Fallen from disgrace: tales of disillusion in Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman and v.s. Naipaul’s Guerrillas

Despite radical differences in their political commentary, Amiri Baraka and V.S.
Naipaul’s literary careers have obsessively centered on the divided Self of the colonized
artist. Esther Jackson argues that Baraka’s “search for form” becomes “symbolic of a
continuing effort to mediate between warring factions within the perceiving mind” (38).
Similarly, many critics have interpreted Naipaul’s grave manifestos as the outpourings of a writer disenchanted with his own past and national identity. For Selwyn Cudjoe,
Naipaul’s work is “reflective of a man who failed to discover any psychological balance
in his life” (172-173). This thesis analyzes how Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman and V.S.
Naipaul’s Guerrillas engage with various fairy tale conventions in order to narrate the
colonized victim’s divided Self. These narratives ultimately function as anti-fairy tales,
revealing the black protagonist’s accursed position in the symbolic order.