Ludic Caribbean Cultural Representations of Trinidad in V. S. Naipaul’s Fiction Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät II der Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg Vorgelegt von Horatiu-Lucian Nickel aus Deva/Rumänien Würzburg 2006 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Rüdiger Ahrens, OBE Zweitgutachter: PD Dr. phil. Ralph Pordzik Tag des Kolloquiums: 27. Juni 2006 3 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................6 1.1. Methodology and Objectives ......................................................................7 1.2. Overview of Criticism on V.S. Naipaul....................................................11 1.3. Con-textualizing Trinidad .........................................................................19 1.4. “Play-Culture”...........................................................................................25 1.5. Representation...........................................................................................30 1.5.1. Cultural Representations ................................................................30 1.5.2. Eurocentrism ..................................................................................31 1.5.2.1. “Our Universal Civilisation”...................................................37 1.5.2.2. Naipaul’s Treatment of Progress.............................................41 2. THE PLAYFUL LITTLE WORLD OF CHILDHOOD..................................48 2.1. Childhood as Cultural Construct...............................................................49 2.2. Infantilising Stereotypes............................................................................51 2.2.1. “A Tiny Little Dot on Some Maps” ...............................................54 2.2.2. The Social-Darwinist Dilemma: Play-Boys or Apes? ...................64 2.2.3. Man-man, the Madman and other Barbarians................................73 2.2.4. Half Children, Half Devils.............................................................76 2.2.5. Protestant Ethic versus Ludic Idleness...........................................79 2.2.6. The Jail and the Movement of Play “Indoors”..............................81 2.3. Colonial Education....................................................................................84 2.3.1. The Schoolmaster Syndrome .........................................................84 2.3.2. Sports, Courage and Fair Play........................................................85 2.3.3. “Invented Traditions”: Britishness on Dis-play.............................91 2.4. Anti-Eurocentric voices ............................................................................96 2.4.1. Demystifying the Familial Idyll.....................................................96 4 2.4.2. Children with Power ......................................................................98 2.5. The Autobiography of Childhood and Adolescence...............................101 2.5.1. Trivia............................................................................................101 2.5.2. Changing Points of View .............................................................102 2.6. Summary .................................................................................................106 3. FESTIVE TRINIDAD ...................................................................................109 3.1. Prelude.....................................................................................................110 3.2. Lila or Hindu Play...................................................................................111 3.2.1. Trinidad as Site of Displacement .................................................115 3.2.1.1. East Indians in the West Indies .............................................115 3.2.1.2. Symbolic Ethnicity: The Fragments of a Civilisation...........119 3.2.1.3. Rituals as Cultural Memory ..................................................123 3.2.2. The Might of Ceremonies ............................................................125 3.2.2.1. The Family Fortress ..............................................................125 3.2.2.2. Forms of Protest and Resistance ...........................................131 3.2.2.3. Symbolic Violence: Gender and Caste .................................133 3.2.3. God’s Game, Fate, Orientalism....................................................136 3.3. Black Carnival.........................................................................................142 3.3.1. Afro-Trinidadians.........................................................................143 3.3.2. Fashioning the Black....................................................................144 3.3.3. Carnival and Slavery....................................................................149 3.3.4. Clownish Revolutionaries............................................................154 3.3.5. Religious Hysteria........................................................................157 3.3.6. The Feast of the Senses................................................................160 3.3.7. Carnival: Self-Image or Heterosterotype? ...................................163 3.4. Liminal Spaces........................................................................................165 3.4.1. The Race of Races.......................................................................165 3.4.2. Hybrid Festivals ...........................................................................167 3.5. Summary .................................................................................................173 5 4. THE PLAYGROUND OF THE IMAGINATION ........................................177 4.1. Play and Imagination...............................................................................178 4.2. Adventure................................................................................................180 4.2.1. Native Romancers ........................................................................181 4.2.2. Exploring Death ...........................................................................187 4.2.3. Myths of the New World..............................................................189 4.2.3.1. Columbus and the Garden of Eden .......................................189 4.2.3.2. El Dorado ..............................................................................193 4.2.3.3. Crusoe’s Shipwreck ..............................................................196 4.2.4. Visitors to the Island ....................................................................198 4.2.5. Leisure Realms: the Estate, the Beach, the Club .........................203 4.2.6. Exotic Sceneries...........................................................................213 4.2.6.1. Aestheticising the Other........................................................213 4.2.6.2. Landscape and History..........................................................221 4.3. The Postmodern Game of Writing..........................................................224 4.3.1. Neo-Baroque Labyrinths of Mirrors ............................................224 4.3.2. Intertextual Theatricality..............................................................231 4.3.2.1. Shakespearean Allusions.......................................................233 4.3.2.2. The Theatre of the Absurd ....................................................238 4.3.2.3. From Theatre to Cinema .......................................................241 4.3.3. Popular Culture ............................................................................247 4.3.4. Playing with Language.................................................................250 4.3.5. Metafictional Constructs ..............................................................256 4.3.6. Postmodernism/Postcolonialism ..................................................263 4.4. Summary .................................................................................................265 5. CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................267 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................269 7. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG...............................................................................295 1. INTRODUCTION 7 1.1. Methodology and Objectives Long before he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul had already been a highly controversial personality. 1 Sometimes decried as a neo-colonial writer, a “postcolonial mandarin”, 2 Naipaul has also called forth extremely positive remarks. According to Feroza Jussawalla, he would be “the most beloved and widely read British author”. 3 Both opinions are debatable; on the contrary, a certain fact is that V.S. Naipaul represents one of the most prolific contemporary writers. 4 He has published 29 books so far, to which one must add an impressive number of articles, reviews and interviews. Within this literary corpus, Trinidadian themes occupy a privileged place, underlying the majority of Naipaul’s writings. I focus on 10 fictional works, namely The Mystic Masseur (1957), The Suffrage of Elvira (1958), Miguel Street (1959), A House for Mr Biswas (1961), A Flag on the Island (1967), The Mimic Men (1967), In a Free State (1971), Guerrillas (1975), The Enigma of Arrival (1987) and A Way in the World (1994), 5 without neglecting, however, important non-fictional