The Change of an Immigrant's Identity in "One Out of Many" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Kassel (Anglistik/Amerikanistik Literaturwissenschaften), course: Introduction to Caribbean Literature, language: English, abstract: In "One out of Many", written by V.S. Naipaul, Santosh emigrates from India to America and has to cope with the situation of being an illegal immigrant and finding a new identity. "One out of Many" is one of three short stories of the novel In a free state, first published in 1971.

The leading question that will be answered in the course of this paper is: How does Santosh's identity change when he emigrates from India to America? In this paper, I will attempt to show that, isolated from American society, Santosh remains a marginalized outsider who is torn between two cultures and has lost his roots. In order to examine the question of Santosh's identity, I will look at the narrator's perspective and its reflection of Santosh's situation in the first step. Secondly, Santosh's process of change will be described and analyzed thoroughly by looking at key scenes. The goal of describing a process brings the necessity of comparing his new life in America to his former life in India. This way, the focus will be on the changes Santosh makes. Describing his development in America, I will consider the way Santosh sees himself in India and I will find out how he assimilates to American culture. After Santosh's personal development, I will continue with Santosh's place in society, because the relations to other people are crucial when it comes to identity. At this point, the relation to different sub-cultures will be taken into consideration.