Understanding the Depiction of Exile and Alienation in a Free State by VS Naipaul

Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is one of the most well-known writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Even his detractors have praised his research on history, culture, civilization, and ethnicity, which takes a journalistic approach to uncovering the past. He has been successful not just as a writer, but also as a tirade against third world countries—Trinidad, where he was born, and India, where his family came from—both of which he has often characterized as half-baked civilizations, and which have made him the center of controversy. In 1971, Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul was awarded the Booker Award for story for the novel in a free state, which is more of a collection of short story pieces based on the tales of the uprooted who fight to find their place in different kinds of free cultures. After all, exile and estrangement aren't something you choose: you're either born into it or it happens to you. But there are lessons to be learnt if exile and alienation refuse to sit on the sidelines nursing a wound: he or she must develop a conscientious (not indulgent or sulky) subjectivity. This article contributes to a better understanding of VS Naipaul's depiction of exile and alienation in In a Free State.


INTRODUCTION
The novel is a collection of short fiction pieces about people who have left their homes in search of a better life by moving to a foreign land to re-energize themselves and try to find something better, but instead find themselves in a purgatorial position, assaulted, reminded, and nudged that they are outlanders. The tales center around the experiences of uprooted individuals trying to make a home in various types of free communities, while also examining how freedom may occasionally overwhelm, but more frequently jeopardizes, destabilizes, and harms. In this book, Naipaul's heavy discernment of cultural incommensurability, fractured symmetry of colonial tie-ins and knocking down of identity via geographical relocation can be observed.

EXILE AND ALIENATION
Emotional isolation or separation from others is described as alienation. Characters in Hawthorne's novels and short tales are constantly alienated and isolated from society. These characters are physically and mentally isolated from their loved ones. Exile was a term used before the nineteenth century to describe forced removal from one's native city or nation. Charles Baudelaire expanded the definition of exile in the mid-nineteenth century by adding internal exile as a symptom of the situation. "This displacement is psychological and does not involve a physical uprooting.'' The issue of exile is further compounded by the contemporary author's perceived isolation from the rest of the community, in addition to this acquired layer of meaning. The topic of exile is metaphorically represented as alienation by people who are separated from cultural values and norms, and culminates in the depiction of a quest for the self by individuals who are removed from cultural values and standards. In post-colonial literature, the quest for a new identity, which enables characters to adapt and develop as subjects in their new circumstances, is a major theme.

EXILE AND ALIENATION IN "IN A FREE STATE"
In a Free State is a short story sequence in which each story is told through the eyes of a different character representing a variety of postcolonial experiencestravelers, postcolonial immigrants in the metropolis, and touristseach of whom represents a unique perspective on Naipaul's own life. In this sense, Naipaul's overtly autobiographical investigations, which appear much later in his career, are compatible with his earlier fictional work since both forms of writing enable him to define himself as a postcolonial literary subject. Early novels of Naipaul have all been based in the Caribbean. He then enlarged his job to compose travel accounts about Trinidad and India. In "In a Free State", Naipaul's earlier imaginary texts are a break and a return. In a short story style identical to Miguelle Lane, he returns to writing, only that the tales no longer have some time, location or location. Included in the journey to the pyramids of Egypt are a narrator's own journeys from the Pireus to Alexandria and three accounts of refugees, an Indian in America, a Caribbean in England and two English people in Africa. But in a free state, the novel is indeed a split, though Naipaul maintains that individual parts be pieced together as a whole. Naipaul recounts that in 1971, Diana Athill wanted to publish the African novella, 'In a Free State,' leaving out the other pieces because it was a complete story by itself. 1 However, Naipaul insisted that there was to be no publication unless all the pieces were published simultaneously as a sequence because he felt that the other pieces defined the novella. There's a moment in A Free State's 'One among Many' when Santosh, a character in the Himalayan foothills, sees himself in the mirror and realizes he's a human. He takes the precaution of separating himself from his employer in Washington, DC, and obtaining his own identity. What is the significance of the mirror? Is it necessary to transcend signs of imperial subjugation, economic servitude, or caste delineation in order to achieve individuality? Is contemplation a means of bridging the gaps between culture and modernity, group and individuality, religion and rationalité? Through the look glass, Lewis Carroll inverts the world and concentrates on facts. The article connects the book to Lewis Caroll's Via the Looking Glass in order to understand Naipaul's contemplation on the views of refugees through the introduction of diverse people from various parts of the world. Their interactions with immigrants differ in many ways, yet they both feel cut off from their societies and traditions. This is reflected in the narrator's encounters with the tramp and the traveler in the Prolog and Epilog, who are eternally separated from their companions. There is an extended passage in The Enigma of Arrival about 'In a Free State', which its narrator says he was writing at the time of his arrival in Wiltshire. 2 The narrator says in the chapter that he was reworking the idea of a traveler disembarking and entering a new chamber only to find the ship had already sailed away. He's out of options right now. Naipaul is trying to capture colonial concerns in various nation nations via diverse regional views and by giving different paths and legacies to his characters in a Free State. Through the Caribbean Voices Initiative and the Bloomsbury Community, Peter Kalliney argues for the BBC's essential role in establishing a literary environment for easier access to a reading, writing, and publishing audience. Naipaul's personal anxieties in England can be read in his prose, even as it appeared to read all western indigenous literature of that period as immigrant literature, thanks to this literary exchange, 'late tropical urban alienation be easily adapted to depictions of refugees suffering from colonialism, deregulation, and hunger.' When Naipaul moved to England, his sense of dislocation among the Hindu society in the West Indies must have increased. The human psychology and the abnormal demands of migration on the person are examined in each of the five parts. In a democratic society, the debate is about whether a nation state should be a free state or not. The subjects are free in a free state. Similarly, it addresses the problem of immigration in postmodern England at the end of World War II and colonialism. Gillian Dooley argues that the text shows 'Naipaul's quest for the correct form' pointing out that the 'themes in this novel include the image of the journey, the many facets of the idea of freedom, and the accommodation of a variety of subject positions.' 3 Timothy Weiss argues that while in the early novels of Naipaul, journeys or voyages 'signify openness, discovery, growth, potentialities in general, ... In a Free State recounts journeys of loss, waste, absurdity, humiliation, brutality.' 4 Naipaul recognizes that immigration, whether voluntary or involuntary, involves a renegotiation of one's ties to family, race, class and/or nation such as in the case of Santosh and his 'new' relationships with Priya and the 'hubshi' woman. It also involves renegotiating the relations that one had in the 'home' country as in the case of the narrator's relationship with his brother in the second tale. However, the English expatriates in the third tale do not renegotiate the new environment and this proves tragic. Reading the five pieces together is as if Naipaul is presenting various facets of the immigrant experience in a hall of mirrors where each image is individual and complete yet displaces all previous images, constantly defining and re-defining the self. We read the 'Series' of tales with an image of a mirror, which was originally used in 'One Of Many,' as variations on the subject of immigrant experience. The distance between an entity and its representation, or enantiomorphism, is similar to the gap between the writer and the narrator. One cannot exist without the other, and the writing / mirror absorbs / reflects as much as it conceals / reveals. One of the most lasting images of mirror usage in English literature is Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, which depicts Alice's adventures through an inverted insensitive world. The Looking Glass has been seen as both children's literature and silly literature. Cards ensure the success of kindergarten rhymes and characters by providing an alert advantage for chess, hide and seek, and check. By replacing the child with an immigrant, Naipaul is able to understand the ambitions of a migrant from the parent and host countries. The Looking Glass is to be interpreted as a challenge for the novel of social modes with its well-ordained plots and pleasant ends that are either sent away or turned into suitable social norms with non-confirmatory components, both of which are happy to exist, just as it is to be interpreted as a challenge for the novel of social modes with its well-ordained plots and pleasant ends that are sent away or turned into suitable social norms with non-confirmatory components, both of which are happy to exist, just as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland This is not to suggest that Naipaul uses this comparison as a model for his own work, but rather to highlight the difference in the application of a familiar cliché. This refers to the lines' appropriateness for the five sections of Carroll's Free State text. The goal of this interpretation is to uncover hidden effect patterns so that Naipaul's work may take on new significance. It also invites one to interpret Lewis Carroll's book as a text on the perplexing nature of the displacement encounter. Naipaul's protagonists renegotiate and 'theorize' about their origins by expressing their response to the new reality, thus establishing a crystalline gap between themselves and the current state. My interest is piqued to discover how Naipaul used the Trope of the Spiegel to symbolize an outsider's concerns about 'home,' which has either been left behind or, ironically, has been postponed till now.

Humpty-Dumpty: 'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean − neither more nor less' (TLG Chapter VI)
Santosh is a low-class Indian refugee, who fulfils his American dream but feels empty in his performance in 'One of Many.' The narrator talks about 'both here and in India' in a displaced narration (IFS 25). Santosh is the former migrant of his wife and children from the hills of Bombay in pursuit of jobs and money. In his own group of walkers, he lives a pretty peaceful life sharing comrade in Bombay. When we first see him working for a bureaucrat in Bombay, the physical dislocation from his village into the city is a history. The plot assumes place in the second comic-like and dramatic transition. He was moved to Washington DC by his employer and was followed by servant Santosh. The trip by plane is a perfect comedy of accidents with Santosh flying through the airplane and the bathroom with its apparel package and vomiting betel juice. The claustrophobic voyage on the aero plane is a symbol of his potential existence in a dresser-like environment in the apartment of his boss. His claustrophobic world collapses when he struggles through the apartment and the even more claustrophobic elevator before he reaches the green circle where he sees hubshi, 5 Americans and the dancers with men wearing saffron robes and girls in saris chanting Sanskrit words in praise of Lord Krishna (IFS 34). 6 However, he believed he had nowhere to go since he was not expected by a group of pals. He understands that many individuals are alone in their families. Santosh finds America energizing, despite the fact that his social distinctions do not bother him. However, when the Afro-American lady seduces him, his emotions of estrangement become more intense. He runs away from the worker, continues to work as a chef, and begins to get 'real money.' However, since he despises future and past catch-up, he is unstable and neurotic. He voluntarily confines himself in his room in an atmosphere where he can move about. He was not on good terms with his employer, and he quickly found that he needed to marry his African maid in order to get a green card and stay legally in the United States. The capacity to explore the world and not return is a crucial aspect of immigration. Loss, grief, and defeat have become a question of return for the immigrant, and he or she will never have a choice. A green card, Naipaul says indirectly, requires marriage. Santosh's American dream has many layers. Santosh never had the American ideal in the first place, but he is subconsciously pulled into it. The narrator makes the shift so seamless that the reader doesn't notice when Santosh starts to live the • Email: editor@ijfmr.com

IJFMR23045798
Volume 5, Issue 4, July-August 2023 5 American dream. Santosh's accomplishment has a hollow ring to it, but ('all my freedom gained me is the knowledge that I have a face and a body, that I need to feed and clothe the body for a number of years.') It will be completed,' and its solitude ('I was alone in that city and I did nothing,' (IFS 60)) disfigure America's vision, with America the green. In business, Santosh needs fellow males like Priya, but he does not maintain the illusion of equality. He's working his way through a wise salary increase, but he's not accumulating money or improving his performance. Santosh is lingering slowly in the time capsule, where events move quickly and the reader would not notice if Santosh's act took place in one year, a few years, 10 years, or twenty years. He knows him better than he knows himself, his unnamed employer, and Pry. His admissions arrived too late to reveal his inability to conquer the globe. Because he isn't a prankster or a social artist, Santosh is happy with the readers. His willingness to compromise reflects his ambitions. The only thing that comes to mind is looking in the mirror and discovering a selfimage that he is unaware of but desperately desires. Santosh's aspirations for money, prestige, and security in life would be symbolized by the mirror. On the contrary, it aids him in realizing that he is frail and incapable of living alone. Santosh's expectationsdisappointmentare countered by the reason for the hunt-the unnamed employer sees effectiveness, Priya sees potential, and the lady hubshi considers it desirable. Santosh, on the other hand, tells his own 'fulfillment' story. For Santosh, who is illiterate, obtaining a green card is an exciting prospect. This story reflects the writer's desire to interpret his life into what he wants to hear, more or less, as Humpty-Dumpty says in the passage from Through the Looking Glass above. The word simply means what he wants it to mean, nothing more or less. The lack of control over words and their significance in the following story is worsened as well. Although the narrator of his following story has no recollection of the image he sees in the mirror. Despite the fact that Santosh sees himself, he is unable to see himself. The narrator alternates between playing 'true' and 'unreal' as live expectations, reluctant to admit whether or not he dreams. Naipaul presents a narrator who loses control over his words and fate, similar to Humpty Dumpty's loss of authority over his existence. 'So, I wasn't dreaming, after all, unless − unless we're all part of the same dream' 7 In the words quoted above, Alice considers if her meetings are real as she crosses the opposite side of the mirror. In a free world, the book begins with a Prolog, and the writer goes by water from Piraeus to Alexandria. Because it is not simply social in international seas, and the subject is a Tramp who challenges these same structures by his non-conformity, the narrator's starting point is important. The trap isn't particularly English, but as Naipaul says, he might be an English romantic, wanderer, or novelist. When the tramp is the narrator in the cabin, he is unsuitable for culture because he wears unclean clothing and consumes and behaves in such a manner that it bothers others, from business visitors from Lebanon to American students. The tramp, like one of Carroll's characters, is a weird person who eats alone, throws fiercely at his magazine, and then laps away. The Lebanese vendors are playing a cat and mouse game with the Tramp, bullying him out of the dining area and into the restrooms. They want to be heard, but loneliness and attention are required. In Lebanon, goods vendors do the same way. The Tramp wins by preventing the Lebanese from entering their cabin. The Tramp declares, I acknowledge that I am a global resident (IFS 11). The statement is significant, and there are no boundaries to the planet based on age, race, or nation. The statement is significant. It's also amusing that the tramp should be the focus of people who put up these roadblocks. As a result, rather than becoming a free individual, the 'citizen of the planet' is considered a threat to democracy. He shows signs of a lack of shelter or security. The narrator does not state this explicitly, but the topic of independence develops in the following tale, with the societal flaw being a colonial fault.

The Walrus and the Carpenter: 'Well! They were both very unpleasant characters' (TLG Chapter IV)
In the third story, Naipaul reverses the passengers' roles from colonized to colonizers, similar to Alice's delayed moral judgment in Through the Looking Glass. Naipaul writes about the colonizer's experience with the colony on the other side of the mirror, much as Alice travels through the mirror into the reversed world. The shift from autobiography to the omniscient narrator, who is often veiled and never explicitly examined throughout the narrative, occurs frequently. It also makes it simple to never give up narrative power. 'In a free state' is about Bobby and Linda's outback journey in an imagined African nation. The story explores many elements of state-sanctioned violence against 'free' people, as well as race-based violence in civilizations that did not establish such classifications on their own. Political instability has erupted in these'modern' nation states, as competing governments cohabit and vie for power. While Bobby and Linda travel back from the city to the Southern Collectorship, the African president and the African King battle for supremacy. According to Naipaul, the journey from Kampala, Uganda, to Nairobi, Kenya, is repeated. The misunderstanding between various independent African countries in one state exemplifies Naipaul's concept of describing conquerors' perspectives without explanation. However, Africa is often seen as a unified entity, and Naipaul is charged with writing an Orientalized African book. In his essay, Czajka describes the characteristics of the African Orient which makes Africa below Edward Said 's Asian counterpart. Czajka cites striking disparities in Africa and Asia representation, including: the notion that Africa lacks all evolution and culture, while Asia has actually de-evolved from a previous state of cultural greatness (albeit one still inferior to that of the Occident); interest in the related cognitive under-development and childishness of the African; and, the obsession with the 'underevolved' African body. The short discussion with Africans in Naipaul's letter (because no substantial discourse is allowed) exposes Bobby and Linda's depiction of this African culture. The poem comments on three public spaces: the Colonel's retreat, the Hunting Lodge, and the Latest Shropshire Cafe. The whites appear in a Modern Shropshire pub, where the black suits are dressed in 'local' shirts manufactured in the Netherlands. Bobby is pursued by a young African Zulu who spits on his chest. The Africans who reject Bobby's offer, whether at the Colonel's resort or when he really arrives, follow suit. Bobby and Linda come upon the American 'free pigeon' in Africa in Hunting Lodge. This encounter is interesting since the Americans will claim that they are not part of the imperial system yet enjoy all of its benefits, including Linda's closeness. On the way out, Bobby is given a ride by an African, who subsequently asks that another African take the vehicle and then drives Bobby to a location. Bobby loses patience and dries it at the edge of the rain -the battered border is on the verge of breaking. At the colonel's resort, the colonel constantly asserts that Peter is dumb. Peter, on the other hand, uses the Colonel's instruments for his social advancement. The British order to the Africans is audible. However, Africa is shown as a backdrop for the main characters' quests as well as a decorative element in public places. The depiction of Africans by Naipaul has been criticized more than the portrayal of expats. Linda and Bobby are both non-conformists and sexual deviants, with women missing or as companions, while the typical colonial explorer of Africa was characterized as white, straight, and masculine. Despite becoming colonists, they have little confidence in or ability to flourish without the necessary trappings for the colonial enterprise. Accents, facial expressions, and vanity are important in the colonies. And, as Bobby looks forward to dismissing his attendant at the conclusion of the book, English and Christian values lose their spiritual dominance. In every instance of contact with the Africans, Linda and Bobby do not allow genuine conversation or dialogue. He argues that Naipaul's portrayals of Bobby are far more damnable than Santosh's Hindu prejudice or Dayo's child's pathological misunderstanding. 'The colonial state of thought is one that recognizes no responsibility,' says Naipaul, since he hates both colonizers and colonists. Rather of imbuing Bobby and Linda with the characteristics of the ideals described in 'our common culture,' Naipaul sees the colonists as inept examples of white people obsessed with themselves. Bobby suffered a nervous breakdown in England, and Africa helped him get back on his feet. He was on the list. Linda looks for attention while the Africans struggle to find their own voices. When Linda and Bobby arrive to the Colonelt Resort, they are greeted by dogs. When the dogs are split, they seem healthy, much like the Africans ganging up on the whites, and Bobby was impressed as he approached the collectorate. Linda and Bobby, on the other hand, must fight physically to preserve their lives until they know their number. When an alien is seen as an intrusive, he or she is more susceptible to attack than a native, regardless of who controls the political reins.

'Which Dreamt it?'
Similarly to Alice's question in Through the Looking Glass, the Epilogue offers another brief travel journey, this time through the tourist town of Egypt. The character who does not behave in the prologue and does not improve in the epilogue symbolizes the character who does not behave in the prologue and does not improve in the epilogue. The author's distinction between Lebanese, English, Germans, and Italians, which he made in the prologue, is not so apparent. The overarching tone of the'sequence' is uncertainty. The speaker met a Chinese circus group in Milan, Italy, and Luxor, Egypt. The Chinese are also interested in two other geographical areas. However, the writer's travels in both places have a unique importance. In Milan, their niceties are a sign of their culture, while in Egypt's self-obsessed society, the same pleasantries become insulting displays. Because the Chinese read French and English publications, they are oblivious to Egypt's suffering in the form of little children clamoring for sandwiches and apples from tourists. People in China read articles written in English and Greek. The waiter's rash behavior with the youngsters has an effect on the narrator, who rescues them. But he understands there are a lot of individuals in the image. The cat and mouse game between the waiter and the impoverished youngsters is reminiscent of the one the Lebanese played in the Prologue. The many protagonists in each of the five pieces depict distinct elements of immigrant life. The Tramp never manages to calm a traveler's nerves. Santosh is a wary immigrant who observes a pattern of travel. Because he feels empty, the narrator of Tell me Who I Can Destroy moves on his own country. Bobby and Linda are looking for a way to recover from their failed African relationships. In contrast to Santosh and the unnamed narrator of the second tale, the prologue's narrator retains action and responsibility. In an increasingly deteriorating colonial Africa, the Epilog's author, like Bobby and Linda, is uninterested in anything pleasant. The narrator believes his perception is incorrect: Perhaps that was the only time the former artist, unfamiliar with a new nation, had learned to look at the artist and see him fully (IFS 255). Unlike the artist, the writer believes that nothing is filthy, and that the alien is ultimately a delay man who must adapt to the inequalities of modern society since its vessel has already left the beaches and cannot return or continue.
When we have another epistemological or otherwise, Robert Young urges us to avoid the 'othering' of the other, as narratives get caught in a torrent of meanings and categorizations. In a similar attempt, Naipaul employs the mirror trope to disrupt unified subjectivities. The five components are 'unshaped' and 'in a free condition.' Their substance is what binds them together in a displacement sequence, which symbolizes Naipaul's search for a form that decodes fixed identities, cultures, positions, and practices. In the inverted setting, in the Free State, it is always Alice, like Naipaul's storytellers, who intervenes in the perfectly planned and ordered world of chess pieces.

Jabberwocky: 'It seems very pretty but it's rather hard to understand' (TLG, Chapter I)
The anonymous speaker in 'Tell Me Who to Kill' succeeds in portraying the unreality of living in London and on the islands. The narrator emphasizes the illusory nature of life by claiming there was never a desire or intention to pursue or reach anyplace else on the island. In his perspective, his home is distinct from the rest of the world, with no specific place or time period associated with it. The narrator's main emphasis in the early portion of his narrative is that he feels 'no life' (IFS 67). He may not have much of a life on the island, but he recognizes that he has thrown his life away in England. The mirror has a stronger impact here than in the previous stories. The parallel is made with the existence of a spiritual awareness. He's not much easier to deal with than he was on the London island. In all areas, he works hard for his money, while his brother may be wasting his time in school: 'Envy is as ugly and awful as silence, and it frequently stings' (IFS 71). It reminds me of Santosh and his fear of performing. The narrator's preconceptions are being messed with by the younger brother. Despite the narrator's belief that the younger brother would be able to pursue a good education in the real world if he had the opportunity, the younger brother suffers in both academics and business. The storyteller's existence is empty, and an investment in his brother's ambitions causes him to burn out. He travels to England to avoid sending letters to his younger brother, whom he supports. Nonetheless, his brother's poverty, prejudice, apathy, and treachery destroy him. The narrator, unlike Santosh, does not react to his surroundings. He too remains in his own world while working in tobacco and eventually starts a grocery shop in England. His hard-earned money runs out, leaving him in a desperate situation: 'You better kill him before he destroys you, once you figure out who your opponent is' (IFS 83). He felt that the whites were not yet his adversaries, and that his willpower was a gift from the same civilization. But, while he battles to stay out of jail, his brother marries a white lady in the last stage. was the question of where he was. His initial fear of being a writer soon turned into a terror when he almost lost his foot. Hysteria overtakes him shortly after his initial ambitions of leaving Trinidad at the age of 18 and pursuing a career as a writer had been realized. At this time in his career, Naipaul was planned a trip to America and Canada, but he remained in Wiltshire, England, for the following 10 years. Tell me someone to destroy works on many levels, trusting and alienating the reader at different times. ''On the one hand, the unnamed narrator tells his tale; on the other, he has little ability to objectively separate himself from the story he tells." It's about Alice trying to understand her own point of view, as well as the nonsensical poetry 'Jabberwocky,' which is painted in a mirror. In contrast to Santosh, the unnamed narrator struggles to convey his story coherently, falling into hazy reveries. The story is intriguing not because it pushes the boundaries of democracy, as the previous plot did, but because it pushes the boundaries of speech. I've turned my back on the English language... Santosh had made up his mind about going to a new school. I don't want to read or comprehend anything (IFS 61). The unnamed narrator of the second tale shifts his heart and thoughts to the English and inquires about his opponents. Santosh and the unnamed narrator argue about the distinction between words and feelings, performance and accomplishment, expectations and unfulfilled goals. Santosh can't adapt to a new person believing he's the picture he's seen in the mirror since he has a steady life. He notices that his green coat is too big for him and hangs over him instead of fitting. The unnamed narrator of the second story tries to connect with his image and finds himself in a world where conflicting pictures tend to overwhelm the sequence of events that lead to a bad picture.

CONCLUSION
The book has undoubtedly fulfilled the author's intended goal. It raises certain fundamental issues concerning mankind, and all of the characters in the novel are shown aspiring to achieve freedom despite all pervasive chaos and despondency, as a result of which the modern chaos is palpable that the plight of uprooted former colonial becomes a metaphor for modern restlessness, and homelessness and exile are perceived as a contemporary state of mind, afflicting all. Being in a free condition entails being outside and adrift in the contemporary world. It also brings attention to the suffering of Indians in the Diaspora throughout the globe. The fight against all obstacles is indicative of the human soul's tenacious spirit.