A Bend In The River

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-11

Chapters 12-15

Chapters 16-17

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

Searching for Home

Naipaul explores the theme of home primarily by giving us multiple characters who are outsiders searching for home. Another way to understand this theme is in terms of identity: who is at home and who is a stranger, or outsider? Salim comes from coastal Africa and never felt at home there. He states that “Africa was [his] home” but that “[t]he coast was not truly Africa” (10). In other words, the real Africa was not Salim’s home, not his native environment.

Salim buys the shop from Nazruddin to try to make a new home for himself in a place where he might succeed. The flat he buys in town was formerly occupied by a Belgian artist, a nod toward postcolonialism. Salim inherits her paintings and furniture but does nothing to make the place his own. When the Domain is built, Salim yearns to have the more sophisticated life he believes it represents. He meets Yvette and Raymond there and discovers they are twice removed from home: once because they’ve come to Africa from Europe, and again because they were exiled to the town, where they wait in the hope of being recalled by the President.

Nazruddin moves his family from the town to Uganda, then to Canada, and finally to London. Metty has an African family in town that he ignores in order to live mostly with Salim, in the flat. Indar proves to himself repeatedly that he doesn’t belong in the places he lives. For example, he is unable to get a job in England like the English college students he graduates with. When he applies at the Indian embassy he’s told he isn’t Indian, and that he should go back to Africa. The only place we see Indar feel at home is in the Domain, which he cannot return to after his employer folds.

Salim identifies Ferdinand as a stranger, much like himself. Although he is African, he has grown up in a southern village and is not known to anyone except his mother, Zabeth. Similarly, when he attends the polytechnic and then goes to the capital city, it’s clear to the reader that he feels uncomfortable in these environments.

In contrast to the characters who are out of place in their environment, Naipaul gives us Mahesh, who not only has made a comfortable home and a good living in the town, but who understands the way things work, the logic of the place. This is how he understands he must make arrangements for Bigburger, so it isn’t commandeered by the state and given to someone else. Salim is surprised and dismayed that Mahesh didn’t explain any of this to him. Mahesh is likewise surprised that Salim doesn’t understand the ebb and flow of peace and violence—the repeated cycle of boom and bust that occurs in the town.

Father Huismans is an example of a foreigner who feels at home in the town. Salim observes his deep appreciation for the African religious objects he collects. He isn’t interested in people or politics, but has nonetheless found his niche in this society. Naipaul doesn’t allow him to survive, however, and instead has him murdered in the bush and returned to the town in a dugout. His simple way of being at home in this place isn’t enough to sustain his existence in the novel—in the end, he remains a foreigner, first and foremost.

In a larger sense, Naipaul communicates that the old and the new are not always at home with each other. Old and new customs, ideas, policies, and people blend and clash throughout the novel. The reader understands that colonial viewpoints, such as the one Raymond represents with his magazine articles, cannot be at home in a time which is fraught with new ideas. There is never any hope that Raymond will be invited back to the capital. He has no home there; his time has passed, as he symbolizes colonialism in the text.

Postcolonialism

The aftereffects of colonial rule crop up throughout the novel. Naipaul seems to ask the question: How does a society/culture build or create its own identity after the departure of a foreign ruling power? There are superficial ways the people of the town have attempted to do this for themselves. They have replaced the street signs with new, hand-written ones, removed the European-looking streetlights, torn down or defaced colonial monuments, and looted and burned the European suburb at the edge of town.

As violence stirs in the town, Salim notes the suffering of the people,

observing that “[i]t was the rage that made an impression—the rage of simple men tearing at metal with their hands” (81). There is a dramatic tension for the people between wanting the town to flourish and prosper, and wanting to destroy everything that stands as a symbol or reminder of colonial rule.

The new president is also both a symbol of hope for the future and a source of fear. Salim reflects that “[t]he President had sent terror to our town and region. But at the same time, by terrorizing the army as well, he was making a gesture to the local people” (77). When the president disbands the Youth Guard, they form a rogue militia and publish a leaflet, assuring the people that they are the only ones who know the truth and represent the best future. Everywhere people look, there is power corrupting officials, fear of violence from all sides, and a distrust of progress with European associations.

Truth

Naipaul plays with various versions of truth in the novel to build greater tension around both the community unrest and violence Salim observes as well as within Salim’s restless and uncertain view of the world. As a historian and writer, Raymond believes he is searching for the truth. He wonders if he or anyone else will ever be able to understand the truth of African history properly. He asks Yvette’s party guests, “Do you think we will ever get to know the truth about what has happened in Africa in the last hundred or even fifty years?” (130). Yet Salim is dismayed when he reads some of Raymond’s published work and realizes he has relied on colonial sources such as newspapers which Salim knows, “tell a special kind of truth” (181). He is well aware that the truth, as reported from a colonial point of view, will be very different from the truth as it’s perceived by the African people, particularly because they focus on the people in powerful positions, instead of what life is like for the average citizen. Salim also sees that Raymond’s articles “didn’t give the impression that he had talked to any of the people involved” (181). Raymond’s truth is a truth of distance and colonial power.

After the president disbands the Youth Guard in the town, its former members redefine themselves “as defenders of the people of the region” (212). They publish a pamphlet that states, “We only know the TRUTH, and we acknowledge this land as the land of the people whose ancestors shriek over it” (212). This is an example of the idea of truth as an inciting force, a point of view expressing itself as the only real option. Salim reflects that the people responded to this idea of what is true.

Opposites

Salim himself identifies this theme in the novel by noting, “Opposites: again this communication by opposites. That woman in the cupboard: that other person outside. That journey out from the Domain: that other journey back. Affection, just before betrayal” (219). The ultimate opposite is coming and going, and who arrives and who leaves. For Salim, it is also a matter of when he decides to leave the town, go back, and leave again. The fate of the town is also subject to opposing forces. It was nearly destroyed in the uprising after colonialism, then it experienced a boom. Then, once again, there was violence. When Metty panics at the end of the novel about being left behind, Salim says, “And always remember that the place is going to start up again” (275).

There is also evidence of polarity in Salim’s relationships over the course of the novel. With Ferdinand, Salim is perpetually annoyed while at the same time wanting to educate and improve the boy. Similarly, Salim is at times repelled by and attracted to Yvette. Further, he vacillates between feeling like Metty is part of his family and feeling that Metty is a burden and untrustworthy. Just as there is opposition externally, there is also internal opposition in the novel’s protagonist.

The Power of Objects and Art

Naipaul’s exploration of the power of objects begins with Salim’s encounters with Father Huismans and his collection of African religious art and artifacts. Salim marvels that these cultural items are of interest to a European priest, when Salim himself has never been interested in them at all. Ferdinand is dismissive of the collection, saying they remind him of a European museum collection. This observation is prescient, as the collection is stolen after Father Huismans’ death by an American visitor, “no doubt to be the nucleus of the gallery of primitive art he often spoke of starting” (84). It is not the objects themselves that result in Huismans’ death, but he is nonetheless murdered by some of the creators of this work, people from a village in the bush.

Yvette recounts her social gaffe in the capital, during which she failed to understand the meaning of the president’s gesture when he lay his walking stick on the ground (doing so is meant to intend for people to be silent). Her failure to respond to the meaning of that object is considered an unforgivable offense.

Salim inherits paintings and objects from the Belgian artist who lived in his flat before him. He notes the tension between the fact that she thought her own painting of a European port important enough to hang on the wall, but not important enough to take with her when she moved. There is a stack of additional paintings propped up against a wall. Salim refers to them as “junk” (41).

The portrait photographs of the president also feature often in the novel. At first, he is pictured in his military uniform, then dressed as a tribal chief. He says, the people “want something else. So they no longer see a photograph of a soldier. They see a photograph of an African. And that isn’t a picture of me, Raymond. It’s a picture of all Africans” (134). Everyone in the town is required to display a photograph of the president in their places of business. “We hung up the official photographs in our shops and offices” (185). When Salim goes to the Tivoli with Yvette he notices that the official portraits have been getting bigger and bigger and their quality better and better. People are saying the president has them printed in Europe. At the Tivoli, Salim sees the three-foot-tall presidential portrait and thinks, “we were reminded that we all in various ways depended on him” (168).