V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He is the author of
more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction and the recipient
of numerous honours, including the Nobel Prize in 2001, the Booker
Prize in 1971, and a knighthood for services to literature in 1990.
He lives in Wiltshire, England.
1. A House for Mr. Biswas is a largely
autobiographical novel about V.S. Naipaul''s own family. Mr. Biswas
is based on Naipaul''s father and the character of Anand on Naipaul
himself. What specific experiences described in the novel, and
especially the relationship between father and son, lead Anand to
become a writer? What advantages will he have that Mr. Biswas did
not? What conclusions can you draw about Naipaul''s life based on
the book?
2. Mr. Biswas enters into the world "six-fingered and born in
the wrong way" [p. 15], and a life of bad luck is presaged for him.
In what ways does this prophecy seem to come true?
3. Early in the novel, Mr. Biswas, a sign-painter and later a
journalist, writes a love letter to Shama. What are the immediate
consequences of this letter? What are its long-term effects? Is it
ironic that writing plays such an important role in determining Mr.
Biswas''s fate?
4. At various points the narrative jumps ahead, describing an
experience or situation years from the fictional present. When Mr.
Biswas is cowed by the Tulsi family into marrying Shama, the
narrator reflects, "How often, in the years to come, at Hanuman
House or in the house at Shorthills or in the house in Port of
Spain, living in one room, with some of his children sleeping on
the next bed . . . how often did Mr. Biswas regret his weakness,
his inarticulateness, that evening" [p. 87]! How does knowing the
novel''s fictional future affect the way we read what is happening
in its present? For example, does Mr. Biswas'' death, discussed in
the prologue and therefore known throughout the novel, give a
poignancy to his struggles?
5. Why do the characters in A House for Mr.
Biswas switch between Hindi and broken English? What does
this suggest about the hybrid nature of Trinidadian society and its
colonial history?
6. Throughout the novel Mr. Biswas battles the Tulsi family,
engaging in one quarrel after another. Why does he find living with
them so distasteful, so humiliating? Why do the Tulsis, in turn,
find Mr. Biswas unbearable? What kinds of things do they argue
about? Are the subjects of these arguments inherently important or
do mask more serious differences?
7. When Mr. Biswas moves his family to The Chase, he is puzzled
by his wife''s nagging: "Living in a wife-beating society, he
couldn''t understand why women were even allowed to nag or how
nagging could have any effect" [p. 14]. And when Govind beats his
wife Chinta, we''re told that "her beatings gave Chinta a
matriarchal dignity and, curiously, gained her a respect she had
never had before" [p. 443]. Why would Chinta''s status improve
because of her beatings? How is flogging used throughout the novel?
What does it suggest about power relations between men and women
and between parents and children?
8. Why does Mr. Biswas feel trapped by his wife and family? Why
does he regard Shama and the children as "alien growths, alien
affections, which fed on him and called him away from that part of
him which yet remained purely himself, that part which had for long
been submerged and was now to disappear" [p. 461]? What kind of
life does he feel his family keeps him from living?
9. Why does Mr. Biswas become a journalist? What aspects of his
temperament and experience enable him to excel at the kind of
writing the Sentinel initially demands? How does his success at the
paper change his status within the Tulsi family?
10. Mr. Biswas tells his son Anand, "Remember Galilyo. Always
stick up for yourself" [p. 267]. In what ways is Mr. Biswas himself
a rebel? On what occasions does he defy others and stand up for
himself?
11. Mr. Biswas is highly critical of Hinduism--and indeed of all
religions--for most of the novel. He chides Owad for worshiping
idols and blames the failure of his shop at The Chase on Hari''s
ritual blessing. What does the novel as a whole seem to be saying
about the role of religion in Trinidadian society? How does
religion affect the ways the characters in the novel treat each
other?
12. When Owad returns from his medical studies at Cambridge, he
is filled with opinions about writers and artists such as T. S.
Eliot and Pablo Picasso, both of whom he loathes. He also considers
himself a communist. After a bitter quarrel, Mr. Biswas suggests,
"communism, like charity, should begin at home" [p. 533]. What does
Naipaul appear to be saying, through the character of Owad and the
quality of life at the Tulsi house, about the value of communal
living?
13. Naipaul has often been praised for his comic gifts. Which
scenes or situations in A House for Mr. Biswas
give rise to comedy? In what ways does Mr. Biswas display his own
comic and satiric sensibility?
14. In a letter he once wrote to his father, Naipaul explains
that literature boils down to "writing from the belly rather than
from the cheek. Most people write from the cheek. If the
semi-illiterate criminal wrote a long letter ordinarily to his
sweetheart, it would be what most letters of such people generally
are. If the criminal wrote this letter last thing before his
execution, it would be literature; it would be poetry." In what
ways does Naipaul himself write from the belly rather than the
cheek?
15. A House for Mr. Biswas tells the story of
an ordinary man with modest ambitions whose life is not marked by
dramatic events. How does Naipaul imbue his story with the pathos
and significance that have won the book worldwide acclaim since its
initial publication? Does Mr. Biswas achieve a kind of victory at
the end?
16. In what ways does Mr. Biswas''s longing for a house of his
own parallel Trinidad''s struggle for national independence? What
is it that fuels his longing? What does owning a house represent
for him? In what ways is the Tulsi family like ruling colonial
power? At the end of the novel, Mr. Biswas is finally able to
realize his dream of owning a house, but the experience is not what
he anticipated. How is his experience symbolic of Trinidad''s own
situation after the end of colonial rule?