shifting his centres in different parts of the novel. His

constant effort to keep travelling even at the age of seventy-eight proves that the writer is still

in search of something. He repeatedly makes an effort to find a place for himself but this

search does not seem to be coming to an end. Reviewing his other travelogues, Naipaul

clearly shows a sense of responsibility in his latest work as he states, “That feeling of being

on edge can easily turn in to a feeling of being torn, can turn to pain.” (Naipaul The Masque

209). There is a shade of compassion in him as the forest is cleared and the villagers are

disappearing. He shows keen interest in understanding the witch craft; therefore, he does not

mind paying extra to meet a witchdoctor. The book is not just about Africa being celebrated,

but it clearly encompasses a larger intension. In an attempt of searching for an answer for

himself, the narrator relates to the loss and void the inhabitants of Africa face.

Shifting Images

“He turned to the flyleaf of the geography and read what he had written there:

himself, his name and where he was…Stephen Dedalus…Class of Elements…Clongowes

Wood College…Sallins…County Kildare…Ireland…Europe…The World…The Universe”

(Joyce 38)

Naipaul is always seen trying to find an identity in a universe that is torn apart.

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedalus as an outsider to the society

who constantly tries to seek solitude. Naipaul like Stephen Dedalus is always seen in physical


44

and mental exile. Naipaul also like Stephen has gone through the phase where he gropes for

an artistic expression which eludes him. Dedalus in the novel portrays his directionless

energy. “The old restlessness had again filled his breast as it had done on the night of the

partly, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growth and knowledge of two years of

boyhood stood between then and now, forbidding such an outlet.” (Joyce 77)

Similarly, Naipaul recalls the mysterious process of becoming a writer, “I remember,

in my first term at Oxford in 1950, going for long walks- I remember the roads, the autumn

leaves, the cars and the trucks going by, whipping the leaves up- and wandering what I was

going to write about. I had worked hard for the scholarship to go to Oxford, to be a writer.

But now that I was in Oxford, I didn’t know what to write about.” (Naipaul 13)

Naipaul, like Joyce was in exile who was born in Trinidad, ancestors in India, and

settled in Britain. This explains his altering emotions of love and hate towards his

motherland. Naipaul takes refuge in the various words and images, and as he voices out his

inner self, he feels less isolated. The “autumn leaves” and “whipping leaves” clearly suggests

Naipaul’s effort of shedding himself of one identity and looking forward to his artistic

yearning. Naipaul like Stephen Dedalus is seen rejecting his environment that shaped him,

constantly in search for another universe. Stephen is essentially James Joyce’s alter ego, the

events of Stephen’s life mirrors Joyce’s own youth. Joyce left Ireland to pursue his artistic

desire and fulfil his desire to break free from the country. Naipaul also left Trinidad to fulfil

his dreams of becoming a writer. He saw his father fail inspite of his desperate attempts to

become successful. He knew it then that he had to leave Trinidad to fulfil his dreams. Joyce’s

first work Dubliners is a collection of claustrophobia and immobility he experienced in

Dublin. Similarly, Naipaul in his early non-fiction Miguel Street tells the readers about the

desperate struggles by the inhabitants of Trinidad to make their lives meaningful. He explains

how those efforts are finally crushed by their own narrow connection to their environment.


45

Naipaul also like his contemporaries’ portrayed and writes about the poor conditions

of the people in the colonised world, just the way Dickens portrayed the poor Londoners in

his novel Oliver Twist. Naipaul writes what he notices; his travelogues are a series of first

hand experiences that he shares with the rest of the world. This gives a realistic touch to the

works of Naipaul, which is seen in the works of Dickens. Both wrote for the masses. Naipaul

keeps travelling between two worlds, one that is settled and organised and the other that

always remains wild and anxious. “Yet always the obvious is overwhelming. One is a

traveller and as soon as the dread of a particular district has been lessened by familiarity, it is

time to move on again, through vast tracks which will never become familiar, which will

sadden; and the urge to escape will return.” (Naipaul Barracoon 47)

The “vast track”, suggests the time that has passed which now makes the place

unfamiliar to the narrator. He comes to India in 1960s, till then the country only existed in his

memories and imagination. It was his longing to see his motherland that brought him to India.

There is a longing in him for the unknown and the unfamiliar. His desire to escape and know

more about the countries he travels signify his need to connect with India.

“And for the first time in my life, I was one of the crowd.” (Naipaul An Area 212).

The writer realises how he does not feel distinctive anymore, the way he felt in Trinidad and

Britain. He felt sinking in among the Indians, becoming faceless and unable to identify

himself. Naipaul feels threatened at the loss of something. Since it was his first visit to India,

he feels vulnerable and inexperienced at the onset. He came in search for an identity but he

saw himself losing the same, which made him uneasy. He felt he was being denied of identity

which was his. One cannot ignore the frankness of the narrator but at the same time

insecurities within him. Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

46

Some may criticise Naipaul for writing illegibly about India. But his last narrative on

India he is finally “Learned to see beyond the dirt and recumbent figures on string beds, and

to look for the signs of improvement and hope..”(Ibid 46)

The writer certainly has a vision that arises newly from the disorder. He sees the

possibility of a positive change in India. Although in his first book he condemns the socio

economic conditions in India but eventually he moves on to accepting India. He looks beyond

the exterior towards his last travelogue on India. He looks beyond the poverty and dirt in

India and observes the humanity which was also present. He realises how his role and status

of being an Indian takes him to a much intense understanding of his life and identity. That is

how writing becomes Naipaul’s identity which lifts him from the sterility. He is always seen

using the colonial experience as a metaphor for documenting the human experience.

The narrator’s outbreak of bewilderment, anger and sense of loss in his book An Area

of Darkness shows his inability to familiarise himself to the land which he saw and which he

had heard of. The real and the imagination were not able to sink in him. Therefore the final

chapter of An Area of Darkness titled “Flight” indicates the narrator’s intense desire to move

away from the truth which he could not accept. In the book, he tries his best to accept India,

but his quest for identity is stated as “…the agonizing experience of a homeless, rootless man

without a set of beliefs and values to live by.” ( Hamner 12)

"Now there were many revolutions within that revolution. . . . All over India scores of

particularities that had been frozen by foreign rule or by poverty or lack of opportunity or

abjectness had begun to flow again." (Naipaul India a Million 6). The narratives depict the

seasons from winter to spring; the image is comforting and reassuring. It suggests the natural

cycle of nature which is a shift from darkness towards the light and warmth. There is a Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

47

glorious future which promises life and freedom. A promise for personal growth and

entitlement is positive.

The narrator’s experience with the Indian landscape is not a pleasant one. There is a

drabness and staleness in the description. He states, “To ride past coconut plantation was to

see a rapidly changing criss-cross of slender curved trunks, greyish white in a green gloom.”

(Naipaul An Area 140). The coconut plantations are always fresh, the trees standing tall is a

beautiful picture but the narrator instead of enjoying the scenery sees a bleak and desolate

picture of the scenery.

Robert Butler mentions in Intelligent Life Magazine that, “V.S. Naipaul was born in

Trinidad in 1932, when literacy among Indian men on the island stood at 23%. Naipaul’s

father had taught himself to read and write and became a journalist for the Trinidad Guardian.

He gave his son the idea of the writer’s life and the idea that it was a noble calling.” Naipaul

sets himself the task of writing about the countries post colonization.

Naipaul’s travelogues, be it on India or Africa reflects the essence of cultural

hybridity and their effects on the people of the colonised world. Culturally hybrid societies

emerge from cultural contacts of the explorer and the explored. Naipaul is often seen

engaging with the idea that postcolonial agency is tongue tied in the creating and in

reimagining postcolonial subjectivity from a diasporic perspective. Naipaul writes about the

marginalised group because he believed that they were the ones who suffered the brunt of

colonisation. The key theorists in the realm of hybridity are Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak

and Stuart Hall.3 The theory primarily deals with the emergence of postcolonial discourse

and focuses on the diversity of identities and cultures. Bhabha takes up the idea of hybridity

3 Homi K Bhabha (1949- ) the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. Gayatri Spivak (1942- ) is Indian literary critic and Theorist at Colombia University. Stuart Hall (1932- ) is a cultural theorist and sociologist.


48

and observes how due to multiculturalism, there is constantly emerging new forms of

cultures.

“This was more than cross-cultural town- building. Mosque and cathedral, growing

out of no communities, might have seemed like a game in the desert, the whim of a rich ruler

looking for foreign approval.” (Naipaul The Masque 199) the narrative depicts the existence

of dual life. In his book The Masque of Africa, his description of the existence of church and

mosques in Africa is beautiful. It shows his acute study which makes his book stand apart.

Naipaul’s fictions are beautifully written, and the details are always significant with

highly controlled lyrical and realist style. Although he depicts the fact, the non-fictions are

deeply cynical about the prospects for the nations which are newly freed from Western

colonialism. His early works had a grim comedy, and he has a sharp eye toward the poor and

their shortcomings. He tends to conclude that the cultural growth could be the possible cause

for the weakness of the newly independent states. In India, Naipaul addresses the

psychosocial effects of Muslim conquest years ago as the main obstacle to the progress.

Bhabha on Naipaul’s characters states,

It was the ability of Naipaul’s characters to forbear their despair, to work through

their anxieties and alienation towards a life that may be radically incomplete but

continues to be intricately communitarian, busy with activity, noisy with stories,

garrulous with grotesquerie, gossip, humour, aspirations, fantasies- these were signs

of a culture of survival that emerges from the other side of the colonial enterprise, the

dark side. (Bhabha xii)

Naipaul is often criticised for portraying his characters as displaced and absurd that

are constantly seen defeated. Bhabha analyses this from a different angle; he believes that


49

Naipaul’s characters are the real survivors. He seems to have a passion with which he handles

his characters. This is evident in his discourse with the locales in his travelogues. He

handpicks the people he wants to interview. His characters are often real people who are not

perfect and their social situations and actions often result in errors and tragedies. Through

this, he intends to teach his readers wisdom.

Naipaul in his discourse with Fatima, who was his guide realises that she had the

strong personality and observes that anyone less remarkable would have easily been crushed.

She narrates her experience growing up as a coloured girl which was her only identity.

Feeling torn between various religions, she looks for a black identity which was not easy. She

concludes from her experiences how race ran deeper in human beings than religion. Fatima

was obviously someone who puzzled him and obstructed him for a moment from staying

glued to his main objective of staying away from politics.

Naipaul plunges to his travels in the sixties, when the Caribbean movement for

independence from British colonial rule commenced which fragmented the country into tiny

parts. He understands and notices how these fragmented societies are unable to sustain life in

the dynamic, modern world. They seem to have all the worldly pleasures but are culturally

and intellectually starved societies. His fictions and non-fictions on the Caribbean and Indian

community reflect the aftermath of colonisation and the suffering. Naipaul might stand aloof

from these movements and struggles of living in a post-colonial world. He could even state

that he never lived through it. Yet one cannot deny how he has been a keen observer. He has

extensively employed the themes of displacement and homelessness.

On one hand in A Bend in the River, Naipaul shows Africa losing its property value as

war envelopes the coastal areas. Salim, on the other hand, portrays the stress of living inside a

divided caste system. One finds the same situation in The Masque of Africa where Naipaul


50

confronts Susan, a writer who echoes the colonial despair and confusion. The love-hate

relationship that she shares with her Christian name and her traditional religion is remarkably

described. She states, “I feel that it is so much part of the colonial experience which was not

pleasant. When a person or race comes and imposes on you, it takes away everything, and it

is a vicious thing to do.” (Naipaul The Masque 31 ).

Naipaul’s discourse with the inhabitants of Africa exhibits a deep sense of dislocation

and cultural alienation amongst them. Bhabha in his “Introduction” to Fanon’s Black Skin

White Masks writes,

The struggle against colonial oppression changes not only the direction of Western

history, but challenges its historicist ‘idea’ of time as progressive ordered whole. The

analysis of colonial depersonalisation alienates not only the Enlightenment idea of

‘Man’, but challenges the transparency of social reality, as a pre-given image of

human knowledge. (Bhabha xi)

This understanding helps one to analyse how the structures of history impact the

human psyche. The inhabitants of Africa portray this disturbing effect of cultural alienation

and dislocation on the human psyche. Therefore Collin states, “I persisted in the struggle

because I came from a family full of conflicts.” (Naipaul The Masque 303)

Fanon in his book Black Skin, White Masks states how maintaining the mute

agreement is the final salience. Therefore, the inhabitants are unable to articulate their desire

for liberation and remain imprisoned. In order to escape, the black dons a white mask

creating a disjunction between black man’s body and consciousness. “The black man”

constantly craves to be the white and this confusion leads inhabitants like Collin in a state of

conflict within himself as he constantly tries to overcome his internal alienation. The Property of Christ University.


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existence of this confusion and dilemma in Africa means that Fanon still carries immense

relevance.

Frantz Fanon4 uses psychoanalytical theory to understand the feelings of vulnerability

that the black people experience in a white world. Fanon explains the same by presenting

both historical analysis and underlying social indictment. Susan remains confused throughout

her conversation, born to an African father; she was christened although she respected the

traditional religion. She attributes all her problems and sufferings to the one reason that she

could not remain faithful to the African religion. Naipaul in Uganda meets Habib, who was

born an African but was circumcised “by a Gillette blade”. Habib was a Muslim businessman

now and he recalls how he was taught as a boy to stay away from African religion. His anger

was evident as he states, “Now that I have grown up and had exposure, I see it was a tool to

control our African mind. It is how the imperialists worked.”(Naipaul The Masque 43). We

can place Salim, Susan, Habib and the narrator on the same platform., their lives being a

“melting pot” of many experiences, good and bad which defines them as a person. They seem

to have no principle to hold on to. Perhaps they had left out certain beliefs behind and now as

a result, they remain vague and bewildered.

The narrator’s encounter with Winnie Mandela in The Masque of Africa who strongly

follows the beliefs of Xhosa people brings the travelogue to a stage where through Winnie

Mandela Naipaul brings out how the inhabitants of Africa still consult the graves of their

ancestors. She gives readers a beautiful picture of the continent’s spiritual identity. Naipaul

registers not only the beauty of Africa, but also brings out how the inhabitants of Africa still

hold on to their traditional religion for living. During hard times they fall back on their

traditional religions which they believe rescues them from problems.

4 Frantz Fanon (1925- 1961) was a French psychiatrist, philosopher and revolutionary writer who supported the Algerian struggle for independence and became a member of Algerian National Liberation Front.


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V S Naipaul visited Africa first in 1966 for a period of nine months to work as a

writer-in-residence placed at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Naipaul 34 then was

a man who had experienced colonial poverty in Trinidad where he had begun his writing

career. However, he never followed any other profession. He has constantly depicted

religious representation of different communities of the Third World countries he has visited.

He is amused since he finds a stark difference between what they believe and do. He observes

how religion always plays a crucial role to govern the mind-set of the people and their

lifestyle.

It was the idea of energy that builds all through Africa that fascinated the writer. In

Gabon his informant Guy Rossatanga-Rignault, who was a lawyer and an academician and a

former dean of University of Gabon brings out Naipaul’s central objective in the book i.e,

“The new religions, Islam and Christianity, are just on the top. Inside us is the forest.”

(Naipaul The Masque 217) He states how the energy of the life of Africa is linked to the

overwhelming forests. He says how the old African ways must always be honoured. Naipaul

is impressed with the forests and he believes in the belief of Africa; therefore, he feels sad to

see the forests been cut down, which he understands, is cutting down the souls of the people

of Africa.

The narrator displays a stunning blend of first-hand experience with imagery and

symbols that set his books apart from the others. The mix of journalistic writing and

symbolism make his travelogues a collection of realities from both the worlds.

Thematic Motifs

My books have to be called 'travel writing,' but that can be misleading because in the

old days travel writing was essentially done by men describing the routes they were

taking. . . . What I do is quite different. I travel on a theme. I travel to make an


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inquiry. I am not a journalist. I am taking with me the gifts of sympathy, observation,

and curiosity that I developed as an imaginative writer. The books I write now, these

inquiries, are really constructed narratives. (Naipaul 16)

This is what makes Naipaul stand apart from other travel writers. He does not believe

in only recording or chronicling what he experiences but also gives in his views. That is how

his works draw heavily from life and truth.

Naipaul’s vast collection of fiction and non-fiction are a set of some of the finest

expressions of dilemmas and struggles of the people of the colonised world in making their

identity and existence significant in the postcolonial context. Naipaul’s works are also

extremely detailed, vivid and reliable. This makes his works popular and controversial at the

same time. Naipaul is often seen as a wanderer who in a constant search for a home to

establish an identity. His upbringing and his life’s experiences reflect well in his works.

For Naipaul, India was something more than just a country. He felt inescapable from

the fact that India was his ancestral land and that he might feel the connection which he

missed in Trinidad and Britain. Therefore, he comes to India in search of a home, On asked

by Tim Adams what he thinks of home Naipaul responds, “Home is, I suppose just a child’s

idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.”

The narrator has explored various themes in the travelogues like the themes of

poverty, caste system and colonisation in his books on India. But there is a gradual

acceptance in him for his ancestral land in the last travelogue on India. His attempt to

associate himself constantly with the civilisation of his forebears is initially repelling but then

accepting.


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When he comes to India in 1962, he notices, “it is the system that has to be

regenerated, the psychology of caste that has to be destroyed.” (Naipaul An Area 85). He

speaks about the caste system in India. He considered it as something that is unpleasant and

which causes not only inequality among people but also makes people anonymous and

faceless. Naipaul who was born in Trinidad felt that the caste system was a hindrance to his

effort of being a part of the Indian system and Indian identity. In the travelogue the narrator

understands how the caste system which has been the backbone of the Hindu social order has

existed in the Indian society for a long time. Caste system and Hinduism have been the

essence of India. Naipaul openly criticises the caste system and he felt that it was the reason

for the country’s lack of progress. He feels it imprisons a man in his functions. This shows

the narrator’s concern and dislike for the caste system which he believed was the only reason

for the state of decay and lack of creativity in the Indian society.

Naipaul in his second book India: A Wounded Civilization argues than Indian

civilization is wounded by various political upheavals, especially by the crisis in India which

led to the state of Emergency being declared by Indira Gandhi. The narrator continues to

explore the land of his ancestors by visiting and revisiting India. Referring to the changes that

are taking place in the country, he wants the country to accept these changes and to move on.

Naipaul journeyed India after the crisis in India’s political situation, which resulted in

the state of Emergency by Indira Gandhi. In Bombay, the narrator observes poverty, dirt,

bureaucracy and he writes about the benefits that Shiv Sena has brought in to the sanitation.

Naipaul appreciates Shiv Sena for bringing in sanitation and well-being to the slums that

were neglected by the government. The narrator seems to be impressed with the efforts taken

by Shiv Sena. Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

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There is a significant change in his understanding and expression in his second

travelogue on India. In An Area of Darkness where the writer explores the themes of poverty,

caste system and colonisation, his second travelogue goes on to develop a broader view. As

he examines the culture and people he states, “but in the present uncertainty and emptiness

there is the possibility of a true new beginning, of the emergence in India of mind, after the

long spiritual night.” (Naipaul An Area 191)

Towards his last travelogue on India, India: A Million Mutinies Now, he comes back

with a new optimism. The narrator journeys the nation with a deeper insight and

understanding. There seems to be an obvious difference in his attitude, tone and treatment.

One can see a gradual acceptance towards the country, be it the political ideology or the

socio-cultural status. On one hand the reader can see his controversial views on Gandhi in An

Area of Darkness, but on the other hand in India: A Wounded Civilization Naipaul’s views

towards Shiv Sena are excellent. This reaction to India’s radical views is a slow acceptance of

his cultural diversity. “The middle-class leadership of the Sena might talk of martial glory

and dream of political power. But at this lower and more desperate level the Sena had

become something else: a yearning for community, an ideal of self-help, men rejecting

rejection.” (Naipaul India: A Wounded 64)

In 2010, when the narrator visited Africa, in an effort to understand the cultural

context of Africa, his narratives show immense sympathy and laments the loss of the African

culture. Therefore through his discourse with the Pa-boh, he brings out the plight of their

disappearing ethos when he discusses the death of the traditional religion. He states how the

people of Africa feel insecure at the loss of their traditional religion. They believe this

situation was due to the foreign invasions in the continent. Naipaul understands how in

Africa, “Religious belief and cultural practices go hand in hand.” (Naipaul The Masque 162)

Religion plays a crucial role throughout birth, life and death in Africa.


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The narrator also shows a vast deal of compassion and understanding to explain his

subject in The Masque of Africa. His understanding of the caste system in India, compared to

his outlook towards the African culture takes a sensitive approach. He accepts the African

culture the way it is.

In the book, The Masque of Africa, the narrator disposes to identify the worst effect of

missionary imperialism from the either world religions, be it Christianity or Islam. He

explains how the complexities and conflicts in the African culture were due to the passing of

other foreign invasions. They are always seen negotiating their cultural milieu, trying to

accommodate themselves between the past and present. The narrator’s conversation with the

people in Africa brings out how they are constantly trying to adjust in the cultural world. “I

had a romantic idea of the earth religions. I felt they took us back to the beginning, a

philosophical Big Bang, and I cherished them for that reason. I thought they had a kind of

beauty. But the past here still lived.” (Naipaul The Masque 95)

To conclude, when one looks closer at Naipaul’s travelogues which encompass a

variety of linguistic narrative, variety of themes and symbolism, one cannot ignore the

change. The analysis traces the changes in his travelogues on India, from An Area of

Darkness to India: A Million Mutinies Now and presently in The Masque of Africa. These

books summarises Naipaul’s visits to India and Africa and provides a vivid account of his

views, comments, images of the country and its people. Since his identity and his position

within the world are intricate, his writings reflect a feeling of rootlessness.

Naipaul and Africa

On asked by Adrian-Rowe Evans about his journey as a writer and finding truth,

Naipaul replies,


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Even now I can often be seduced into applying a type of dramatic pattern to what I am

portraying, so that I falsify the situation as I really perceived it. Or I might be seduced

by the rhythm of the words themselves to say something which isn’t really what I see.

That’s what one is fighting against all the time. One the other hand, if I react truly to a

situation, I am reacting to what is true about it; I am discovering the truth about it.

The pursuit of honesty was not an easy one, and Naipaul recalls his journey of

becoming a writer and recognising his own voice in the interview with Adrian-Rowe Evans.

The process of discovering himself and his views is what makes him the writer he is. He

recalls how coming from a colonial background he never had a view of his own, and his

initial books mainly recorded his instant reactions to the situation. Therefore, it was his

experiences over the years that make Naipaul rediscover a whole new identity for himself.

Influences on Naipaul: Joseph Conrad

"Naipaul is (Joseph) Conrad's heir as the annalist of the destinies of empires in the

moral sense: what they do to human beings. His authority as a narrator is grounded in his

memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished."(Swedish Academy)5

Naipaul is often compared to Joseph Conrad6 in the portrayal of the colonised world

coming to terms with the intrusion of modern society. Naipaul renders the post-colonial

world about the upheavals and sufferings that haunt the mankind. In his non-fiction, he

moves in familiar adjectives like, ‘primitive’ and ‘barbaric’ which often constitute the

cultural identity of the colonised world. ‘Primitive’ here on one hand is used as a synonym

for ‘early’ and ‘elementary’, at other times it is used to indicate underdevelopment or pre-

industrial economic conditions. In A Bend in the River he states, “Without Europeans, I feel,

5 The speech by Swedish Academy on announcing 2001Nobel prize in literature. 6 Joseph Conrad, Polish born English novelist.


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all our past would have been washed away, like the scuff marks of fishermen as the beach

outside out town.” (Naipaul 11)

The novel is a darkening portrayal of the continent, suggesting the inhabitants to

return to their primitive condition. This is similar to Conradian theme of echoing the past in

the present. It is the portrayal of human sufferings and the themes of exile and rootlessness

that draws similarity between Conrad and Naipaul although Conrad wrote in the days of

European empires and Naipaul writes in post colonisation era. Naipaul is compared to Conrad

not only by his critics but also by the ones who praise his work. Reviewing Half a Life, Paul

Theroux7 states, “But the fact is that, even though I have suggested that personally Naipaul is

a sourpuss, a cheapskate and a blamer, I have the highest regard for his work. He is, like

Conrad, a most serious and self-conscious writer; everything he writes is freighted with

intention and every word deliberately chosen.” (Theroux).

But in The Masque of Africa which is a quest to understand the African belief, the

narrator deviates from the Conradian style, who is referred to several times in the book.

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Naipaul’s A Bend in the River are linked to each other at

many levels. Both are set somewhere around Congo river. Both the novels seem to be dealing

with human nature. A Bend in the River shows how Africa is a troubled continent. It shows

the difficulty Africa faces to emerge into a democracy, to disavow violence and corruption

and how they cast a shadow on human souls. The first writer Seeparsad Naipaul8 introduced

little Naipaul to as a child was Joseph Conrad. Conrad seems to be the right motivation for

Naipaul, who always wanted to be a writer someday but was finding it difficult to start.

7 Paul Theroux , American travel writer and novelist.8 Seepersad Naipaul (1906- 1953) Indo Trinidadian writer and the father of V S Naipaul. He worked as a journalist in Trinidad Guardian.


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“Conrad the late starter, holding out hope to those who didn’t seem to be starting at

all.” (Naipaul The Return 199).

Conrad was a British subject of Polish origin, and Naipaul born to Hindu parents,

assimilated to British culture. Both portray the disillusionment about Africa in their books.

Therefore Edward Said not only denounces Naipaul but also Conrad. In his book Joseph

Conrad and Fictions of Autobiography, Said uses the author's personal letters as a benchmark

to understand his fiction and draws parallel on Conrad’s life and his stories. Said understands

how Conrad sets his fiction on exotic locations of the Third World, and this must be

understood well while reading the Western Literature. However in The Masque of Africa,

Naipaul returns to the continent to understand the traditional religion that survived the

conquests of Christianity and Islam. “Perhaps an unspoken aspect of my inquiry was the

possibility of the subversion of old Africa by the ways of the outside world.” (Naipaul “The

Masque”1)

Naipaul also often refers to John Hanning Speke (1827-1865), David Livingstone

(1813-1873), Richard Burton (1821-1890), Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1890), Mungo Park

(1771- 1806), Mary Kingsley (1862- 1904), Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) and Paul Belloni

Du Chaillu (1831- 1903). They were explorers and writers who travelled across Africa and

wrote about the continent as exotic and sensuous. They perceived the continent as the ‘Dark

Continent’ and opened up the continent to the West. What draws parallel between Naipaul

and these contemporaries were that they all travelled to the continent and wrote what they

experienced, but there is certainly a thin line of difference that make his books an authentic

piece of information. Therefore in conversation with Ray Suarez in Online News Hour

interview, when asked about his travelogues Naipaul states, “It didn't... they were not strictly

about me traveling. They were about the people I was among. And they weren't about great

characters; they were about cultures, civilizations.”


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What makes the narrator stand apart from other writers is his authority over language,

sentences and the subject, although this does not come easy for him. This realisation leads

him successfully say more than one thing in the same space. This is what that makes his work

interesting rather than a flat statement of facts. The narrator knew that there would be a

search for what would represent a voice in language. He shows extreme ability to examine

the continent in depth. He tours the continent to get to the original problem of the inhabitants.

Therefore, his travelogues are always a challenge which he seems to have skilfully overcome

through these years.

Naipaul’s Africa: Then and Now

“Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was

a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.” (Said 204) Said’s works in the

second half of the twentieth century proved influential on the intellectuals from all over the

world in several academic disciplines. Said argued how all Europeans have been ethnocentric

and racist including those who pretend to have purely scholarly interest. Said’s intense

hostility to European countries generalising the non-Europeans countries is evident in his

book Orientalism which challenged the difference between the East and the West. He argues

that the world was divided into the Occident and the Orient by the Europeans. Occident was

portrayed as the civilised, and the Orient the uncivilised and exotic.

Said states how Naipaul, “is a third worlder denouncing his own people, not because

they are victims of imperialism, but because they seem to have an innate flaw which is that

they are not whites.” [1986b: 79].


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Naipaul and the colonised world are interlinked. Naipaul’s works in the fifties focus

largely on the portraying of “the Other” which consisted of his travels in the non-European

states. Naipaul’s idea of writing has developed over the years.

Cut off from his tradition, motherland and culture, he confesses that, “the society I

came from was colonial, and was originally a slave society to which later, people like

myself, from Asia, went. There was a double inferiority about it: the slave society

which created nothing, which depended for everything on the master society—and the

Asiatic living in this closer society of myth.” (Hamner 49).

Naipaul’s upbringing in a Hindu upper caste colony of indenture labourers impels him

to reclaim the past. Naipaul might appear strong on the surface but remains uprooted and

divided deep within.

Naipaul and his preoccupation with the Third World are reviewed, and some see no

authenticity in his portrayal of the Third World. Said accuses Naipaul of constantly finding

faults in the Third World. He is constantly seen promoting the West in spite of his personal

displacement. It is Naipaul’s unsympathetic understanding of the postcolonial nations, against

the backdrop of decolonisation that repels Said. In An Area of Darkness, the narrative ends

with, “Shiva has ceased to dance”, which means that India is doomed and there seem to be no

scope for progress. The narrator’s judgement is often considered merciless and cruel. But by

the time he wrote India: A Million Mutinies Now he finds redeeming changes in India, he

sees the mutinies in India as a positive change in India. Shiva seems to have begun to dance

again in his latest book on India.

Unlike in A Bend in the River, the narrator no longer presents the continent as exotic

and dark. His approach towards the continent seems to be sympathetic and understanding.


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There is a constant effort made to associate him with the continent. In a pursuit of

understanding the African belief, the narrator attempts to understand the follies of the

colonial and postcolonial conditions rather than simply portray rejection of their failures.

“Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and

eat things no other humans eat.” (Wainaina 1). Wainaina in How to Write About Africa

wonders why there is a preconceived notion about Africa by the rest of the world. He seems

to be disturbed by such strong opinion about the continent and the representation of the

continent by the world today. He ponders around whether the preconceived notion about the

continent is the best measure of what the continent could be. He explains how the

romanticised version of the continent has become the understanding of the place. There seem

to be no rationality in the description. It makes the continent distanced from reality, struck in

the past. The continent is losing its identity by not getting a position in the presence.

Wainaina in his book states, “The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands,

savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your

descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.” (Wainaina 1). It is a satirical work,

possibly a passive agitation towards all those who have attempted to write about Africa.

Wainaina understands that there are many young writers in Africa who have begun to get a

voice in the world, and who have begun to represent a complete continent that it is now.

However, he criticises travelogues on Africa by non-Africans, and makes his point with a

great deal of wit and style. He does not conform to the idea that Africa is falling off the edge.

Wainaina on Naipaul’s The Masque of Africa states,

[Naipaul] is attentive to and gives voice to people, all sorts of people…. In The

Masque of Africa, Naipaul uses himself as a character only as a way for us to see others

through his conflicts, moods, ears, eyes, and biases. And in between his scenes of sharply


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observed interactions, we are always surrounded by the people of the continent talking.

(Wainaina)

The narrator treats the continent with patience and compassion. He states, “I wanted

to know about the royal tradition of music making. There was so much about it in Speke.”

(Naipaul The Masque 270). The narrator does not want Africa to be remembered as a

resonance, he understands that its existence is not a myth. He wants the place to be

recognised by its existence. Therefore, he presents Africa with real people and their struggle

against the socio-economic conditions. His records of experiences in the continent, sympathy

for the animals and the quest to expose the difficulties faces by the inhabitants earned

Naipaul appreciation from Wainaina.

Although, at the onset, one finds narrator’s sole objective is to unearth the mysteries

of the Orient, but in his latest travelogue, one can notice visible change in his portrayal of the

‘Orient’. His non-fiction depicts truth. He believes that the people who he writes about should

be able to see the truth of it. His works are not only his observation of his experience but also

draws an allegorical narrative through his inner vision.

For the narrator it has been a journey from one identity to another. It is his Caribbean

past that helps him connect to India and Africa. The ‘Orient’ no more seems to be the

‘Orient’ for him, his understanding is changing. He tries to find a unified self in the continent.

He narrator tries to find a home in India and Africa and this is closely related to his Caribbean

identity.

The Masque of Africa, his 31st book sees the narrator in his seventies still going strong

and tireless. He journeys across the continent from Uganda to Nigeria then Gabon via Ivory

Coast, Ghana and finally South Africa. He discourses with various people, the pharmacist,


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businessmen, teacher, queen, chief, academicians, and writers shows that there still exists an

educated class in the continent. The narrator knows Africa well, since he has travelled

throughout the continent before. It is certainly a familiar ground to him. He has lived and

worked in East Africa. His early books on Africa were fictions In A Free State (1971), he

raises the argument beyond geographical boundaries, above success and social positions. The

book consists of two novellas. Besides the sense of alienation what threads the stories

together is the search for what causes the destructive impulse in a human being. The story is

set in the capital of an unnamed African continent. A Bend in the River (1979) a novel that

centres on Salim, an Indian Muslim and his constant attempt to find survival and finally his

catastrophic failure. Half a Life (2001) is the story of Willie Somerset Chandran who travels

to England for education, marries a girl from the African country, begins a life in colonial

Mozambique and only leaves after the country gets independence.

Naipaul: ‘the Self’s’ quest to find ‘the Other’

According to Fanon “the Other” constantly attempts at reaching a position which

enables him to stand across “the Self”, not in an hierarchy but as equals. It is this attempt that

defines the importance and empowerment of “the Self” over “the Other”. In wanting to

imitate the white man “the Other” often accords a superior position and existence to the

white. The acknowledgement of the superiority of “the Self” and the internalisation of “the

Self” and the awareness of the radical distinctiveness of the other often leads to a conflict. It

is important to note however, how the egocentric view of reality make one view “the Self”

and “the Other” as separate units, which is fluctuating in nature; thus it can shift positions.

The concept that “the Self” requires “the Other” and that both are interdependent on each


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other, was first built by Hegel9. The German philosopher depicted the idea in his most

famous parable of the master slave dialect. Frantz Fanon presents a similar master slave

relationship in his book Black Skin White Masks (1952) as he states, “Man is human onto to

the extent to which he tries to impose his existence on another man in order to be recognised

by him.” (Fanon 216) Many later instrumented the concept of “the Self” and “the Other”. It

was Edward Said10 who later advocated this theory to emphasize the marginalised group, and

how “the Other” ing can be done with the marginalised race, ethnic group and religion.

“Identity is not in the past to be found, but in the future to be constructed.” (Hall).

There is a constant quest in Naipaul to construct an identity and a sense of belonging. He

presents traces of multifaceted cultures, probably because he was an Indian immigrant in

Trinidad. Naipaul was brought up in Trinidad, a continent consisting of Indians, African and

Creole. He studied in Oxford and lives in Britain. Therefore, he is unable to attach himself to

any singular identity. That could be the reason why Naipaul’s initial travelogues and fiction

portray the Third World as “the Other”. To write about the Third World, he adopted the

convenient position of “the Self” for himself.

“The English are so queer people. Take it from me. The longer you live in England,

the more queer they appear. There is something so orderly, and yet so adventurous about

them, so ruttish, so courageous.” (Naipaul Letters 63)

Naipaul always lived the life of an outsider, and his upbringing made him bold with

every deprivation. It was the scholarship to Oxford that brought him to London. It was the

determination afterwards which sustained him to become a writer. Although later in life

Naipaul dwells on why his father could not be successful, these thoughts remain within as an

9 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770- 1831) German philosopher and creator of German idealism. Phenomenology of Spirit is his most celebrated work. 10 Edward Said in his book Orientalism discusses the difference between east and west and how the Europeans defined themselves as superior and all the others inferior.


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experience and a lesson to be kept in mind during his career progress. Naipaul battles his way

to come to Oxford; he knew that his dream to becoming a writer would be fulfilled only in

England. And it was during this time on the threshold of his career the collection of letters

record all his experiences in Oxford. Although the major part of these collections is

discussions on money, cigarettes and girls he is with. The one thing that the collection well

demonstrates is the influence the father has on the son; Seepersad is constantly seen

supporting and encouraging his son to become a writer. This could probably be considered

Naipaul’s first attempt to become a writer.

“I came to London. It had become the centre of my world and I had worked hard to

come to it. And I was lost.” (Naipaul An Area 42) He comes to London, thinking that this was

the city of his imagination, but on arriving he felt cold and lost. However, if one tries to

understand why there is a constant struggle of “the Self” and

“the other” in him, one can realise that it comes from his root identity of remaining displaced.

He neither can conform to the African culture, the Creole existence nor the Indian in him.

There seems to be a constant flux. Therefore one must understand if there is a “the Self” in

the narrator. “The Self” in him comes only from the constant effort he made to move out of

Trinidad to get into the Oxford. Living in Britain, Naipaul tries to blanket all the other

identities in him. “The Self” seem to be just a projection that overshadows “the Other” in

him. “The Other” that is in the African, Creole and Indian identity. It is noticed how in his

portrayal of Africa, there are parts in the novel where it seems difficult for him to shed the

‘Self’. In various parts of the novel, he tends to remain a foreigner to the continent, someone

from West, a traveller who is constantly seen despising the places he travels. “There was a

certain amount of street rubbish that foot of their sculpture. This didn’t imply rejection or

neglect; it was just the African way, as I had grown to recognise.” (Naipaul The Masque 102)Property of Christ University.


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Bhabha insisted that cultural and political identity is constructed through a process of

‘othering’. (Bhabha 219) Speaking about the responsibility of an intellectual, Bhabha states

how an intellectual must examine and speak for the marginalised. In his discourse with the

Rawlings they talk about the importance of the spiritual quality of language and lament, “If

you use language as a tool to suppress the people it will lose all its spirituality. There is a

special quality to the language of our ancestors, and we have lost that by having another

language imposed on us.” (Naipaul The Masque 191)

The narrator in the book explains the importance of the mother tongue. He observes

how the essence of the African language has lost its value due to foreign invasions. He can

see “the Other” in him. In The Masque of Africa, he is seen shedding the ‘Self’ in him and

letting ‘the other’ in him relate and communicate with the continent. He tries to rebuild for

himself an identity, and this shows his strong internal struggle.

Defining African Belief

The American Heritage Dictionary defines beliefs as, “Something believed or

accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of

persons.” Beliefs are conviction and confidence that lets a person move on and live his or her

life. Beliefs are formed in a person from his or her childhood. These beliefs form the bedrock

of one’s life. These beliefs within a human being help to remain committed and positioned to

ones goals. Once the beliefs are built in an individual, it is difficult to change the way of

thinking. Once these thoughts are held within oneself for a long time it becomes beliefs.

Beliefs are the assumptions that one makes about the world around him, and since it

comes to one at childhood it seems to be deep rooted within the individual. From the top,

each person might have a different belief and a different attitude towards life and the world

outside. However, deep within all seem to develop their beliefs systems in the similar way


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from practice to habit and commitment. Beliefs are nothing but a mixture of religious and

cultural systems. “Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of

good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” (Russell)

To understand the narrator one must concentrate first on the relationship he shares

with the various cultural and social groups of the places he travels to. Also, one must try and

analyse the beliefs within him. He wanted to go back to Africa because it was the place that

inspired his masterpiece novel A Bend in the River. He seems to have gone back to search or

get the creativity to produce another masterpiece. One can easily relate the narrator with the

central character in the book Salim. In The Masque of Africa, he travels through the continent

and meets different people with whom he interacts. People like Susan, the writer, Habib a

Muslim businessman share the same views and confusion as the narrator himself.

Pa-Boh, Queen Mother, Prince and Kojo echo the effects of colonisation. Pa-boh was

a Christian by birth, but their house and church were burnt down by the villagers and he was

pushed into the bush with his family. Later Pa-boh claimed to have been possessed by the

Holy Spirit and sets up his church again to raise his children as Christians and keeps them

away from traditional religion. Pa-boh expresses the despair and helplessness of the post-

colonial experience.

The narrator in brief also talks about Ashanti. Ashanti is people who live

predominantly in Ghana. Ashanto was a large empire in West Africa, even before

colonisation. Ashanti was one of the few African states who was able to offer serious

resistance to European colonisers. To do the same they aligned themselves with the Dutch to

avoid the influence of the British. Naipaul encounters Kojo who was an Ashanti.

Surprisingly Kojo sends his boys to Eton and Naipaul does not miss to mention that to the

readers.


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In the travelogue the narrator tries to relate the present Africa to the Africa of the

nineteenth century. Africa might still be a mystery for the outsiders, at the onset of the novel

it looks like a western prejudice towards the continent. He observes how amongst the new

world religion, the traditional is still alive. “When darkness comes to the forest there is no

sound. But at night there are different sounds or noises that come from animal hunting. The

night plus the noise make up our mentality, because people are linked to everything in the

forest” (Naipaul The Masque 220). The narrator brings out the essence of the continent which

he understands is in the forest. The forests connect people to their beliefs and life.

He has travelled all over the Third World explaining the various aspects of life there,

but he ends up dealing with the identity crisis of an individual. In A House for Mr Biswas,

Naipaul explores the various phases of Mr Biswas’s life and his is struggle to build a house.

This novel is partly autobiographical as one can relate Mr Biswas to Seepersad and his

traumas to find a purpose in life. Similarly, through his discourse with various individuals he

brings out the identity crisis in them.

Naipaul experiences alienation and exile while living in Trinidad, therefore, he

addresses the problems of alienation and exile in his fiction and non-fiction. His depicts the

marginalised who wants to identify his place in the world. Therefore the narrator through his

travels tries to find his own roots in the socio cultural environment around him. Naipaul has

been often criticised of using the western outlook to analyse and understand the Third World.

His travelogues always have a historical sketch to which he thematically connects the life that

exists in the country. He usually seem to have a very clear theme to all his travel, be it

Beyond Belief in which he intends to understand the people, and he clearly states how the

book is not of the opinion. Although as one reads the book, the idea is not as strong, but in

The Masque of Africa, he sets off for a journey to understand the belief system in Africa.


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However, as one reads the book one notices how Naipaul not just travels the continent to

understand the belief system but also shows willingness to authenticate it to his readers.

In his books, the narrator portrays the complexities of the relationship and the

inability to escape from it. This could be related to his own personal life. He believes that

one’s social identity completely depends on society, and therefore; he is on a move to sustain

and stabilise him. The narrator portrays that man who suffers against the hostility and still

puts up with it instead of running away from it.

The narrator’s return to Africa centres on the central idea of how centuries of

colonisation have failed to erase the African tradition, rituals and culture. To him, the

colonised world is characterised by disorder which has been his concern during his visits to

India, Africa and Asia. It was in Gabon that the museum curator tells the narrator about a

harp, a Gombi, the strings of which was made from the intestines of the “first ancestors, the

first men who lived in the forest.” (Naipaul) He seems to be deeply affected by this and it is

here that the narrator finds what he said he came to Africa to look for.

Africa being the world’s second largest continent takes the centre stage in history and

the development of life on earth from the perspective of geologists and palaeontologist. It not

only possesses the world’s richest deposits of minerals like gold, uranium, platinum and

diamonds but is also the birthplace of many animals and plants.

Mary Kingsley11 in her book Travels in West Africa, states, “My ignorance regarding

West Africa was soon removed. And although the vast cavity in my mind that it occupied is

not even yet half filled up, there is a great deal of very curious information in its place.”

(Kingsley 8). At the onset she sounds a little curious, but she makes a remarkable effort to

write about her views on African problems and issues at that time. Unlike her, Naipaul is

11 Marty Kingsley (1862-1900) English writer and explorer.


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often seen going back to the continent and this could be because the idea of discovering a

culture is what attracted him.

The narrator’s constant reference to the history of the place makes his travelogues

authentic, and factual in nature. Throughout his travel through the continent the narrator

constantly refers to Kabakas, Ashanti and Babalawo12. The travelogue is well informed and

the narrator seems to have researched well about the continent by the time he has finished the

travelogue. He has constantly been in a search that could be the reason why he is constantly

seen travelling. The writer is seen as an outsider who wants to “overcome his environment by

recording whatever he sees.” (Arlart) His past is deep inside him, and no matter how much

he travels and portrays himself to be insensitive and arrogant; he does not seem to have

forgotten his past. This could be the reason why Naipaul in the travelogues is constantly seen

recollecting his memories of the continent even at this age.

The narrator seems to be making his point clear when he lays down his mission clear

on subverting old Africa, by the ways of the outside world. There certainly is a change in his

attitude towards the continent compared to the previous interview Conversation with V S

Naipaul with Elizabeth Hardwick13, when in response to her question, “What is the future, in

Africa?” Naipaul replies “Africa has no future.” This reflects how the narrator’s

understanding towards the continent has changed. At this point in his career his views seem

to satisfy the expectation of an audience of the Third World. Moreover, there is a changing

identity in him which is a part of his changing understanding of the African culture.

Looking back over the half century of works by Naipaul, one can see that his purpose

has been to give shape to his longings. He longed to belong to a place. His initial works seem

12 Kabaka is the title given to the king of Buganda. Ashanti are Akan people who live predominantly in Ghana. Babalawo are Yorùbá title that denotes Priest of Ifa. 13 Elizabeth Hardwick (1916- 2007), American literary critic, novelist and short story writer.


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to be critical of the Third World, but over time Naipaul longs to belong to the continent.

Naipaul’s sense of rootlessness finds security and comfort in the continent. It is appropriate

that Naipaul’s book revolves around the forest that is the central and guiding symbol of the

novel. The fear of extinction haunts Naipaul and he wishes the forests were never cut down.

Stuart Hall in Who needs Identity? claims, “never singular but multiple, constructed

across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.”(4)

Hall states that the position of identity can be connected with the conceptions of history, time

and discourse. He explains how the identities are constructed within and not outside

representation and discourse and it is produced in specific historical scenario.

The writers extensive travelling makes his position in the society unfixed. He also

shows immense strength in managing the multiplicity in cultural identities. Although he is

often seen satisfied in the state of exile, in his latest book one can notice the solitude he

expresses in belonging to the continent.

In The Masque of Africa the narrator presents different time, places and situations and

tries to put together the puzzle and rewrite about the continent. Although he states in the

beginning of the book that to write about the belief system he has taken into consideration the

notion of colonisation, decolonisation, history, culture and race. The constant shift from the

present to past and vice versa shows the internal chaos in Naipaul although he constantly tries

to resolve the chaos.

Naipaul returns to the continent to write about how deep are the wounds of the

colonisation. He comes back to investigate if the African religion survived the conquests of

Christianity and Islam. Christianity came to the continent of Africa first in the early first and

second century AD. Islam came to the continent by the mid-seventh century. It was observed


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that the European colonialists in many cases adopted Muslim law as a unifying administrative

structure, rather than the primitive and often challenging tribal customs of their artificially

separated colonies. Islam has gained more converts in Africa than has Christianity. Some take

this lack of scriptures as a reason to assume that people in Africa were not capable of a

religious observance.

In A Bend in the River the narrator portrays an Africa, unlike it is by the West. He

brings out the old Africa and the new Africa which includes the European ideas and beliefs

with the old African ways of life. His interaction with the locales there tells the audience that

there exists an African intellectual class. In Nigeria the narrator meets Adesina, who is the apt

example of being in a state of confusion. Adesina’s father an African by birth converted to

Christianity but never understood the Latin Church services; therefore, when he meets the

Arab they convince him to become a Muslim. Adesina grew up as a Muslim, but remained

open minded about Christian practices. After retirement Adesina now runs a traditional

African church in his house. The narrator observes how natives like Adesina remain amused

to the aftermath of colonisation.

Writing about the newspaper articles in Africa, the narrator attributes all the crimes in

the continent to this feeling of being torn in between two situations and religions. This

situation not only makes one feel insecure about the self but also drives one to extremes. By

quoting the newspaper articles, the narrator gives the audience a picture of the political

situation of the continent. It is typical of his style to condemn the political situation of the

Third World he travels, be it India, Africa or Pakistan. He states how creating a proper

economy for Africa was itself a difficult task. “There would be no jobs for most of the

children we could see—some dawdling on the way home now, killing time in spite of the

heat.”(Naipaul)


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The narrator’s personality as a travel writer develops, and his understanding of the

island is a part of his changing identity. He is able to successfully articulate his fluid identity

in terms of his postcolonial cultural perspective. He states in Finding the Centre,

[t]o travel was glamorous. But travel also made unsuspected demands on me as a man

and a writer, and perhaps for that reason it soon became a necessary stimulus for me.

It broadened my world view; it showed me a changing world and took me out of my

colonial shell ; it became the substitute for the mature social experience- the

deepening knowledge of a society – which my background and the nature of my life

denied me…I learned to look in my own way. (Naipaul Finding 10-11)


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Chapter- 4

Conclusion

From the point of view of post-colonial identity the dissertation has attempted to study the

process of the narrator’s transformation and changing from reaching for a single cultural

identity, to the loss of identity and finally to the reconstruction of his cultural identity with

special reference to his latest book titled The Masque of Africa. The writer was constantly

seen shifting his centers and the study has attempted to understand the three dimensional

view of “the Self” and “the Other” in the narrator. He also voices out the postcolonial identity

of Africa through the portrayal of forests, music making, witch craft and magic. He brings out

truly the essence of Africa.

Naipaul who was constantly criticized for the Englishness in him has finally been

successful to bring out the cultural hybridity in his narratives through the portrayal of

multiculturalism in Africa. With the development in the postcolonial theory and practice

there have been a number of studies on him which has turned from the text to the researches

on the postcolonial identification in his works. The study has reviewed several of Naipaul’s

texts from his journalistic writing, interviews, statements, letters, quotes, fictions to

travelogues.

The narrator can be seen as a person who is frantically travelling in the forests of

Africa looking for something which he has still not found. He seems to be looking for his

own being and this could be the reason for him to be constantly on a move. He looks like an

incomplete man. He seems to be constantly rebuking the Third World and that could be the

reason why he keeps going back. “We had independence and we lost it. We have never

recovered from the years of destruction that followed independence.” (Naipaul The Masque

59)


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The Masque of Africa is a full length non-fiction on Africa which is a quest through

the continent to understand the spirit of African belief and also to analyse how the arrival of

Christianity and Islam has affected the traditional religion of the continent.

“It has taken me a long time to come round to Conrad. And if I begin with an account

of his difficulty, it is because I have to be true to my experience of him. I would find it hard

to be detached about Conrad” (Naipaul The Return 171). Naipaul closely relates to Conrad in

terms of his experience, style and being one of the few writers Naipaul was introduced to, by

his father. Although Naipaul’s narrative aim was to autograph the darkness that his

contemporaries had understood and written about Africa, in his latest work The Masque of

Africa he takes a different stand. He questions the fundamental views of African beliefs. The

travel marks a fresh territory and shows a mellowed down Naipaul. He navigates the conflicts

and complexities of the traditional culture and understands how the loss has affected the

people of Africa who are constantly seen negotiating their cultural world. He journeys the

continent of Africa to understand the belief system and lament the loss of a traditional

religion but there is certainly something very moving and disturbing about the travel.

The study has also chosen Naipaul’s travelogues on India, An Area of Darkness,

India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now to understand the

transformation in his writing. The reason for considering his travelogues on India and Africa

is to understand that the change is gradual over the years of writing and travelling. He is seen

making a constant effort to revive back and live a normal life, but somehow deep within him

is very fragmented and this is very evident in his works.

There has been a considerable rise in the study of postcolonial theory and cultural

studies and in such a scenario, Naipaul’s works and his understanding of the Third World saw

an immense rise. For Naipaul, the marginalised has never been a subject of imagination; he


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has always been factual and precise in his data collection that makes his work authentic. He

believes in personally travelling and staying in these countries before he even attempts to

write about them.

The first part of the analysis titled ‘Changing Landscapes and Mindscapes in the

works of V S Naipaul with Particular Reference to The Masque of Africa’ focuses on proving

that there has been a considerable change in the narrator’s understanding of the ‘Orient’ and

to prove the same his trilogy on India, An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization

and India: A Million Mutinies Now have been considered. The change in the attitude has been

traced in his trilogy on India using language, imagery and theme. ‘Language and Identity’

traces how the narrator’s portrayal of the Third World has changed over the years. The

chapter examines the use of language in his travelogues. The analysis has further traced the

similar change in his latest travelogue The Masque of Africa. He signifies India with

‘defecate’, ‘poverty’ initially but towards his last travelogue on India it changes to a positive

note. He now notices positivity in India; a similar attitude is seen in his latest book The

Masque of Africa.

‘Shifting Images’ analyses how there is a considerable change in his portrayal of the

‘Orient’ in his books. His depiction of the country in his early travelogues are bleak and drab,

but towards his last travelogue on India and the latest one on Africa, his understanding of the

Third World seems to have changed. Although Naipaul in his earlier travelogues on India has

only been stating how one should leave behind the past and move on to the present, there

seems to be a considerable shift in his approach towards the last travelogue on India. This is

similar to his handling the continent in his latest travelogue on Africa. Although he feels one

must reinvent and rejuvenate, he is seen reiterating the old African ways and how they must

be preserved.


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‘Thematic Motif’ discusses how the narrator was seen exploring the themes of

poverty, colonisation and homelessness in his initial travelogues but in his latest travelogues

he employs the themes of energy, mutinies and beliefs. The narratives might still be dealing

with the colonised world and similar themes, but what the themes convey has seen a shift. He

is seen travelling the continent with a deeper insight. Towards the end of the first part of

analysis, the research is able to successfully prove that there has been a change in narrators

understanding of the ‘Orient’.

The second part ‘Naipaul and Africa’ is divided into four parts. ‘Influences on

Naipaul: Joseph Conrad’ examines how the writer is often compared to Conrad. The chapter

analyses that Naipaul’s knowledge of the continent comes from his extensive reading of

Conrad. Thus in his early novel on Africa A Bend in the River, the theme is of echoing the

past in the present. But in the latest travelogue on Africa, he is seen deviating from the

Conradian style.

‘Naipaul’s Africa: Then and Now’ examines how through the changes the narrative

brings out the depiction and understanding of Africa as a changed cultural entity. ‘Naipaul:

‘the Self’s’ Quest to Find ‘the other’’ has examined the instability, alienation and the inner

struggle of the narrator. But his latest travelogue marked the evident shift in attitude and

response in him when he portrays “the Self” and the “Other”14. He certainly sees a replica of

the Caribbean when it comes to cultural displacement, but in this book the narrator is able to

shed the ‘Self’ in him to let ‘the other’ relate to the continent. Since The Masque of Africa is

his latest book, the study will help and add to the understanding of Naipaul’s earlier works.

“The Self” is an overpowering entity and imposes the necessity to wear the white

mask. However, the necessity to wear a mask itself shows that there is a hidden “Other” that

14 Self and the Other was used by Hegel to introduce the Master- Slave dialect in his famous work Phenomenology of Spirit.


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needs to be masked. In the case of the narrator here, that “Other” is trying to peek through the

edges and find a voice that separates its definition from the white mask. Nevertheless, this

masked “Other” has an organic cord which is attached to the core of “the Self”. Therefore

any attempt at separating one from the other is a futile, because their very conceptualisation

emerges from each other. So in order to merge the two, which is exactly what the narrator is

trying to do, there need exists a negotiation between these two opposing poles. In The

Masque of Africa this negotiation occurs at two levels. First, when the narrator tries to

unmasque the new identity of Africa. In doing so, the narrator brings out the Africa that has

found a middle ground to amalgamate its traditional understanding of life with its aspiration

to be recognised globally. Second, the narrator himself a post-colonial subject submerges

with other post-colonial entities and embraces their as well as his own reality. However, this

acceptance happens in accordance with the understanding that their realities find a sense of

completion, only when “the Self” dissolves itself along with “the Other” and not abate the

other.

‘Defining African Belief’ sets in to prove what could be the reason for this change in

attitude and understanding of the ‘Orient’. This section has discussed his most recent

travelogue The Masque of Africa in detail, and has analysed the old African culture, belief

system, the forests and how the narrator sets in to bring back to the readers how Africa is

losing its essence with new religions and new ways. There is a visible identification between

the changes in Africa and the change in the narratives. This mirrors the personality of the

narrator. This changing identity is a part of his understanding of African tradition. Naipaul’s

fictions have characters that constantly remain uprooted from the surrounding; finding no

strong base to hold on, therefore through his non-fiction Naipaul has tried to fix an identity.

In his non-fictions, Naipaul through his various discourse with the locales bring about the

fragmented identities, who look torn between various cultures and remain uprooted like him.


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The Masque of Africa brings out the postcolonial voice of Africa. There is certainly

something more meandering and subtle in his approach in The Masque of Africa where he

repents the slow death of a traditional religion.

In The Masque of Africa, through his various discourse with the locals he allows them

to speak at length about their views on magic and the influence of the supernatural in their

lives. The narratives constantly depicts religious picture of different communities in the

continent. The narrator certainly finds it critical since he discovers the difference between

what they believe and what they do. He observes how religion constantly plays an important

role to dominate the mind-set of the people and their lifestyle. He also states how many of

them still feel the emptiness within them with their old African religion being washed off.

Naipaul has been an important figure in the postcolonial studies and it is interesting to

note how the new generation of postcolonial writers like Adichie and Desai keep referring to

the works of Naipaul in their novels.

The research however does not encompass the political implications since the scope

of study does not allow the same. But further study of the political implication would

certainly make a good study in itself. A detailed study on the African tradition and religion

within the context of The Masque of Africa will add to a better understanding of Naipaul and

his works. A comparative study on his Caribbean travelogues and The Masque of Africa is

also a possibility for further study.

For Naipaul the time he spent and taught in Uganda marks a return. He comes back to

the place after 1960s. But there seems to be a certain amount of maturity and mellowness in

Naipaul in this particular travelogue. The book blankets “the Self” in the narrator which has

always been projected in his other works. The new attitude that he portrays towards the


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continent brings him back to his beginning. He is seen shedding the Self in him and

embracing his beginning, i.e. his Caribbean roots. He is able to retrace his identity in a

backdrop that corresponds to his Caribbean roots.

Naipaul is seen trying to stamp an identity while sifting through the sands of

postcolonial terrains. He attempts to harmonise the many selves existing within him. He sets

out to achieve this in a post-colonial context. “After a certain age, the traveller stops looking

for another life and takes nothing for granted.” (Theroux 485)

Through the process of masking and unmasking the distance between “the Self” and

“the Other” is dissolved to an extent that it often merges into one or loses sight of either. This

journey from the Oriental masks to the unmasking exposes and unravels the regressive

progression of “the Other” in rediscovering his/her roots. In The Masque of Africa the

narrative is infused with a strong sense and aura of release and liberation, celebration and

awareness. As established through the research this regression of “the Other” by denouncing

the Oriental mask leads to the path of recognition of what constitutes the identity of “the

Other”. However, since the Oriental masking becomes an inherent part of the identification of

“the Other”, traces of the same remain. This is in no way discarding or denouncing of “the

Self” or the white man but a glimpse and reconciliation of “the Other”. The mask stays but

the one behind does not remain unknown anymore.

The echoes of loss evident in The Masque of Africa comes a full circle when the need

to trace it back to its origin arises. In doing so, the narrator, who is “the Other”, negotiates an

understanding and accords a place to this new culture that is an amalgamation of a continuum

of life. The narrator does not attempt to place this continuum in opposition or with any

absolute but lets it stand on its own. There is still the need in the narration that showcases the Property of Christ University.


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narrator as an over indulgent being preoccupied not just with the loss of an old culture but

also looking forward to a movement towards a replica of what is lost.


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Hassan, D Z. “The Messianic Leader in V S Naipaul’s West Indian Works”, International

Fiction Review, 1988. Web. 12 July 2011.

Hall, Stuart. The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power, Formation of Modernity,

Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007. Print.

---. Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’?. Question of cultural identity. Eds. S Hall and P du

Guy. Vols. London: Sage. 1997. Web. 19 Sep. 2011.

---. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A

Reader. Ed. Patrick William and Chrisman. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.

392- 402. Print. Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

85

Hardwick, Elizabeth. “Meeting with V S Naipaul”. New York Times Book Review, 13 May

1979, 1, 36. Web. 14 Aug. 2011.

Hunwick O John(ed) Religion and National Integration I Africa: Islam, Christianity and

Politics in the Sudan and Nigeria, Evanston: Northwestern University press, 1992.

Web. 12 Aug. 2011.

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Kingsley, Mary. Travels in West Africa. 4th ed. London : Virago Press, 1982. Web. 1 June

2011.

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(1996): 617 - 28. Web. 3 Aug. 2011.

Mohan, C R. Postcolonial Situation in the Novels of V S Naipaul, Atlantic Publisher and

Distributors, 2004. Web. 14 July 2011.

Malak, “Naipaul’s Vulcanisation of Travel and Fiction Paradigms”, Atlantic Literary Review.

2001. Web. 15 June 2011.

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---. Finding the Centre. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1985.Print.

---. The Enigma of Arrival. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Viking, Penguin, 1987. Print.Property of Christ University.


86

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---. India: A Wounded Civilization. London: Andre Deutsch, 1977. Print.

---. An Area of Darkness. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Print.

---. India: A Million Mutinies Now. London: Heinemann, 1990. Print.

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---. Conrad’s Darkness. In: The Return of Eva Peron. New York : Alfred A.Knopf, 171-204.

Web. 2 Aug. 2011.

---. Between Father and Son. Family Letters. Edited by Gillon Aitken. New York: Vintage

Books. 1999. Web. 14 June 2011.

---. “On Being a Writer”, New York Review of Books, 23 Apr 1987: 7. Web. 10 Aug. 2011.

Adam, Tim. “A Home for Mr Naipaul”, The Observer. Sep. 12, 2004. Web. 2 June 2011.

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Nixon, Rob. “London Calling: V.S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin”. New York: Oxford UP,

1992. Web. 4 Aug. 2011.

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Veer, University of Pennislavia Press, 1993. Print.

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Publisher and Distributors: New Delhi, 2002. Web. 20 June 2011.Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

87

Said, Edward. Islam through Western Eyes; The Nation,26 Apr1980. 204. Web. 6 Oct.

2011.

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44-64. Web. 3 Aug. 2011.

---.“Orientalism”. New York: Random: 1978. Print.

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2001. Web. 13 Oct. 2011.

The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence. Ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts.

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Books, Inc, 2009. Print.

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Massachusetts Press: 1993. 256. Web. 4 Sep. 2011.

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Web. 13 Aug. 2011

Wainaina, Binyavanga. How to Write About Africa. Granta 92. 2005.Print.

Zahiri, Abdollah. “The Rediscovering of India: V. S. Naipaul and Making and Remaking of

The Third World”, College Quarterly: Vol 8 No. 4, 2005. Web. 13 June 2011.


I

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II

Campbell, Joseph. The Historical Development of Mythology. The Masks of God. New

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2008, 64-81. Web. 15 June 2011.

Farhad, B Idris. “The Traveler and His Hushed Companion: Problems of Narration in An

Area of Darkness”. Ariel: A Review of International English Literature. 2003. Web.

13 Aug. 2011.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks, New York: Grove Press, 1967. Web. 10 June 2011.

Hassan, D Z. “The Messianic Leader in V S Naipaul’s West Indian Works”, International

Fiction Review, 1988. Web. 12 July 2011.

Hall, Stuart. The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power, Formation of Modernity,

Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007. Print.

---. Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’?. Question of cultural identity. Eds. S Hall and P du

Guy. Vols. London: Sage. 1997. Web. 19 Sep. 2011.

---. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A

Reader. Ed. Patrick William and Chrisman. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.

392- 402. Print. Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

III

Hardwick, Elizabeth. “Meeting with V S Naipaul”. New York Times Book Review, 13 May

1979, 1, 36. Web. 14 Aug. 2011.

Hunwick O John(ed) Religion and National Integration I Africa: Islam, Christianity and

Politics in the Sudan and Nigeria, Evanston: Northwestern University press, 1992.

Web. 12 Aug. 2011.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of an Artist of a Young Man. Viking Press: New York. 1964. Print.

Kingsley, Mary. Travels in West Africa. 4th ed. London : Virago Press, 1982. Web. 1 June

2011.

Liebersohn, Harry. Recent Works on Travel Writng. The Journal of Modern History 68

(1996): 617 - 28. Web. 3 Aug. 2011.

Mohan, C R. Postcolonial situation in the novels of V S Naipaul, Atlantic Publisher and

Distributors, 2004. Web. 14 July 2011.

Malak, “Naipaul’s Vulcanisation of Travel and Fiction Paradigms”, Atlantic Literary Review.

2001. Web. 15 June 2011.

Naipaul, V.S. A House for Mr. Biswas. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1969.Print.

---. The Middle Passage. Russell Ed. London: Andre Deutsch, 1974.Print.

---. The Mimic Men. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1969.Print.

---. Finding the Centre. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1985.Print.

---. The Enigma of Arrival. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Viking, Penguin, 1987. Print.Property of Christ University.


IV

---. A Way in the World. London: Heinemann, 1994. Print.

---. The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief. London: Picador, 2010. Print.

---. India: A Wounded Civilization. London: Andre Deutsch, 1977. Print.

---. An Area of Darkness. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Print.

---. India: A Million Mutinies Now. London: Heinemann, 1990. Print.

---. Two Worlds, Nobel Lecture, 7 Dec. 2001. Web. 21 Sep. 2011.

---. Conrad’s Darkness. In: The Return of Eva Peron. New York : Alfred A.Knopf, 171-204.

Web. 2 Aug. 2011.

---. Between Father and Son. Family Letters. Edited by Gillon Aitken. New York: Vintage

Books. 1999. Web. 14 June 2011.

---. “On Being a Writer”, New York Review of Books, 23 Apr 1987: 7. Web. 10 Aug. 2011.

Adam, Tim. “A Home for Mr Naipaul”, The Observer. Sep. 12, 2004. Web. 2 June 2011.

Ahmed, Rashid. “Death of the Novel”. The Observer. Feb. 25, 1996. Web. 3 Sep. 2011.

Ray, Suarez. Online News Hour. Mar. 3, 2000. Web. 3 Sep. 2011.

Nixon, Rob. “London Calling: V.S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin”. New York: Oxford UP,

1992. Web. 4 Aug. 2011.

Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspective on South Asia. Ed Appadurai,

Veer, University of Pennislavia Press, 1993. Print.

Patil M. Naipaul V S: The Travel-writer, Encyclopedia of Literature in English, Atlantic

Publisher and Distributors: New Delhi, 2002. Web. 20 June 2011.Property of Christ University. Use it for fair purpose. Give credit to the author by citing properly, if your are using it.

V

Said, Edward. Islam through Western Eyes; The Nation,26 Apr1980. 204. Web. 6 Oct.

2011.

---. "Intellectuals in the Post-Colonial World." Salmagundi 70-71:Spring-Summer. 1986:

44-64. Web. 3 Aug. 2011.

---.“Orientalism”. New York: Random: 1978. Print.

Santiago, S R. “V S Naipaul’s Travelogues and the “Clash of civilization” Complex. Atlantic.

2001. Web. 13 Oct. 2011.

The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence. Ed. Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts.

New York: Penguin Books, 1977. Web. 15 June 2011.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed, 2000. Print.

Theroux, Paul. The Guardian, Sat 1 Sep 2001 02.02BST. Web. 13 Aug. 2011.

---. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On The Tracks of The great railway bazaar. Recorded

Books, Inc, 2009. Print.

Timothy, F Weiss. “On the Margins: The Art of Exile in V. S. Naipaul”. NULL University of

Massachusetts Press: 1993. 256. Web. 4 Sep. 2011.

Trefflich, Cornelia. “Edward Said’s Orientalism: A Reflection”, University of Leipzig, 2007.

Web. 13 Aug. 2011

Wainaina, Binyavanga. How to Write About Africa. Granta 92. 2005.Print.

Zahiri, Abdollah. “The Rediscovering of India: V. S. Naipaul and Making and Remaking of

The Third World”, College Quarterly: Vol 8 No. 4, 2005. Web. 13 June 2011.


'Orient' Revisited in The Masque of Africa by V. S. Naipaul

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