CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE SELECTED NOVELS OF V.S NAIPAUL AND CARYL PHILLIPS

ABSTRACTThis thesis, entitled “Cultural Transformations in the Selected Novels of V.S. Naipaul and Caryl Phillips,” aims at examining the prospects of cultural transformation in the selected novels of V.S. Naipaul and Caryl Phillips. It illustrates how the presence of diversities of cultures in the Caribbean Islands and other Third World Nations emerges because of contacts with imperialists and the influence of the latter cultures on the local cultures. Caribbean and Third World citizens are conscious of cultural plurality in their territories. To achieve sociocultural independence, they must first revalorise their indigenous cultures. However, failure to achieve their goal leads to movements from one place to another in search of an authentic cultural identity. This thesis focuses on how the characters of Naipaul and Phillips, experiencing a cultural gap, are forced to move from one place to another to restore their cultural identity. In their different texts, the two authors project what they consider could have caused movements of people from one place to another and how they intend to seek solutions to their cultural predicaments. This research evolves on the assumption that V.S. Naipaul and Caryl Phillips, in the selected novels under examination, present characters from the Caribbean Islands who set out to revalorise their cultural values from the restraints of imperial hegemony but become culturally transformed due to their exposure to other cultures. Postcolonial and New Historicist conceptual frameworks guide the analyses with references to black mythologies. Since the work focuses on two authors, it adopts an analytical, descriptive, and comparative approach to lay bare the points raised and discussed. The research, therefore, concludes with the findings that the desire to migrate to other places to experience globalisation exposes people to a more cosmopolitan world, which often leads to cultural transformation and a failure to achieve sociocultural autonomy.