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영어

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the potentiality of the postcolonial subject in V. S. Naipaul(1932- )'s The Mimic Men (1967) through analyzing R. R. K. Singh, the protagonist of this novel. In this novel, which appears as memoirs of an exiled politician from a postcolonial nation, though Singh has the limitation of a negative subject who represents distress of postcolonial societies like Isabella sneeringly, his sneer and detestation aim at the Western imperial nations equally. Singh's continuous self- exposure and his attitude of self-examination, however, let the readers overcome the criticism that Naipaul's character is just cynical and skeptical, and expect him to develop into an open-minded and rebellious subject. The second chapter examines how Singh goes through the course of subject-forming in the conditions of racial and cultural hybridity and diaspora in Isabella and in the mechanism of the colonial education. Through Naipaul's keen, accurate description, we can acquire abundant harvest of uncovering of the substance of the colonial education. The third chapter focuses on Singh's desire to escape out of Isabella and detestation that he feels in the center of the imperial city during the period of study abroad in London. The colonial education makes Singh feel himself marginal and deserted and long for escape to the center of the Western imperial city. But what is left to him is the feeling of emptiness and detestation on the Metropolis. Singh, the colonial subject, carries out self-denial repeatedly. Through this process, though western imperialism is demythicized, we can observe that his pain is never cured easily. The fourth chapter focuses on Singh's seeking for order and existential stability which he could not find both in the postcolonial society and in the center of the Western imperial city through his act of writing. Disillusioned at the real world around him and choosing to go to England as an exile and a hermit, Singh begins to write his own memoirs. Through such writings, he seems to achieve order and stability he has longed for. In the conclusion, I estimate the potentiality of a Naipaulian postcolonial subject who evaluates postcolonial societies and the Western empires through the introspective writing based on keen sensibility and self-consciousness with a cool head. Singh can be evaluated as a Naipaulian postcolonial subject who has keen insight and rebellious potentiality.