Quest for Identity in V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life
1Shweta Chauhan
The present paper is an attempt to study V.S Naipaul’s Half a Life in the light of diasporic issues of exile and identity. V.S Naipaul’s characters are dispossessed immigrants eternally searching for roots and belongingness in a world of multiple cultures where in their very identity is threatened. His immigrants such as Mr. Biswas in A House for Mr. Biswas, Willie in Half a Life, Salim in A Bend in the River are chronically dispossessed expatriates. Their attempts to look for a fixed identity and home fall flat every time. V.S Naipaul’s world is a bleak one where there is no hope for any stability. He represents his own displacement from Trinidad to England, however, his ancestral roots lie in India
Identity Crisis, Exile, Diaspora, Alienation, Displacement.