‘HYBRIDITY’ OR ‘MIMICRY’: THE DILEMMA OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN V.S. NAIPAUL'S A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS AND THE MIMIC MEN

Abstract

Being an Indian Brahmin, uprooted from the land of his ancestors, Vidiadhar Suraj Prasad Naipaul has a complex personality. His grandfather was migrated to Trinidad from India as an indentured labourer. The huge Diaspora from China, India and other countries as indenture labourer, raises the obvious question of their national and political identity in the Caribbean island when they achieve independence. This paper deals with the cultural dislocation and identity crisis of these diasporic people, and identifies the primordial historical background of the Caribbean people, the wave of modern western culture and the imbalance hybridization of cultures that make them 'mimic' men and alienates them from their origins. This paper also locates the ambivalent position of Naipaul regarding 'mimicry'. He believes in the hollowness of 'mimic man' who lost their originality, creativity and thinking ability by imitating the colonial authority, again he believes that the mimicry of the colonial language by the postcolonial writers is a way of resistance to colonial authority. This paper is a brief endeavor to articulate all these issues based on Naipaul's two novels- A House for Mr. Biswas (1969) and The Mimic Men (1967).