Reading & Questions for Naipaul, Miguel Street (stories below)

 

For next week, be sure to read the following stories from V.S. Naipaul's book of stories, Miguel Street:

* Bogart

* The Thing Without a Name

* His Chosen Calling

* Man-Man 

Answer 2 of the following: 

Q1: What clues do we get about the narrator in these first stories? Who is he? What is his relationship to the men in the stories? Why do you think he's telling us about them? 

Q2: At the end of "Bogart," the title character leaves his wife and return to Miguel Street. When the Eddoes asks Hat why he left, his response is, "To be a man, among we men" (16). What does this reveal about the culture of Port of Spain, and how do we see this sentiment expressed in the other stories?

Q3: Trinidad (where the stories take place) didn't get its independence from Britain until 1961, a bit after these stories were written. Therefore, Miguel Street depicts a world still under the thumb of colonial values and expectations. How do we see the British influence in Port of Spain society? How does a sense of Britishness shape the lives of even the poorest citizens in Miguel Street?

Q4: The characters in these stories--Bogart, Hat, Eddoes, Man-Man, etc.--are great eccentrics, each one humorous for the way they act and talk, especially to an outsider. Do you think Naipaul is making fun of them? Is he satirizing the small-town life of Miguel Street, which is ridiculously from any other point of view? Or is his humor more affectionate and understanding? An example either way?