Contextualising Rootlessness and Alienation in V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas

This papertries to pinpoint the miseries andsufferings experienced by the characters of V.S. Naipaul have intrinsicconcurrence with the experiences of humans throughout the world, surviving in analien land ruled by a colonized community in his A House for Mr. Biswas. The storyopens with the demise of Mohun Biswas. As a descendant of East Indians who were brought to Trinidad as indentured labourers working in the sugarcane fields, Mr. Biswas has endured humiliation and bad luck. He has been homeless and without love, moving from one job to another and experiencing shame with every minor triumph. As a member of the large Tulsi clan, his wife has always been loyal to them and they have treated him with disdain. Mr. Biswas hastily buys a dilapidated home that he cannot afford, but it is his own and signifies a break from the oppressive Tulsis. His wife and children are left impoverished after his death. His home is deserted. Importantly, the work illustrates the fundamental mechanism of a man’s life, which is the fusion of happiness and sadness, harsh and majestic. In Naipaul’s world, impoverished wanderers are creating a path of escape from Africa or India to the West Indies, then to Britain and back. Even after three centuries, it seems as though there is still no structure or culture of values where these characters can originate. They try to cling to something to give them stability to hold the flux in their life against such a hazy and crumbling background.