Home as Theme: A Critical Study of V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas
Abstract
Home is considered as the important place in one’s life. “A House for Mr. Biswas” is Mr. Biswas’s journey from his desire and its fulfillment. Naipual coincides the theme of this novel with his father’s life. Mr. Biswas is an alienated individual and struggles against different alienating forces. As he wonders for thirty five years with no place of his own after his father’s death and family integration.
Keywords: Home, House, Family, Homelessness, Identity, Expatriate
“A House for Mr. Biswas” is basically a story of a person called Mr. Mohun Biswas and his desire to possess a house. The novel’s principal thematic preoccupation is the protagonist's wish to build a house for himself. The entire novel is a journey of Mr. Biswas from his birth to death. Mr. Biswas is the victim of system, society, economic forces and bearerary and in spite of it, he strives to live a blissful life.Entire family of Mr. Biswas is disintegrated after Raghu’s death. Pratap and Prasad are sent to Felicity and Dehuti works as a domestic servant at Tara’s house. Mr. Biswas moves to Tara’s house at Pagotes with his mother.
Naipaul describes Mr.Biswas’s condition of being without a house in these words :
And so Mr. Biswas came to leave the only house to which he had some right. For the next thirty-five years he was to be a wanderer with no place he could call his own. With no family except that which he was to attempt out of the engulfing world of the Tulsis (HB-39)
The novel is a “fictional biography of Mr. Biswas”.[1] Naipaul depicts three generations of Indian immigrants in the West Indies. The novel is a presentation of their struggle and progress. Raghu represents the first generation, Anand and Savi represent the third generation and Mr. Biswas represents the second generation and acts as a ‘bridge’.
Naipaul is very familiar with his protagonist because the novel is based on Naipaul’s father’s struggle. Bhagabat Nayak observers :
.... the novel appears to be a double autobiography in which Mr. Biswas is modelled on Seepersad Naipaul’s life and career and Anand, his son whose life and career run parallel to V. S. Naipaul’s.[2]
However Naipaul, “Who took his father for the theme”[3] does not give the same role to his protagonist of the novel. We can say “Mohun Biswas might be regarded as simplified version of Seepersad Naipaul”.[4]
Author presents here the development of individuals and of society. However family disintegration or dissolution occur in the face of new forces and trends.
Amarnath Prasad points out that:
The Primary business of V. S. Naipaul as a novelist is to carefully project the complex fate of individuals, societies and culture. To him, fiction is an instrument of analysis.[5]
And Naipaul uses his instrument skillfully. Mr. Mohun Biswas is the central figure of the novel. After six years, he leaves Canadian Mission school and is sent to Pandit Jairam. However Pandit Jairam’s orthodoxy does not allow Mr. Biswas to be Pandit. And he cannot work at Rum Shop. Because Bhandat believes that Mr. Biswas is a spy of Ajodha. So Bhandat does not like Mr. Biswas’s presence at Rum-shop and he is thrown from there too.
It alludes to his childhood experiences when many times he was rendered houseless. He covets for his own house or center from his very young age as he wants to develop an individual identity in the society. He does not want to be a slave to get a house. And so he does not accept Tulsi’s conduct. He does not like to live with Tulsi family and he needs a separate house to live with his family. So he feels the need of his own house when he enters the Tulsi Family.
Mr. Biswas feels that he is trapped by Tulsis in marriage. But before marriage Mr. Biswas also thinks that he will be given dowry, a job and perhaps a separate house too. But after marriage Mr. Biswas does not get a house, job and dowry from The Tulsi family. But instead of giving a separate house, Mr. Biswas is given a certain place in “Hanuman House”. In this house he hopes to live as other sons-in-law, Govind and Hari, but due to his independent nature he is unable to do so Govind and Hari blindly accept the dominance of Mrs. Tulsi and Seth. They have no objection to work as slaves in “Hanuman House''. Gordon Rohlehr rightly comments on the system of “Hanuman House”:
Hanuman House reveals itself not as a coherent reconstruction of the clan, but as a slave society, erected by Mrs. Tulsi and Seth who need workers to help rebuild their tottering empire. They therefore exploit the homelessness and poverty of their fellow Hindus and reconstruct a mockery of the clan which functions only because they have so completely grasped the psychology of a slave system.[6]
Govind and Hari have compromised with the situation and obeyed the system but Mr. Biswas didn’t discontinue his job of sign-painting. One day Mr. Biswas is advised by Govind to give-up sign-painting. The reply reflects Mr. Biswas’s independent nature. He replies “Give up sign painting ? And my Independence ? No boy, my motto is paddle your own canoe” (HB-101). Mr. Biswas has his own ideology. His reading and habit of observing the world closely help him to develop his own ideology and independent nature. Mr. Biswas knows that Tulsi authority wants slaves. He knows they required him to accept the conduct and be a slave. And once one becomes part of it then it is impossible to escape from it. Santosh Chakrabarti rightly observes:
The Tulsi structure is so powerful and imposing that it limits the manoeuvrability of an independent minded individual. Once made a part of it, no one can find it easy to escape.[7]
Mrs. Tulsi works as a head of the entire “Hanuman House” family after the death of Mr. Tulsi. She has effective tricks to handle all families.
Sashinath Pandey maintains that :
Mrs. Tulsi knows the psychology of slaves and knows well how to tackle her dependents, and resembles colonial masters in her tickle ness and subtlety.[8]
But Mr. Biswas denies to obey Tulsi rules and regulations. In order to differ from them, he joins Aryasamaj. Because Aryasamaj does not believe in idol worship in which the Tulsis have faith. Mr. Biswas also goes for reading to keep himself far from the “Hanuman House”.
Mr. Biswas, unable to adjust in the Tulsi family, believes “the world was too small, the Tulsi family too large. He felt trapped” (HB-91). His misbehaviour of throwing food on owed made him leave the house. He is considered as the creator of the confusion in the family. One day Seth tells him that:
This was a nice united family before you came, you better go away before you do any more mischief and I have to lay my hand on you. (HB-134).
Mr. Biswas lives independently at the chase but the shop and home in which he lives are of Mrs. Tulsi’s.
But it can be said that living at the chase is the beginning of Mr. Biswas’s progress. The narrator observes in this regard :
Real life was to begin for them soon and elsewhere. The chase was a pause, a preparation” (HB-140).
But he leaves Chase because he fails to manage the shop and moves to Greenvale. At Greenvale Mr. Biswas does not feel comfortable. Living at Greenvale is an important period of Mr. Biswas’s life. Because Mr. Biswas’s dream materializes for the first time there. Here Mr. Biswas starts to build his own house. In the words “own house,” ‘own’ has special significance. About house Sashinath Pandey observes:
A “house” apparently means an enclosement of four walls but to the house owner it is much more than what it’s physical structure might suggest. It is not simply a shelter but the seat of family culture and tradition – an institution.[9]
Mr. Biswas cannot complete his house at Greenvale because of lack of money but here he thinks about an ideal house.
The narrator says :
He wanted, in the first place, a real house, made with real materials.... The house would stand on tall concrete pillars so that he would get two floors instead of one, and the way would be left open for future development. (HB-201)
He shifts in his incomplete house and there he undergoes mental stress. At Hanuman House he is looked after well but he does not want to work under Tulsi authority. He leaves “Hanuman House” to seek his future. But this is the critical time of his life. There is no certain place for him. And he is unable to decide where to go. many options are available to him but he does not want to go there. Naipaul writes:
North lay Ajodha and Tara, and his mother south lay his brothers. None of them could refuse to take him in. But to none of them did he want to go: It was too easy to picture himself among them (HB-295)
When he sits in the bus, he had “feared the moment of arrival and wished that the bus would go on and never stop.” (HB-296). But his fortune takes him at Port of Spain. Here Mr. Biswas gets a job in “The Trinidad Sentinel” through his art of sign-painting. Naipaul writes:
A chance encounter had led him to sign writing. Sign writing took him to Hanuman House and The Tulsis. Sign writing found him a place on “The Trinidad Sentinel: And neither for Tulsi store signs nor for these at sentinel was he paid. (HB-310).
Now he gets his professional identity as a reporter journalist at “The sentinel”. But he is yet to possess his own house in which he can live with his family. On invitation of Mrs. Tulsi Mr.Biswas starts living at Tulsi house at Port of Spain with his family and new era downs on Biswas family.
This shifting to Port of Spain is different from previous shifting because “The Chase” and “Greenvale” were parts of villages while now he is placed in a city, in the proper place. From here he has the option of chasing a proper course of life. S. P. Swain rightly observes:
Mohun Biswas and his family drift from country to town, from Hindi to English and from sprawling joint family system to nuclear family.[10]
Mr. Biswas fails in his attempt to build a house at short-hills. House of Mr. Biswas catches fire and he comes to live with Tulsis at Port of Spain once again.
Now Mr. Biswas has developed his idea according to the new world. He aspires for his own house but he has also wanted to send Anand abroad for further education like Owad.
After leaving Hanuman House change comes to every member of the family. All want to be Mr. Biswas. Govind buys a Taxi and starts to paddle his own canoe. Owad's sailing abroad becomes ideal for the next generation. Anand and Savi get success in their study.
Mr. Biswas gets a government job on a good salary. But unfortunately after some time. Mr. Biswas returns to the newspaper job. Mr.Biswas was asked by Mrs. Tulsi left her house, he made up his mind to buy his own house. He borrows money from Ajodha and buys a house at Sikkim street. At last Mr. Biswas achieves house for himself, with his house he achieves almost all pleasure of the world after his hard and constant struggle.
In fact the tale of Mr. Biswas is not his only. Mr. Biswas is a representative of his chaotic society. And by hard work he achieves his goal in the form of his house.
R. N. Sarkar writes about Naipaul :
He finds human truth is like mercury in a thermometer, rise and fall are due as temperature rises and falls.[11]
Mr.Biswas’s struggle in the confused world, in the post-colonial world to achieve his house is depicted in the title itself. Novel is about a house for Mr. Biswas. Mr. Biswas represents a common man and his struggle. Hiren Gohain rightly observes.
The novel present in vivid details the tragic struggle of colonial man, uprooted from the past and his heritage by the violence of colonial power, to build not only his life but a meaningful world out of the constricted economic opportunities, cultural stagnation, and asthmatic modernity of the worst-type of colony, the colony with a plantation-economy.[12]
Naipaul also handles themes of social changes. In the novel the counter pointing of character also takes a surprising turn. The polarisation between the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ categories is acute. Mrs. Tulsi and Seth represent an old traditional way of living in a joint family while Mr. Biswas and later all sons-in-law prefer to live in their respective nuclear families. Even owad and Shekhar reject the old order of living.
In the houses of others, Mr. Biswas feels himself as exiled and alienated. The house means his own identity for him and stability of his family.
In the novel Naipaul presents the lives of Indian immigrants in West Indies and different experiences of Mr. Biswas. Desire to possess a home symbolizes Mr. Biswas desire to be rooted in an alien land. And this plight resembles the plight of immigrants. In this sense ‘house’ can be taken as a symbol as well as metaphor.
Work Cited
All references to the text are from this edition: V. S. Naipaul “A House for Mr. Biswas”, Everyman’s Library, 1995. ISBN-1-85715-213-1. For the rest of this paper “A House for Mr. Biswas” is referred to by the acronym: HB