Complete reading of the first six short stories from ‘Miguel Street’ by V. S. Naipaul
Through this paper, I aim to explore the various themes employed in the short stories ‘Bogart’, ‘The Thing Without a Name’, ‘George and the Pink House’, ‘His Chosen Calling’, ‘Man-Man’ and ‘B. Wordsworth’. These are some of the many short stories from the book ‘Miguel Street’ which was written by renowned author V. S. Naipaul. The setting is that of a street named ‘Miguel Street’ as suggested by the title of the book, which seems to be situated somewhere in Port of Spain. This street is also known as Luis Street. The short stories talk about various characters and their lives in the locality.
All the short stories mentioned above are described and narrated through the point of view of a small boy, who might just be the author himself. As the author has used this angle to write the stories, many aspects of life are described in an innocent fashion whereas others bring out a rather refreshing perspective of life.
The first story talks about a man named Bogart. He is shown to be a mysterious, quiet character that likes to play cards. His profession is supposed to be that of a tailor, but he never engages in it and prefers to be idle or engage in illegal activities. No one from Miguel Street seems to know much about his personal life, although Hat, the one who gives him a room on rent, seems to be the one closest to him. The story basically revolves around Bogart and his sudden disappearances, of which no one knows any details until one day finally, they read about it in the papers. The theme of this story is ‘The American Dream’ and Bogart’s failure in achieving it. He tries to become a wealthy man by dealing with illegal goods and owning a brothel but the law eventually catches up to him and prevents him from causing any more trouble.
In the second short story, the main characters are Popo, the boy, who is also the narrator and Popo’s wife. Popo is a carefree soul, who does not bother himself with materialistic things and the idea of earning money. He is the narrator’s most liked person from all of Miguel Street. He always seems to have time for the narrator and he never appears to be making anything ‘constructive’. His wife cheats on him with the gardener who also works at the same house where she works as a cook, although she does come back later in the story. The main theme of the story for me is how a person is sometimes unable to explore his or her creativity owing to the constant pressures of society to be similar to others. In the story, Popo is called a half man and a man woman because he doesn’t earn money and his wife does instead. People make fun of him because he is always making the thing without a name instead of actually making normal furniture. Hence, he becomes a grumpy man at the end of the story who stops thinking about the thing without a name, much to the boy’s utter dismay.
The third short story is one of the more disturbing ones from the abovementioned stories. The main character is George, an unfriendly, nasty, abusive man. He beats his wife to death and continues to abuse his daughter, even when she is getting married. His son grows too big to be beaten by his father, but he seems to have a lot of faith in God and he forgives his father for his ways, stating that they are merely a product of his lack of education. The theme of this story is the sorry state of George’s life as he is a very unhappy man and he dies in a very lonely state. His abusive nature is not justified, but the narrator feels sorry for him in spite of being bullied himself.
The fourth story revolves around George’s son Elias, who is a very academic and serious boy. He works very hard in order to pass an exam held by Cambridge but he is met with misfortune every time he attempts it and he ends up failing. His goal is not to be a sweeper or a cart-driver, but instead he wants to be a doctor. But fate does not take his side and he is unable to achieve this goal. He later tries to become a sanitation-officer, but unfortunately he isn’t able to achieve even this. He ends up becoming a cart-driver, although it was never the job he actually wanted. In spite of this he makes peace with his destiny. This short story in particular has a sad theme. It expresses the misfortune that many have to deal with in spite of toiling hard to achieve their ambitions.
The fifth short story is a very interesting one. It deals with a man nick-named ‘man-man’ by all the people of Miguel Street. They consider him to be crazy, although, the narrator thinks he rarely does anything that normal people wouldn’t do. Man-man appears to be friendly with the narrator, but he has a few incidents with grown ups wherein he takes revenge on them in the most extraordinary ways. He becomes friends with a dog, who happens to have the same attitude towards life as him. One day, the dog dies due to an accident and this causes Man-man to go through a terrible trauma. He begins to tell people that he is the Messiah and at the end of the story he asks people to throw stones at him after he ties himself to a cross. When the people actually begin to pelt him with stones he yells at them and ends up being taken away by the police only to land up in an asylum. The theme of this story is the way society perceives certain people to be crazy, simply because they do not follow the norms of the society. Many a times, this foul treatment causes people to get alienated and eventually results in them going insane.
The last story from the ones I have chosen to write about is my personal favourite. It mainly revolves around the narrator and a poet named B. Wordsworth. Wordsworth teaches the boy (narrator) to appreciate everything around him and to actually feel as if he were alive. He shows confidence in the boy and tells him that he has the gift of being a poet. He tells him about himself and the boy realises that he is a very lonely man. The story ends with Wordsworth on his death-bed, telling the boy that he lied to him about everything. The theme for this short story is loneliness and alienation. When the poet dies, there are no traces left behind to even prove his existence.
V. S. Naipaul has captured the lives of characters that in some way or the other resemble actual people from our society. He shows the perspective of a child with regards to the ways of the world, and he shows the different sides to every character.