Abstract
The opening chapter of V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas is entitled “Pastoral”, but the word itself never appears in the novel. This is especially odd because all of the other chapter titles are grounded within the text as either geographic or temporal designations. “Pastoral” stands out for its absence, and this article reads A House for Mr. Biswas through the lens of the missing pastoral. While many works treat Naipaul’s use of landscape, this essay looks at the pastoral as a literary form and also, in Naipaul’s view, as a representative metaphor for the British literary tradition. While Biswas is saturated with pastoral imagery, the pastoral is impossible in the colonial society Naipaul depicts. It is only by escaping the temptations of the pastoral, both for Mr. Biswas and also for Naipaul, that meaningful experience can be achieved.
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