Sports of Empire: Squash as Signifier in V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River
Abstract
The protagonist of V.S. Naipaul’s 1979 novel A Bend in the River is an ethnic
Indian living in Africa as part of an expatriate community of traders in the city at the bend in
the river. He sympathises with the Western world, listens to BBC Radio, and tries very hard
to distance himself and show himself as different from the native Africans. He plays the
English sport of squash in a Belgian ex-colony in the heart of Africa in the expatriate Hellenic
Club. This thesis explores squash in the context of the novel and argues that squash fills
functions of signifying that Salim, the name of said protagonist, is different from the natives
and contributes to him establishing himself as a foreigner who “knows the ways of the outside
world”. The foci of the arguments are based in the imperial and colonial history of squash,
particulars of the game, and the tools with which the game is played. The analysis is
postcolonial and focuses on Salim’s displacement within Empire and his attempts to achieve
“place” through the analogously displaced sport of squash.
Degree
Student essay
View/ Open
Date
2018-06-12Author
Kääriä, Timothy
Keywords
engelska
Squash
V.S. Naipaul
A Bend in the River
postcolonial literature
postcolonial sports
Africa
sports in literature
sports and empire
English sports
Series/Report no.
SPL kandidatuppsats, engelska
SPL 2018-006
Language
eng
Metadata
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