Miguel Street free essay sample

Naipaul’s Miguel Street Miguel Street is his semi-autobiographical work which occurs during World War II in Port of Spain, Tobago and Trinidad. The island of Trinidad, where the stories are set, was a Spanish colony,that was ceded to Britain when they had already passed through many other coloners’ hands. Trinidad and Tobago owes their main origins to massive eighteenth and nineteenth century importations of African slaves and East Indian servants who were needed to work on the sugar plantations. During the 1930s, Trinidad and Tobago suffered severely from the effects of the worldwide depression. The book may be set in a particular time during the 40s, but not in a real chronological order. The author of this work, V. S. Naipaul is an Indian writer from Trinidad who has written many novels that are set in a continuous changing world: The Caribbean Islands of the Commonwealth. He seems to focus on writing about the story of places and peoples that are usually forgotten. Miguel Street, as I have said before, seems to be a semi-autobiographical work, since is divided into seventeen chapters; which are interpreted to be based in the author’s personal life. All stories take place in a small community in Miguel Street, Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago). However, Naipaul himself remains unnamed throughout the entire novel. Naipaul seems to be himself the narrator; he writes from the first-person and describes his own experiences in each episode through several characters. In every chapter, he focuses in one individual; while the rest of them, remain in the background as they were part of the setting. All together helps to depict that small world of failure and disillusionment in Miguel Street. The chapters are almost interchangeable, the only obvious exceptions being the two last chapters which I consider the climax of the novel. What links the story and the characters together is the destiny of disillusionment in which they all take part. In the end, the escape seems to be the main theme; while a constant recalling of childhood is present with all the nostalgia and feeling of alienation that links all those community members of Miguel Street. But a closer examination of the book reveals us another pattern far from being just an inventory or collection of characters. It opens with the story of Bogart; who uses the nickname of a Hollywood star. To escape the boredom the community produces him, Bogart tries to be the most glamorous men of Miguel Street. The truth comes out when police catches him and accuses him of bigamist who has run out of two women â€Å"to be a man, among we men†. Popo, the following character, is said to be a carpenter; but actually he has never build a thing with his own hands. The narrator expresses how he liked watching him pretending to work. The failure comes when Popo is discovered to be a furniture thief. When he comes out of prison, he establishes a stable family and starts making real furniture. George of the Pink House, is depicted as a bully whose failure to manage his family leads to his inevitable failure in life. He is the very antithesis of the father-figure. He beats his wife to her death, and the only channel of escape is oppressing his children, especially his daughter. He is said to be â€Å"too stupid for a big man† inside the community. The story of George’s son Ellias, is also another great example of frustration and failure. His ambition is to be a doctor, but he is depicted as being not very intelligent, although he works hard enough to reach a school level. In the end, Ellias, disillusioned and finding no escape anywhere, becomes a scavenger (Sp. â€Å"chatarrero†? ). One of the most well drawn characters in Miguel Street is the mysterious B. Wordsworth (B for Black) who comes and goes as well. He lives in a house full of symbolism; coconut trees, plum trees, and a big mango tree: â€Å"The place looked wild, as if it wasn’t in the city at all†. He is like living among nature, typical romantic, and â€Å"living as if he was doing it for the first time in his life†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . He is comparable to Popo in doing a â€Å"thing with no name†, which means he is being involved in a never ending pursuit of writing â€Å"the best poem in the world†. Here, the element of escapism is obvious. B Wordsworth also develops a great friendship with the narrator. When the pseudo poet dies, the boy-narrator finds himself just like a poet: â€Å"full of grief†. The narrator explains how he felt when he returned to the pink house a year after, and he could not see anything similar to the pink house: no evidence of coconut tree nor plum tree. â€Å"Just as if B. Wordsworth had never existed†. In all those stories Naipaul depicts a whole bunch of men and their vulnerability, their failure, their passive- willing to escape. Not to mention that he depicts some women characters as well. Such is Laura, who is introduced as â€Å"holding a world record for having eight children by seven fathers†. Lorna, Laura’s daughter, becomes pregnant. Laura’s world seems to crumble, so she drowns into the sea. For her, it seems to be no escape from failure. Moreover, again a woman enters into Miguel Street’s world. This woman, who is related to the character of Hat; affects the relationship within the community of Miguel Street. She is later discovered with another man and becomes finally a victim of Hat’s violence. Hat ends up in prison accused of murder. Although the two principal characters in Miguel Street (Hat and the narrator) are always present; we don’t see them in detail until the end, when the failure and disillusionment and departure has been established. We can see Hat as a kind of â€Å"the adult consciousness† of the narrator. The departure of Hat from the street is quite sad for all of them, even more for the young narrator; but the life in Miguel Street keeps going forward. When Hat is released, four years have passed, and the narrator is already a man; and he no longer needs Hut. â€Å"when Hat went to prison, a part of me died†. In the final chapter, we find the narrator’s departure from Miguel Street, and Trinidad. His escape from failure is to go away from the disappointing changelessness of Miguel Street. Indeed, his escape appears to be a scholarship abroad, maybe equivalent to emigration. In Miguel Street, Naipaul stresses the fact that in a society like this which has not yet defined its goals, the individual is unlikely to achieve fulfillment in life. We find a little bit of humor among all those men in Miguel Street; because as the author says â€Å"life in the West Indies would be impossible without sense of humor†. But behind humor, a bitter reality undergoes. In a region where a constant racial and cultural mixing over centuries have resulted in heterogeneity, any ethnic ideal clashes with the reality of everyday life. Naipaul wants us to understand this willingness to change, a readiness to accept anything that comes; relating it with the dilemmas of Trinidadian working class life; victim of colonialism. 2. Lucy, Chapter 1: Poor Visitor (By Jamaica Kincaid). Jamaica Kincaid; is the author of Lucy; novel from which â€Å"Poor visitor† fragment is taken. The author was born as Elaine Potter Richardson, in Antigua (in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region). Antigua, would not gain full independence from British colonial rule until 1981. The author then, original from this particular island in the West Indies, seems to look back at her life to inspire fiction; such as the effects of colonialism, and feelings of alienation; mostly. In this chapter called â€Å"Poor Visitor†; the narrator is the protagonist at the same time. As readers, we just know that she comes from a tropical zone; that we associate directly to the home of the author; somewhere in the Caribbean Islands. Our protagonist is a young woman who has emigrated from her wild home land to live in the big city and start over new in a new land â€Å"full of opportunities†; which I guess it would be New York (although any name of countries or places are revealed, at least in this first chapter , we have some clues such as â€Å"there were lights everywhere†, â€Å"a famous building, an important street, a park, a bridge that when built was thought to be a spectacle†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦). However, she never appears to fit in her own American Dream. From the beginning, she expresses the disillusionment of arriving in a new country that she may had idealized before: â€Å"In a day-dream I used to have, all these places were points of happiness to me, all these places were lifeboats to my small drowning soul, for I would imagine myself entering and leaving them†. She is disappointed because all the landmarks were not as vivid as they were in her daydreams. Now these landmarks are worn down and dirty. This disillusionment may come from the great wish of departure; which at first was seen as something she really wished to; but how she depicts it herself, as not fitting in the big city nor with anything surrounding her. In America, Lucy is now bombarded with all the new elements which seem so integrated in our globalized society (refrigerator, lift, radio, the apartment); and forcing herself to adjust the way she thinks about the world. During her first unhappy days Lucy constantly thinks how uncomfortable the new can make you feel. Not to mention the feeling of alienation she may feel taking care of a bunch of â€Å"yellow-haired† kids and going to school in her only spare time at night. Moreover, the layer of dreams are also important to mention, since they are part of the symbolism in the text, and they intercalate every now and then among the bitterness of the chapter. We can see how she dreams about her cousin, or how she dreams about a cotton flannel nightgown made in Australia (female dresses to sleep; as a pajama made of flannel). It is not till the end of the chapter where we can see the full symbolic meaning of dreams: She is at a dinner table; explaining a dream that she had to the members of the family. In the dream, the family appears; and this fact makes them feel little pity for Lucy. In these last lines of the chapter, she is discussing with herself whether she shall leave America again or not. She is also reasoning what she had meant, by telling them that dream. She concludes that she had taken the family in, â€Å"because only people who are very important to her had ever shown up in her dreams† . There she is putting the family in the same sack where she once had put the cousin dream or the pijama dream . A good example of this alienation is that Lucy never mentions her job as â€Å"au pair† for example. She has entered bravely into a new world, but now she feels alone in it. She sometimes feels homesick and surprised that she is missing even the things she disliked â€Å"a person would leave a not very nice situation and go somewhere else, somewhere a lot better, and then long to go back where one came from it was not very nice†. Here is when she sleeps and sleeps just because she doesn’t want to take in anything else; that those dreams recalling her home land appear. Somewhere in the past, the thought of being in her present situation had been a comfort, but now she does not even have this to look forward. Once her dream was escaping from her home land, but now that she has achieve it, looks like it is not enough for her. The alienation is such, that even the family whom she is living with; is able to feel it â€Å"they began to call me The Visitor. They said I seemed not to be a part of things, as if I did not live in their house with them, as if they weren’t like a family to me, as if I were just passing through†. Jamaica Kincaid, the author of Lucy, has well depicted this feeling of alienation she may had felt once; hrough Lucy’s disconnection from what she is actually doing to make a living abroad. She may had forced herself to the outside world; being ready or not. She may had pretended to be happy or fulfilled once. She may had felt this â€Å"artificial happiness† just like Lucy when dancing with the maid.