The novel starts with the main character, Ralph Singh. The writer brings out primary themes like exile life, cultural displacement, and independence disarray. Ralph Singh is naturally born from an Indian birthright and is brought up on the Caribbean Island of Isabella. The writer uses first-person narration to illustrate how Ralph is writing a memoir in response to the muddled uproar that is rampant in the setting of the novel. The novel has three main parts. The first part narrates the story of Ralph Singh in a small London hostel while in exile. When he attains the age of forty years he reminisces and ponders upon unfortunate events that occurred in his life that he wanted to avoid. In the First part, Chapter three, Ralph had great hopes of writing his memoir to restore the agitation, and cavernous dismay caused by an overthrow instigated by main social organizations. He wanted to use his works to have an appearance, to create a personality in the world, and to seek refuge in another country. The target for his memoirs was to make a quality script that could be used fifty years to come by scholars. He wanted to alienate himself from his writings but later learns he is a victim of the main subject meant to be addressed in his memoirs. In the face of the public, Ralph purposely takes the role of a tycoon colonial master. The hopes he had towards his writings are the same when he earns the post as a colonialist. This makes his conscience grit inward. This shows how anxious and pointless his personality is to the common citizens.
As a young bloke, he engages in numerous affairs and evidently understands the art of sex. He later marries Sandra, an English woman from an affluent family. She is meek and has a bad memory of failing to secure a university scholarship. He carries with him the inheritance fortune. Together with Sandra, they relocate to Isabella Island. He builds a high-class suburb named Kripalville. Life on the Island proves ostensibly cumbersome. He is on a journey of soul-searching. In Part 1, chapter 2, his view on sex is quite obnoxious and irrational. In his many sexual encounters with women, he notes that people hunt for sex and the aftermath is soiled private parts. The symbolic expression in the words of Singh is directly related to the practice of ‘hiding behind you and trying to find yourself. He explains that personality identity is like urban migration. The search for greener pastures in cities mainly depends on the physical lie of buildings, and this is a miss-guided principle. This is because more than often, one eventually discovers how deceptive the eye is. Here we see the private life of Ralph trying to understand himself.
In part two, the childhood life of Singh is described. We learn the genesis of the aimlessness that stalks his family. We meet Ralph’s parents in a deeper expression. While at home Singh lives with a father who is never fulfilled with the noble profession of being a school teacher. He is so conservative and explains to Singh how is alienated from his homeland. Singh’s father believes that when one, especially an Asian man, abandons his country of origin he is condemned. In his perspective, the Island is like a shipwreck! The father eventually moves away with some disappointed black slaves from the Island. He leads them away from the ways of life on the Island which he finds to be mysterious. He later settles them in the immaculate forest of the Island. Although the blacks move out, he is left alone as a Hindu holy servant. His influence spreads across reaching up to England.
In part 2, chapter 2, Ralph quotes from an ancient Greek adage that an essential to happiness is to get born in an illustrious city. When he compares this with Isabella Island he finds it to be very unfavorable and barbarous in nature. The Isabella political organization is full of corruption. He feels alienated and flung off out of his world. While in school he meets a friend who is important in making him realize the ill in his Isabella immediate society. Ethelbert Browne, a black scholar meets Ralph. Browne is a very intriguing and comic friend, he sometimes calls himself a happy nigger. The hostility he endures leads him to seek power on the Island. When they become friends, he later shows the corruption in the Island and its unpredictable nature of politics.
When Part 3 starts, we find Ralph to be forlorn and alone due to his divorce. He makes a bond with his friend Browne and both bring opposition to the Isabella government. Browne arranges a political group for the dispossessed in the community and leads in a most heated election. They become leaders on the Island. Being in such prestigious positions in high office, they encounter various challenges that make Ralph lose his job. His insight to mimic others elevates to another level, for example, his desire to nationalize the Sugarcane Company ends up being fruitless. When he fails in England as a delegate He resorts to writing. In his journeys as a writer, he is tormented and sometimes called a racist. The repudiation and desolation he faces are harsh. We see how he is disconnected from a world in which he seeks fulfillment. This generally explains how alienation and losing focus in life affects him.
References
Naipaul, V. S. (2012). The mimic men. Pan Macmillan.