B.

Wordsworth
V. S. Naipaul (1932- ) is the most widely read and widely honoured Caribbean
novelist writing in English; he recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature. V. S.
Naipaul was born and educated in Trinidad before he immigrated to England,
where he still resides. His early work, such as Miguel Street, from which this
story is taken [the novel is a linked series of character sketches, partially based
on Naipaul's childhood the street itself has a mixed racial population of poor,
but not poverty-stricken, people], was set in Trinidad and characterized its
Indian- and African-origined people with a combination of sarcasm and
affection. He became increasingly critical of the Caribbean, and his 'colonialist'
ideas have made him a persona non-grata among the post-colonial intellectual
community. The fact that he's the only Caribbean novelist of colour to make the
recent Random House Top 100 may support this pejorative opinion.
Nevertheless, his novels and travel writing are admired by all for the clarity of
style and by some as clear-minded, non-sentimental diagnoses of post-colonial
literature.
A young boy who lives during the Great Depression is approached by a well-
dressed black man who speaks impeccable English. He asks the boy if he can
watch the bees buzzing about his trees and the boy reluctantly agrees. He tells
him that he is a poet and reveals that his name is B. Wordsworth (Black
Wordsworth, a play on the poet William Wordsworth). The boy grows fond of
Wordsworth and the two become close friends. Wordsworth invites him to
come to his house and they eat mangoes in his yard after he leaves school. He
goes home and his mother is furious and beats him. He is angry and decides to
head to his new friend's house and Wordsworth suggests the two of them go for
a walk and watch the stars. A policeman stops them, understandably suspicious,
and each went to their respectable homes. One day, when the boy was in
Wordsworth's house, he told him a story of two poets who were married and
how the wife and her baby died due to pregnancy complications. He didn't
understand the story at first, but as Wordsworth's health started to deteriorate, he
understood it more and more. The boy's world became a more exciting place
with Wordsworth in it. Later, the two have a conversation about Wordsworth's
poetry writing while on a dock at the beach. He says he is writing the best poem
in the world, each month adding a line. Unfortunately, he began to be in poor
health, and started to slowly die because of old age. On his dying day, he called
the boy to him and promised to tell him a secret as long as he promised to leave
and never see him again. He agreed and Wordsworth proceeded to tell his
secret. It was that the story he told him about the two poets, the world's greatest
poem, and all the talk about poetry was all a lie. "Isn't that the funniest thing
you've ever heard," Wordsworth asked the boy. He runs home and sobs the
entire way there. He never sees or hears of Wordsworth again. A year later, he
walks over to Wordsworth's old house and sees that it has been demolished and
a large building took its place. His trees had been cut down and bricks littered
the foundation. "It was just as though B. Wordsworth had never existed."

“The central task of all literary art, V. S. Naipaul believes, is ‘to awaken the
sense of true wonder’ in relation to the world we inhabit. The uncertainty that
exists today concerning the purpose of fiction leads to the promotion of work
that is more often than not escapist, narcissistic, or merely experimental without
any real purpose.” (Folks, Jeffrey).''B. Wordsworth'' is a short story written by
V.S. Naipaul whose main characters include a boy, the narrator, and B.
Wordsworth. They have a whimsical relationship. B. Wordsworth is a poet, and
the boy is intrigued by Wordsworth's sentiments about life.
B. Wordsworth is a poet who is symbolizing the importance of respecting
nature. He assures us even the small things in nature we take for granted, such
as bees buzzing round a bush, are beautiful and we don't appreciate them like
we should. Wordsworth establishes his relationship with the boy to teach him
these lessons.
The young male protagonist is representing the reader in the sense that he learns
from Wordsworth. He is deeply inspired by the teachings and lifestyle of
Wordsworth, taking after him once he dies. He is ignorant to the beauty of the
world before Wordsworth, and after he dies, the boy is able to cry like a poet.
The protagonist's mother on the other hand is sceptical of Wordsworth from the
beginning because he is well-versed and sells poetry for a living during the
Great Depression. She then beats the protagonist for going out with Wordsworth
and doesn't approve of the relationship. Ironically, it is because of her that he
and Wordsworth have such a strong bond. She potentially symbolizes factors
that lead to the depreciation of poetry and nature. The boy's mother chastises
him for having an interest in this beauty because she is shut out to the nature
that surrounds her.
A deep appreciation for the beauty of nature is required in order to cry for
everything. As one becomes older, they appreciate nature more and thus
become poets. Wordsworth said, 'Now, let us lie on the grass and look up at the
sky, and I want you to think how far those stars are from us.' I did as he told me,
and I saw what he meant. I felt like nothing, and at the same time I had never
felt so big and great in all my life. “The powerful image of the beautiful night
sky is poetic in the sense that we realize there is a universe much larger than us.
It reflects the appreciation for not only life on earth, but also the creation much
vaster.
"He looked up at the sky, and said, 'The past is deep.'”
This line is significant because it conveys Wordsworth's thoughts he gathered
from the universe into a single line of poetry. It causes the reader to reflect upon
his/her past in a way that relates to the magnitude of their surroundings. The
overall tone to B. Wordsworth is one of admiration and curiosity. The young
man is fascinated by Wordsworth's various idiosyncrasies and deeply admires
the fellow. Wordsworth philosophizes regularly, creating a reflective tone as the
protagonist grows to understand what Wordsworth means.
The setting of the short story contributes greatly to the theme. The story is set in
Trinidad on Miguel Street during the Great Depression. There are many
beautiful sights to behold in Trinidad, but no one takes to the time to admire
them. Because this is set during a time of economic hardship, the author is
making the point that people care more about their own well-being than they do
about the nature which surrounds them. No one has the time or money to
literally stop and smell the roses.
"We walked along the sea wall at Dock site one day, and I said, 'Mr.
Wordsworth, if I drop this pin in the water, you think it will float?' He said,
'This is a strange world. Drop your pin, and let us see what will happen.'”
This image of the pin being dropped in the sea reflects the uncertainty of life,
and because Wordsworth is a poet, he can see what nature is trying to tell us.

“'But you will be the richest man in the world when you write the greatest
poem?' He didn’t reply. "
Naipaul's purpose of this quote was to show the reader that the appreciation of
poetry should not be dictated upon its monetary value. If one is truly a poet and
appreciates nature, he doesn't focus upon temporal riches.

"I walked along Alberto Street a year later, but I could find no sign of the poet’s
house. It hadn’t vanished, just like that. It had been pulled down, and a big, two-
storied building had taken its place. The mango tree and the plum tree and the
coconut tree had all been cut down, and there was brick and concrete
everywhere. It was just as though B. Wordsworth had never existed."
People no longer appreciate the beauty of nature like they should. To destroy
the fruit trees and construct the creation of man is to destroy the very foundation
on which Wordsworth stood.
.
“'Why, boy? Why? You will know when you grow up. You’re a poet, too, you know. And
when you’re a poet you can cry for everything.'”
A deep appreciation for the beauty of nature is required in order to cry for everything. As
one becomes older, they appreciate nature more and thus become poets.

"B. Wordsworth said, 'Now, let us lie on the grass and look up at the sky, and I want you
to think how far those stars are from us.' I did as he told me, and I saw what he meant. I
felt like nothing, and at the same time I had never felt so big and great in all my life."
The powerful image of the beautiful night sky is poetic in the sense that we realize there
is a universe much larger than us. It reflects the appreciation for not only life on earth, but
also the creation much more vast.
"He looked up at the sky, and said, 'The past is deep.'”
This line is significant because it conveys Wordsworth's thoughts he gathered from the
universe into a single line of poetry. It causes the reader to reflect upon his/her past in a
way that relates to the magnitude of their surroundings.
Nature, in itself, is a form of
beautiful poetry, and its meaning
can be found all around us. Anyone
has the capacity to become a poet so
long as they appreciate nature.
Theme
Setting
Characters
Tone
Conflict/Plot
Language and Style
B. Wordsworth
: He is a poet who is symbolizing the importance of respecting nature. He assures us even
the small things in nature we take for granted, such as bees buzzing round a bush, are
beautiful and we don't appreciate them like we should. Wordsworth establishes his
relationship with the boy to teach him these lessons.
Young male protagonist
: He is representing the reader in the sense that he learns from Wordsworth. He is deeply
inspired by the teachings and lifestyle of Wordsworth, taking after him once he dies. He
is ignorant to the beauty of the world before Wordsworth and after he dies, the boy is able
to cry like a poet.
Protagonist's mother
: She is skeptical of Wordsworth from the beginning because he is well-versed and sells
poetry for a living during the Great Depression. She then beats the protagonist for going
out with Wordsworth and doesn't approve of the relationship. Ironically, it is because of
her that he and Wordsworth have such a strong bond. She potentially symbolizes factors
that lead to the depreciation of poetry and nature. The boy's mother chastises him for
having an interest in this beauty because she is shut out to the nature that surrounds her.

The overall tone to B. Wordsworth is one of admiration and curiosity. The young man is
fascinated by Wordsworth's various idiosyncrasies and deeply admires the fellow.
Wordsworth philosophizes regularly, creating a reflective tone as the protagonist grows to
understand what Wordsworth means.
The setting of the short story contributes greatly to the theme. The story is set in Trinidad
on Miguel Street during the Great Depression. There are many beautiful sights to behold
in Trinidad, but no one takes to the time to admire them. Because this is set during a time
of economic hardship, the author is making the point that people care more about their
own well-being than they do the nature which surrounds them. No one has the time or
money to literally stop and smell the roses.

Before the characters develop their relationship, we learn how the poet,
Wordsworth, looks. ''He was a small man and he was tidily dressed. He wore a
hat, a white shirt, and black trousers.'' We also learn the location. Naipaul's
Caribbean roots are often displayed throughout the short story, especially in
the setting. B. Wordsworth ''. . .lived in Alberto Street in a one-roomed hut
placed right in the centre of the lot. The yard seemed all green. There was a big
mango tree. There was a coconut tree and there was a plum tree. The place
looked wild, as though it wasn't in the city at all.''
The boy, the narrator becomes fascinated with Wordsworth right away. He
learns that Wordsworth ''. . .can watch ants for days. Have you ever watched
ants? And scorpions, and centipedes, and congorees-have you watched those?''
We observe as the boy seeks clarity. ''What you does do, mister?'' It is clear
Wordsworth has a story to tell and the boy is inspired to listen but also inspired
to question. We, too, are inspired to listen. We watch Wordsworth as he
encourages the young boy. ''Why, boy? Why? You will know when you grow
up. You're a poet too, you know. And when you're a poet you can cry for
everything.'' We watch as he shows the boy his process in learning about life,
about poetry. ''Now, let us lie on the grass and look up at the sky, and I want
you to think how far those stars are from us.'' Not only does he inspire the boy
to wonder, he inspires us.
It is important to remember that the stories of this anthology represent a time in
Naipaul’s life when he had moved from the predominantly insular Indian
community settled in the countryside to the comparatively more multicultural
community of Port of Spain. This sense of constantly being on the move can be
perceived in the way life is delineated in Miguel Street as houses continually
change their ownership and the people always seem to be in transit. A case in
point is ‘B. Wordsworth’ – where the boy narrator regularly meets beggars who
throng to his house in the afternoon asking for alms and not surprisingly they
are always seen to be on the move as if a sense of unbelonging has cast its pall
upon them. At the end of the story the house of B. Wordsworth is seen to be
demolished so that no trace of his existence can be found to linger. In the story
Naipaul writes about the existential trials and tribulations of a black poet,
ironically named B. Wordsworth and Naipaul’s mordant irony stands out in that
the ‘B’ in the name stands for ‘Black’. So the poet in question is Black
Wordsworth and in so naming him Naipaul plays on the politics of
nomenclature as the character’s name itself becomes a signifier of his racial
identity. We must remember that the story is set in Trinidad, a place for which
Naipaul famously harbours ambiguous sentiments, and the protagonist’s racially
marginalised identity implicates the colonial history of the region.

An important point to be noted is that the failure of B. Wordsworth as a poet

does not come as a surprise in the context of Naipaul’s anthology as most of the
other characters – or the ‘mimic men’ – taste failure of one kind or another. To
put things in perspective, the tailor Bogart who imitates the accent of the
American movie star of the same name is never actually seen to sew a suit –
“and I cannot remember him making a suit” (Eastley 52). Similarly in ‘B.
Wordsworth’ the boy narrator admits to never having seen the self-proclaimed
poet pen a single line. Aaron Eastley aptly describes them as people who ‘adopt
roles or titles such as those that might be held by professionals of various sorts
in England and America, but who in various ways are revealed to be fakes or
shams, unable to deliver on the implied promises of their occupational titles”
(Eastley 51-52). Although V.S. Naipaul’s most complex handling of the trope of
mimicry comes in his later novel The Mimic Men (1967), in Miguel
Street Naipaul problematizes the idea of literary mimicry – that is, “the
colonized subject responding to the English literary canon thrust upon him by
colonial education and an imposed foreign culture” (Beck 175). Indeed Naipaul
himself has been able to surmount the redoubtable problem of following in the
footsteps of the British literary tradition by indegenizing the English fiction. ‘B.
Wordsworth’ thus essentially becomes a story of ‘not’ – not being able to find
one’s true identity and not being able to live with an imposed construct that has
been forcefully thrust upon. Mimicry in this sense indicates a vulnerability that
belies the apparently strong foundations of colonial dominance that has the
potential to destabilize the sense of one’s identity. The desperate attempts of the
racially defined Black Wordsworth to watch the bees and flowers in order to
unleash the frenzy of creative inspiration too seems shallow and devoid of
purpose. In trying to study nature to get poetic inspiration, he is only giving a
pitiful performance of mimicking his English counterpart, more commonly
alluded to as the ‘nature poet’. Rather than being a simple reproduction of the
assumptions and principles of the colonizer’s culture, mimicry thus gives rise to
an ambivalent sense of being that more often than not ends in the complete
annihilation of one’s identity. To quote Bruce King, “[T]he status symbols and
educational system in colonial Trinidad are inappropriate to the reality. Its
Britishness is mimicry” (Strongman 83).

Naipaul’s writing in general is pervaded by a sense of unbelonging and it

locates a weakness in the composite identity that a diasporic existence
inherently involves. The Black Wordsworth of Naipaul’s short story is unable to
synthesize the opposing halves of his self – the cultural habits of the colonizer
and his abortive quest for his very own cultural genesis – resulting in his
ignominious death that compels him to tell the boy narrator that all his poetic
aspirations were lies – “All this talk about poetry and the greatest poem in the
world, that wasn’t true […]” (Naipaul 4). The question of ‘where’ one comes
from thus becomes a very important part of Naipaul’s narratives and it is
because he does not want to absolve his writing of the duality of a diasporic
existence. The term diaspora itself comes from the Greek word ‘to disperse’ or
‘to scatter’ and it refers to the voluntary or forcible movement of people from
their homelands into new regions and essentially all diasporic studies are bound
to be an analysis of the relations between homelands and host countries and it
aims to re-examine the international and trans-state aspects of diaspora
activities. In this context, let me mention a workable definition of diaspora as
put forward by the editor of The Global Intercultural Communication Reader,
Molefi Kete Asante, “What then is a diaspora? […]. I define a diaspora as an
identifiable group residing in a geography other than its place of origin that
experiences not only physical displacement but cultural hybridity; a yearning
for the homeland; alienation from the so-called hostland; a complex structural
relationship among homeland, hostland, and diaspora; and a collective identity
defined largely by the relationship between homeland and hostland. These six
criteria not only synthesize various existing definitions of diaspora and may be
used to define various diasporic populations” (Asante 307). So the diasporic
individual inhabits this so-called interstitial space and is permanently
entrenched in the sense of in-betweenness. Originally the concept of diaspora
only applied to the removal of the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland
of Judea and it was only much later that the western discursive practices took
note of the necessity of forging a new critical methodology to subsume the
postcolonial diasporic identity. Commenting on just this point, Rogers Brubaker
argues, “Most early discussions of diaspora were firmly rooted in a conceptual
‘homeland’; they were concerned with a paradigmatic case, or a small number
of core cases. The paradigmatic case was, of course, the Jewish diaspora; “some
dictionary definitions of diaspora, until recently, did not simply illustrate but
defined the word with reference to that case” (Boyarin 27). So it was not until
the emergence of postcolonialism as an academic discipline in the latter half of
the twentieth century that the predominantly Western intellectual discourse
actually began to examine the socio-cultural dislocations of resulting from the
African trans-Atlantic slave trade or say, the expulsion of the Southern Chinese
or the Hindus of South Asia during the coolie trade.

We are still struggling to come to terms with the idea of multiculturalism that is
an inherent element of all globalised social structures. It is difficult for us to
theoretically do away with a unitary narrative of homeland and a homogenous
racial identity. That is to say that till perhaps the onslaught of imperialist
enterprises beginning in the early part of the 17th century narratives of racial
and national identity have always been essentialist in nature, but the colonialist
ventures and their social, economical and cultural repercussions of the last four
hundred odd years have heavily problematised the very concept of ‘identity’ –
be it racial or national, purely because the profound nature of socio-cultural
dislocations resulting from a wide gamut of causes like histories of indentured
labour, transatlantic slavery and the expulsion of indigenous people from their
ancestral lands have called into question the ideological construct of ‘nation’
and ‘race’ – indeed, a nation is merely an ‘imagined community’ to recall
Benedict Anderson’s words.
So situated in this context, what indeed is the identity of the diasporic writer?
And indeed we need to explore and address the broader political and
epistemogical nuances of naming their artistic representations as strictly
‘diasporic’. I would like to mention Victor J. Ramraj’s observations on the
duality of diasporic writers in the article ‘Trapdoors into a Bottomless Past: V.S.
Naipaul’s Early Ambivalent Vision of the Indo-Caribbean Experience’ where
he writes about the significance of Naipaul’s omission of any mention of
Trinidad (where he was born) in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech where he
described himself as an Indian and a British writer. Ramraj goes on to say,
“[m]any thought this omission conveys unambiguously his partiality for India
and Britain and a denial for Trinidad of which he said very early in his career
[…]: “I had never wanted to stay in Trinidad. (Ramraj 33). Postcolonial
diaspora writers are as a rule caught between their indigenous and their adopted
communities. Ngugi wa Thiongo sees himself as a duplex man with African and
European identities whereas Mulk Raj Anand sees himself burdened by the
Alps on one shoulder and the Himalayas on the other. In his Foreword to India:
A Wounded Civilization, Naipaul’s ambivalent identity as a diasporic writer is
symbolised through the image of a trapdoor when he says, “[i]n India I know I
am a stranger, but increasingly I understand that my Indian memories, the
memories of that India which lived on into my childhood in Trinidad are like
trapdoors into a bottomless past” (Ramraj 33).

Keeping in mind this history of violent resettlement and the manipulation of the
social and cultural identity of the Caribbean people, it is hardly surprising to
note that Naipaul’s black Wordsworth’s voice is not heard by the masses and he
dies an anonymous death, a death devoid of any purpose and consequences.
With his death, his poetry too faces the ignominy of oblivion and it is only the
efforts of the little Trinidadian boy who he accidentally befriends that attempt to
keep alive the memory of his mentor’s identity as a poet. Unlike his English
counterpart who occupies the place of privilege in the haloed house of the
English canon. Naipaul’s racially defined Wordsworth could never have
achieved to have his voice heard by the mainstream popular culture, not only
that of the British metropole but unavoidably that of his native country too, if
one can call that Caribbean homeland of his native that is.

The inherent idea of linguistic imperialism too comes into play in Naipaul’s
narrative as Black Wordsworth speaks in the tongue of linguistically
marginalised and hybridised Creole/Pidgin and his failure as a poet is
entrenched in the perceived inferiority of the cultural discourse that his
language epitomizes. In the story while Naipaul does not examine the direct
experiences and social interactions of first hand diasporic accounts, he certainly
tries to identify the existential crisis of an individual’s racial and cultural
identity under the unitary narrative of diasporic experience.
B. Wordsworth
is multiple stories within a single story. There isn't a direct flow or progression of
thought, rather an account of individual experiences. In each of these experiences,
Wordsworth inconspicuously conveys some life lesson to the young boy because he
knows he will understand and grow from the lesson when he's older. For example,
Wordsworth encourages the boy to drop the pin in the water, purposely teaching him that
the world is strange and life is uncertain. The same structure is found when Wordsworth
tells the young boy he's writing the best poem in the world, each month adding a line.
He's taking the wisdom he has gathered from a month of experience and translates it into
something beautiful. That month, his line was "The past is deep."
Conflict/Plot Cont.
One of the two conflicts found in B. Wordsworth is the boy's mother keeping him from
visiting Wordsworth. She doesn't see things the with the same splendor her son does. For
example, regarding Wordsworth's literacy, her son is astounded and fascinated while she
is skeptical and severs their relationship. She potentially represents someone who doesn't
appreciate nature and is leading to its depreciation.
The other conflict is the slow death of Wordsworth. The young boy is heartbroken
because he is losing his mentor and best friend. Wordsworth, however, tries to show no
apparent sadness, but when he is telling the boy everything was false, his voice cracked.
He died a peaceful death, and the boy ran home crying like a poet for everything he saw.
His death is the ultimate means of maturity for the young boy.
Naipaul uses dialect in a way that shows the distinction between Wordsworth and the rest
of Trinidad. It shows he is mature, educated, and a true poet. The boy's dialogue gives the
appearance that he is uneducated, but when he narrates the story, he sounds mature, thus
showing Wordsworth's death has impacted him. Naipaul uses very brief and concise
sentences which make the story sound almost like a free-verse poem. He does this to
show his readers that poetry is all around us and to create a more meaningful, poetic
atmosphere. Naipaul uses imagery often in
B. Wordsworth
describing the beautiful scenery found in Trinidad. He wants the reader to visualize the
naturalistic elements so that we can appreciate and admire them.
Author's Purpose
V.S. Naipaul's purpose in writing
B. Wordsworth
was to motivate his audience to see the beauty in the nature that surrounds us and
appreciate poetry. At the end of the story, the young boy came back to where Wordsworth
had once lived to discover that is had been demolished and his fruit trees were cut down
while a building was erected. This symbolizes the lack of concern on behalf of man to
appreciate the beauty found in nature and poetry. The sole reason Wordsworth came into
the boy's life was to teach him to honor what was around him and he is trying to convey
that message to the reader, as well.
.