A House for Mr. Biswas

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapters 1-2

Part 1, Chapters 3-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-6

Part 2, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapter 4-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Houses

Houses are an important symbol in A House for Mr. Biswas, and they are included in the title alongside the protagonist. Rather than any specific building, the titular house is a symbolic entity. Mr. Biswas is a man who craves his own independence and agency and, to him, the only way he can envisage himself attaining such a level of agency and independence is to own his own house. The house is a vital symbol because the protagonist invests houses with an emotional meaning that encapsulates his hopes and ambitions. Rather than one single building, the house is an abstract concept. The house for Mr. Biswas is an ideal, a symbol of the person he wants to be in direct contrast to the person who he is. As such, the plot of the novel becomes a pursuit for this independence in the form of house. The progress and failure of Mr. Biswas's search for agency and independence is measured—by himself—in terms of home ownership.

The importance of the house as a symbol can be illustrated by the often-desperate attempts by Mr. Biswas to find a house that he can call his own. He owns three houses throughout the course of the novel (though not always the land on which these houses are built). He builds two of these houses himself and both are burned down, first by his own attempts to set fire to the bush around the property and the second during a lightning storm. Neither house is well-built or worth much more than the cost of materials, but Mr. Biswas understands their symbolic importance: They are his own, they are places where he can be free of the influence of the Tulsi family, and they are demonstrations to his family and his community that he is able to provide for himself and his loved ones. In direct contrast to the houses that Mr. Biswas tries to own are the houses that he rents (or is permitted to live in) that belong to the Tulsi family. The Tulsi family has a property portfolio, and Mrs. Tulsi and Seth assign living quarters to members of the family, based on their dedication to the family and willingness to do as they are told. These properties make the people who live in them—such as Mr. Biswas, Govind, and Mr. Tuttle—dependent on the Tulsis. The rented properties are inverse symbols of independence, representing the extent to which Mr. Biswas's agency has been surrendered to the Tulsi family. The stark contrast between the buildings that Mr. Biswas owns and rents is illustrated by his mental health. Lacking independence, living in rented properties, he often feels depressed. He feels his best when he is living in a property of his own, even if doing so has drawbacks of its own.

At the end of the novel, Mr. Biswas allows himself to be sold a house well above market rate which is perpetually on the verge of collapse. The house is an extravagant waste of money and a demonstration of Mr. Biswas's romanticized version of home ownership: He was so obsessed over the symbolic idea of owning a home that he did not think about maintenance, taxes, or the myriad other small details which come to plague his life. Ultimately, however, these details become meaningless. Mr. Biswas and his family are satisfied with the house, even if he knows that he will never fully pay for it. The house belongs to him and his family. The shaky, ramshackle home is a symbol of the shaky, ramshackle form of independence that Mr. Biswas has finally been able to achieve at the end of his life. It may not be what he always wanted, but it is close enough.

The Newspaper

In Part 2 of A House for Mr. Biswas, the protagonist secures a job at The Sentinel. When Mr. Biswas first begins working for the newspaper, the publication has a reputation for printing salacious gossip items and poorly sourced articles about sensational topics. Mr. Biswas is encouraged to massage or outright invent stories so that they are better suited to the tastes of the leadership. Mr. Biswas has no problem writing in this manner. To him, the newspaper is a form of entertainment and the stories in the newspaper should be entertaining. More importantly, he feels indebted to the newspaper because the job has an important symbolic meaning to him. Not only does the job at the newspaper and the relatively good wage provide him with financial independence from the Tulsi family, but it also provides him with an opportunity for self-expression. The stories that Mr. Biswas writes are attempts to put his personality and his view of the world into words. For the first time, he is being valued for his intellectual abilities, rather than his caste or his relationships. To Mr. Biswas, the newspaper is a symbol of self-expression on his terms, providing not just financial but also intellectual independence after an adulthood spent dependent on the Tulsi family for support.

For the rest of the country, however, the symbolic meaning of The Sentinel is different. They recognize the salacious approach to reporting and, though this makes the newspaper popular, it does not make the newspaper a trusted source of news. To Mr. Biswas, the newspaper is an institution which has given him opportunities he has craved for his entire life. For other people, the newspaper is a disposable form of entertainment which should never be taken too seriously. Even when the newspaper tries to provide social help in the form of a welfare fund, people remain suspicious because of the reputation of The Sentinel and, as a result, many people try to take advantage of the money available even though they are not necessarily the target demographic. The contrasting symbolic interpretations of the newspaper represent the alienation of Mr. Biswas from society. That he can view the newspaper so differently to those around him distinguishes him from his community. Mr. Biswas is not like other people, in terms of personality and in terms of the way he views one of the island's most popular newspapers. As with everything else in Mr. Biswas's life, he feels the need to take a contrarian opinion which—to him—feels utterly justified to the point of being objective truth.

The Sentinel is forced to change its content when the ownership grows weary of its scandalous reputation. As a result, Mr. Biswas is told to alter his energetic, indulgent prose to something drier and more austere. Mr. Biswas comes to hate his job and fears that he will soon be sacked. The change in tone at the newspaper is a symbolic illustration of the changing machinations of the world. Mr. Biswas is a man of a particular time and era. He is born in a mud hut and ends his life in a two-story house with electricity. In the same way, the changing public perception of newspapers means that Mr. Biswas's style cannot be tolerated in the current era. He is forced to modernize and update his style (and his personality) to suit the times. The change in approach at The Sentinel symbolizes Mr. Biswas's struggles to adapt to modern life and his growing alienation from the changes that modernity brings. He finds less value, less interest, and less satisfaction in this modern style of reporting, even if this style is—in an objective sense—more closely related to the truth. Mr. Biswas prefers his idealized, salacious, and very rarely truthful dreamworld to the reality he must inhabit.

Literature

Mr. Biswas uses literature as a form of escapism. He is a poor man who feels persecuted by his wife's family as he struggles to raise his children in difficult conditions. He sinks into deep bouts of depression at various points in his life as his material conditions and his lack of independence feel completely overwhelming. During his life, however, he never abandons his love of reading. He reads many novels and philosophy books, not just in a search for meaning in his life but to escape the debilitating poverty which defines his existence. For a poor boy from a poor colony on the fringes of the global community, access to novels from around the world allow him to escape to different places at a relatively low cost. Mr. Biswas never entertains the idea that he will ever leave the island of Trinidad, as he knows that he will never have the money or the opportunity to do so. However, the literature that he loves provides him with an opportunity to visit many other worlds and escape from the island for a brief, fleeting moment, even if this only exists in his mind. As such, the novel uses literature to not only symbolize escapism but also to symbolize the need to escape for men like Mr. Biswas, as well as the relative impossibility of escaping in anything other than an intellectual sense.

Literature also massages Mr. Biswas's ego. He is not an educated man, nor is he a particularly well-respected man. He has few skills which distinguish him from other people and, throughout his life, he lacks any real independence or agency. His love of literature, at least, allows him to appear intellectual in comparison to his peers. To Mr. Biswas, a knowledge of literature provides him with a way to elevate himself above the other men in his life and demonstrate that he is better and more deserving of respect than them. He is never shy to tell people about the books he has read, and he takes pride in reading voraciously. As well as a form of escapism, literature provides Mr. Biswas with an identity. His love of literature is a symbolic demonstration of his need to establish an identity all his own. This is particularly clear when Mr. Biswas is talking about the literature he does not like. His love of literature, in this sense, manifests as a pretentious attitude. He is dismissive of Mr. Tuttle's favorite series of books, loudly telling his son that they are worthless. Mr. Biswas is so convinced of the link between identity and literature that Mr. Tuttle is never referred to by his actual name. Instead, he is forever branded by his poor taste in literature which identifies him as a dullard. Mr. Biswas might not be a successful man, but literature symbolically empowers him to look down on his peers and practice a form of egotism which would otherwise be denied to him.

Literature is also a symbolic link between generations. Mr. Biswas, sure that he will never achieve his actual ambitions, is forced to live vicariously through novels and through his children. He combines these vicarious avenues of ambition by teaching Anand about literature. He makes Anand read to him on a regular basis and takes a particular interest in Anand's composition classes at school. When Anand writes a story about nearly drowning, winning praise from his teacher, Mr. Biswas is proud. The praise for Anand is, he believes, praise for himself. However, his pride turns to anger when Anand is embarrassed by his classmates' reaction to the story. Anand is embarrassed by literature, so in a symbolic sense, he is embarrassed by his father. Mr. Biswas beats his son for this symbolic repudiation. This disagreement is also a symbolic foreshadowing of the gap which will grow between them, creating an emotional distance between father and son by showing how their personal interpretation of what literature represents is irreconcilable.