Exile and Displacement in V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River

Abstract

The dissertation tries to probe into post-colonial issues reflected in A Bend in the River.V.S.Naipaul in the fiction describes social and natural chaos and psychic anxiety of the people in post-colonial society.The effect of colonial system accounts for the social and psychological phenomena--exile and displacement.The novel portrays characters from different strata of society, who are trapped in the so-called independent state.The Big Man’s mimicry mainly serves his political drive and mass’s mimicry aims to be approved by the new establishment.This mimicry gives rise to cultural hybridity, which is mainly embodied in Salim, Ferdinand and Indar, who have different cultural experiences. Automatic renouncement of one’s their native culture bolsters colonial culture and the absence of resistant mechanism is responsible for cultural displacement.Thus, the novel mainly deals with such tissues as mimicry, hybridity and displacement, through which Naipaul reflects on post- colonial society. Only greed, consumptive desire, and backward cultural identities remain in Africa. Naipaul of fersa displaced and fragmented society that lacks creative potential as the characters feel a sense exile even in their own country.