Mimicry and Classical Allusion in V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men
Mimicry and Classical Allusion in V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men
This chapter undertakes a reading of the classical allusions in V. S. Naipaul's novel The Mimic Men (1967), a novel which is often interpreted as Naipaul's verdict on the mimic dependency of (post‐)colonial societies. Emily Greenwood argues that Naipaul uses classical allusions to show that not only were the British in the Caribbean themselves mimics of the cultures of Greece and Rome, but also that the presence of mimicry in these very cultures reveals the absurdity of the appropriation of the civilizations of Greece and Rome in the service of colonial mythmaking. As a specific example, the chapter examines Naipaul's ironizing use of a famous phrase from Virgil's Aeneid.
Keywords: Naipaul, C. L. R. James, Caribbean, Virgil, mimicry, virtus
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