Transcending Mimicry Through Writing the Self in V.S. Naipaul’s The Mimic Men

Document Type : Academic research papers

Authors

1 Egypt- Faculty of Women for Arts Science and Education- Ain Shams University

2 Associate Professor of English Literature,English Department Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education,Ain Shams University

3 Professor of English Literature, ,English Department,,Faculty of Arts,Tanta University- Egypt

Abstract

Caribbean literature reflects the situation in postcolonial societies which is a situation of becoming part of what the formerly colonized people could not become. The fragmented nature of the society due to colonialism, gives the West Indian an acute sense of exile, and the literature of this area reflects and attempts to come to terms with the consequences of colonization. One of the major Caribbean writers is Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932-2018) who is a Trinidadian British writer of Indian descent. The aim of this research paper is to analyze Naipaul’s novel The Mimic Men which explores the subject of mimicry as it depicts a colonial man’s experience in a post-colonial world. Naipaul explores the power of colonial mimicry that destroys people’s past and defrauds them of their identities. Singh, the protagonist, is psychologically and emotionally crippled by the postcolonial conditions in which he was born and ultimately suffers from a deep identity crisis. The paper focuses on the themes of homelessness, mimicry and writing the memoirs as a means of creating an authentic identity. The novel is analyzed within the frame of Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theory on mimicry and the third space.

Keywords

Buhūth
Volume 3, Issue 9 - Serial Number 9
Social sciences & Humanities
September 2023
Pages 1-27

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