Ambivalence, Alienation, and Subalternity: Reading Naipaul’s A Bend in the River through Bhabha, Fanon, and Spivak

Authors : Nimetullah Aldemir

Pages : 586-599

Doi:10.31465/eeder.1719742

View : 78 | Download : 158

Publication Date : 2025-10-27

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This study examines V. S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River (1979) from a postcolonial perspective, using the terminologies raised by Homi K. Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, and Gayatri C. Spivak. Considering so far controversial view of the ambivalent postcolonial settings in Africa, the paper analyses Naipaul’s disappointed vision of colonial practice and its complicity in the dissemination of imperial discourse. The study extends Naipaul’s provoking ideas to a platform where contradictions are reexamined through the concepts of mimicry and hybridity to explore how narrative authority represents repetition, ambivalence and parody. Naipul’s characters are lost in the the ‘pitfalls of national consciousness’, and suffer from colonial alienation. The paper argues that A Bend in the River problematizes collapsing psyche, unraveling identity and the burden of colonial legacy through epistemic violence, subaltern conundrum and silenced mediums. The paper shows how the characters pursue reliable mediation and epistemic authority through a narrative of despair rather than a descriptive discourse of postcolonial fragility, colonial trauma, and silenced voices.
Keywords : V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River, Postkolonyal Teori, Müphemlik ve Taklit, Madunluk

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