Casualties of Freedom: The Proteanism of V.S. Naipaul’s In a Free State

David Shaun Morgan, Master’s Student, English

 

This paper attempts to situate Naipaul’s In a Free State in the discourse of post-colonial studies and cultural identity formation. Each of the protagonists in the novel are placed in supposedly “free” states, but, ironically, they each are trapped in the context of a free world having relinquished or lost their cultural identities. Robert Jay Lifton’s theory of the “Protean self” (in The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation) is reflected in Naipaul’s rootless characters who constantly re-shape their identities.

 

The chaos of Naipaul’s world is established by the first story (“The Tramp at Piraeus) in which a tramp who lacks clear cultural ties is subjected to violence and danger as he moves about the post-colonial world among those who have distinct national and cultural backgrounds. Not only does the tramp have no history, he also has no home. He thus creates an identity that insulates him from the violence of the world around him. He is free to travel the world, but he is subject to the violence that he will encounter everywhere.

 

In “One Out of Many,” Santosh continually relinquishes his sense of place and history in favor of financial success in an increasingly cosmopolitan word. While in India, he had a distinct sense of place in a caste system that limited him to poverty. In America, however, he abandons his cultural values by marrying a “hubshi” woman and leaving his employer. Santosh finds that he does not gain security with his freedom but is trapped by fear that he may be deported, and in attempt to find security, he isolates himself from America.

 

Similarly, Dayo of “Tell Me Who to Kill” seeks refuge from the chaos of a post-colonial world, but instead of withdrawing physically from the world, he retreats into his own madness. This story develops further the relationship between Naipaul and his protagonists. While the previous stories represent Naipaul at different stages of his life, this story recalls his specific experience with the post-colonial worlds of Trinidad and London.

 

The title story of the novel, “In a Free State,” continues to explore the traumatic effects of post-colonial exile by depicting the fragmentation of community that occurs with the rejection of cultural ties. Bobby, who identifies with the African natives, rejects his British background in favor of personal freedom only to find that he is subject to violence and chaos. The freedom of the African state is disorder.

 

“The Circus at Luxor” depicts a world of chaos and violence like that of the previous stories but introduces a sense of changing post-colonial roles. The arrival of a Chinese circus seems to promise a coming order and empire, but the futility of the narrator’s attempted involvement in the world indicates that no such change is possible.

 

The ultimate "Proteanism" of the novel is Naipaul's own shifting role as novelist and the form he chooses for the text. Naipaul uses a composite text to depict a world of rootless fragmentation and to investigate his own identity at various stages of his post-colonial experience.