Postcolonial arrivals : place and identity in V. S. Naipaul's The enigma of arrival and David Dabydeen's Disappearance

Abstract

In this thesis V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival (1987) and David Dabydeen’s Disappearance (1993) are analysed as accounts of the postcolonial search for identity. Both novels tell stories about main characters who journey to England from former colonies in the West Indies. The thesis explores the two experiences of coming from the colonial margin to the imperial centre. The colonial background of the main charachters greatly influences their experience of England in various ways, for example in how they encounter other people, and how they experience the English landscape. Most novels about coming to England from a former colony take place in London, whereas these two novels take place in the countryside, removed from urban immigrant communities. This also affects the narrators' experiences. V. S. Naipaul and David Dabydeen come from Trinidad and Guyana respectively, and they are both of Indian descent. The Caribbean postcolonial condition differs from for example the Indian or the African because of the populations' relatively recent relationship with the land they inhabit. As a result, displacement and exile are quintessential aspects of Caribbean experience that constantly reoccur in literature from the region. This is also the case for these two novels. Together, these to novels by two of the leading Caribbean writers offer a rich exploration of the continuing effect of colonialism on people’s everyday lives. They demonstrate the transportation of this effect, by way of migration, from the colonial margin to the imperial centre. Thus, they are accounts of England from what A. Robert Lee terms a ‘post-migrant perspective.’ This thesis especially focuses on the main characters' developing awareness of the postcolonial condition.