Father As A Muse In A House For Mr Biswas

Reyhan Özer Tani̇yan

doi:10.48131/jscs.1024250

Abstract

A House for Mr Biswas is the tragicomic tale of a lifetime struggle of Mr Biswas. It deals with the biography of V.S. Naipaul’s family constructed around his father’s failures and decisions. It has its source from Naipaul’s father influencing him deeply in his literary career. The question in general here is how Naipaul’s father shows itself in his literary career. The answer lies in the literary stance of Naipaul. In most of his works, he undermines the father image in a family by referring to the failures of his father. However, the striking point is that no matter how badly Naipaul represents fathers in his works he owes much to his father. In order to show his gratitude towards his father, he revisits the story of his father in the early works of his writing career. He uses his father’s personal history as his material, especially for his first books. Being educated firstly by his father, he achieves great literary success in his life and therefore, this paper aims to address Naipaul’s father as his literary muse. To support the claim of the constructive influence of fathers on their sons, the studies of newly emerged theories on the father-son relationship will be used as the theoretical frame.

Highlights

A House for Mr Biswas is the tragicomic tale of a lifetime struggle of Mr Biswas
As the most known example, A House for Mr Biswas4 is directly devoted to his father, and it is known that the whole story follows the significant events of his father, Seepersad Naipaul, and his life
Naipaul frequently explains that he owes too much to his father in the act of writing and that his father plays the role of stimulating force in his writing career, especially in his first novels that focus on Trinidadian stories

Summary

Introduction

A House for Mr Biswas is the tragicomic tale of a lifetime struggle of Mr Biswas. It deals with the biography of V.S. The story is mostly constructed around his father’s lifetime experiences ranging from failures to important decisions In general, it comes from Naipaul’s father, who deeply influenced him in his literary career. Eserlerinin birçoğunda, babasının başarısızlıklarına gönderme yaparak ailedeki baba imgesini baltalamaktadır Çarpıcı nokta ise her ne kadar Naipaul babasını bazı eserlerinde kötü yansıtsa da babasına çok şey borçludur. Naipaul frequently explains that he owes too much to his father in the act of writing and that his father plays the role of stimulating force in his writing career, especially in his first novels that focus on Trinidadian stories. These lines indicate the explicit confession of Naipaul and the debt that he owes to his father in his challenging journey to become a writer This debt he has acknowledged in his “Prelude to an Autobiography” investigates his literary beginnings utilizing an exploration of his father’s life. He acknowledges that his father has a great role in his life, and he avows that his childhood is shaped by his father

Objectives

Conclusion