Migration as Counter Discourse, Reading Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival

Abstract

Migration in The Enigma of Arrival functions as a discourse that counter balances the colonial attitude. It does so through enabling the “Third World” writer to represent “First World” and thus rewrite the structure of the “First World” people and culture. The process of migration with the little acquainted knowledge and experience becomes an intellectual procedure of understanding and controlling alien territory with the use of native language. Naipaul’s deliberate intention of staying, knowing, and writing about London and other Western capitals tries to exercise a counter balancing discursive practice. This reverses the colonial attitude and establishes third world writers perspective by destabilizing the colonial discourse.