Champa Bilwakesh
Final Semester
Supervisor: Kevin McIlvoy
MFA Program for Writers
Warren Wilson College
The Drama and not the Spectacle
Naipaul, V.S. A House for Mr.Biswas. 1961. New York: Penguin Books, 1969.
In his essay "The Editor Comes Clean at Last" Kevin McIlvoy talks about the proportions of the plot: the proportional attention given to the rising and falling phases of action, to moments of inactivity rather than the climax. In other words, the focus on "the drama and not the spectacle." I would like to explore these aspects and how they play out in the scenes created by Naipaul in his novel, A House for Mr.Biswas.
Mr. Biswas returns to Hanuman House from Port of Spain after gaining some amount of notoriety as a reporter. He had left Shama and the children, the new baby, without even a goodbye several months before and now he's back and is in the Blue Room at the Hanuman House, after an initial welcoming visit by the extended family.
It was as though he had never left. Neither Shama nor the children nor the hall carried any mark of his absence.
. . .
Anand came into the room. His hair was long on his big head; he was in his "home-clothes." Mr. Biswas held Anand to his leg and Anand rubbed against it. He asked Anand about school and got shy, unintelligible replies. They had little to talk about.
"Exactly when they did start seeing my name in the papers? Mr.Biswas asked.
Anand smiled, raised one foot off the floor, and mumbled.
"Who see it first?"
Anand shook his head.
"And what they say, eh? Not the children, but the big people."
"Nothing."
"Nothing? But what about the photo? Coming out every day. What they say when they see that?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing at all?'
"Only Aunt Chinta say you look like a crook." (331)
So there is the home coming. Mr. Biswas's eagerness to know the effect his fame had on the people is rewarded with non-answers, silence, and finally the only response Mr. Biswas gets to hear is about Aunt Chint'a opinion which is comic, unexpected, and so right. But the spectacle of home-coming, the meeting of the father who left without a good-bye with his son, Anand's pleasure in seeing his father, all these are in the silence. This is the first time he sees Anand alone after arriving. Mr. Biswas holds him against his leg, Anand is rubbing against his father's leg. In these body movements, we can sense the boy's height, where his head hits the leg, the intimacy in this 'hug.' The conversation is nothing, is repetitious, there is no new information, it does nothing to the movement of the plot, but there is Anand's smile, his engagement in the conversation with his father, just being in the same room, the two of them. Mr. Biswas asks those questions that he would not ask Anand in the public place of the hall downstairs.
But there is something else that needs to happen. Where is the reconciliation, where is the moment between Shama and Mr. Biswas, the runaway husband? Where is the consequence, the forgiving? We are waiting for the "spectacle."
"Who is the pretty baby? Tell me, who is the pretty baby?"
It was Shama, coming into the room and wandering about it with a baby in her arms.
Mr. Biswas had not seen his fourth child. And now he was embarrassed to look.
Shama came closer but did not raise her eyes. "Who is this man?" she said to the baby. "Do you know that man?"
Mr. Biswas did not respond. He felt suffocated, sickened by the picture of mother and child as by the whole furtive domestic scene in this room by the hall.
"And who is this?" Shama had taken the baby to Anand. "This is brother." Anand tickled her chin and the baby gurgled.
"Yes this is brother. Oh, isn't she a pretty baby?"
He noticed that Shama had grown a little plumper.
He relented. He took a step towards Shama and immediately she held up the baby to him.
"Her name is Kamala," Shama said in Hindi, her eyes still on the baby.
Shama's movement about the room, her cooing and repetition of the words with the baby is like an incantation. The attention is drawn from the father and son and is now focused on her. There is no direct conversation, just Shama "wandering" around the room, making sounds with the baby. We see the truth in the embarrassment and awkwardness that Mr. Biswas feels, the embarrassment from the abrupt leaving, the awkwardness of being introduced to his own child. Shama never looks at him but the way she wants him very much to acknowledge the baby is evident. There is this awkwardness of the sudden absence, the unexplained time lapse, that is wide open between them and we wonder how that is going to be bridged. If Mr. Biswas had responded, tickled the baby, the tension would have broken. But he doesn't respond in any way, he feels "suffocated, sickened." Anand's tickling the baby and the gurgling baby sounds balances the awkwardness and breaks the tension somewhat. He notices Shama, how she has grown a little plumper and then he takes a step. Shama is so acutely aware of his every movement that she immediately holds the baby up between them. She never looks at him, her eyes are on the baby, but it is not anger, there is no resentment. It could be just shyness. She switches to Hindi, an intimacy hinting at a closure to the distance. ""Give her back to me," Shama said after a short time. "She might get your clothes dirty." " She takes the baby back, instantly becoming mother and wife.