Port of Spain Analysis in A House for Mr Biswas

The capital and main city in Trinidad, where Mrs Tulsi brings Owad for his schooling and Mr Biswas later moves and buys his house. Compared to the other places where he lives, Port of Spain is astonishingly urban and cosmopolitan, especially because of the foreign ships that visit its harbor.

Port of Spain Quotes in A House for Mr Biswas

The A House for Mr Biswas quotes below are all either spoken by Port of Spain or refer to Port of Spain. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

He comprehended the city whole; he did not isolate the individual, see the man behind the desk or counter, behind the pushcart or the steering-wheel of the bus; he saw only the activity, felt the call to the senses, and knew that below it all there was an excitement, which was hidden, but waiting to be grasped.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas

Page Number and Citation: 297

Explanation and Analysis:

Mr Biswas had never thought of Tulsi property as belonging to any particular person. Everything, the land at Green Vale, the shop at The Chase, belonged simply to the House. But the lorries were Seth’s.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Mrs Tulsi, Seth

Related Symbols: Houses

Page Number and Citation: 374

Explanation and Analysis:

Port of Spain Term Timeline in A House for Mr Biswas

The timeline below shows where the term Port of Spain appears in A House for Mr Biswas. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Education, Work, and Language Theme Icon

...explained that the “modern thing is to have lots of words,” like the signs in Port of Spain , and ran through a number of possibilities before settling on “Idlers keep out by... (full context)

...him to live with his wife’s family. Mrs Tulsi left, too, buying three houses in Port of Spain (“one to live in, two to rent out”) while she looked after Owad there. The... (full context)

Colonialism, Oppression, and Escape Theme Icon

Mr Biswas ended up in Port of Spain entirely by accident; after leaving Hanuman House in the early morning, he was mostly worried... (full context)

...houses. The bus abruptly turned west, passing through more and more traffic until it reached Port of Spain , flanked by hills on the right, swamp and sea on the left, all smelling... (full context)

...Hill, “which was a moment of deep romance” since Mr Biswas never realized that “ Port of Spain was actually a port,” hosting ships from around the world. (full context)

...“the futility of its sanctions.” His Indian-accented English was hilarious when he tried to adopt Port of Spain ’s slang, and his overenthusiastic manner often led him, and by extension Mr Biswas, to... (full context)

Later, Mr Biswas met with Mrs Tulsi in Port of Spain , leading him to feel as though “he had won a victory.” She did not... (full context)

...complete and well-built. It was one of the newest and best houses in one of Port of Spain ’s newest and best districts, and Mr Biswas felt extraordinarily lucky. So did Ramchand and... (full context)

...so. However, when Shama went to Hanuman House to report what Seth had done in Port of Spain , in fact the Tulsis “had decided to move on” to a new estate in... (full context)

...of Arwacas, renting out their land and store, selling one of their rental tenements in Port of Spain and raising the rent on the house Mr Biswas and Shama were living in. Shorthills’s... (full context)

...and he was busy plundering fruit from the estate’s trees to sell to vendors in Port of Spain . (full context)

...reader of W.C. Tuttle,” he started cutting down the trees and sending the fruit to Port of Spain . The children helped pick fruit and pull weeds. Without plumbing, “some lesser husbands” constructed... (full context)

Finally, the villagers decided to fight the Tulsis, filling up the morning bus to Port of Spain before their children had a chance. They simply did not go to school for awhile,... (full context)

...house would not be finished—so did the children, who would have preferred to return to Port of Spain . They felt imprisoned in the middle of nowhere, with no source of enjoyment and... (full context)

...deteriorated beyond repair, so he moved his family back to Mrs Tulsi’s newly-vacant house in Port of Spain . He put a “FOR RENT OR SALE” sign outside the Shorthills house. The Tuttles,... (full context)

In Port of Spain , W.C. Tuttle played a gramophone incessantly and quarreled silently with Govind over parking space;... (full context)

Back in Port of Spain , Chinta and Govind were singing the Ramayana to drown out the sound of W.C.... (full context)

...He went on Friday evenings, when the rest of the widows from Shorthills came to Port of Spain . Mr Biswas felt “a little out of his depth” at the club, but at... (full context)

...came to take them back, and “they dreaded returning to what they knew.” Back in Port of Spain , the family pretended to keep up as usual before starting to interrogate the Biswases... (full context)

...Mr Biswas’s advantages” by having Basdai inform them that he bought his own house in Port of Spain . Mr Biswas became irritable and combative, failing to comfort himself with the knowledge that... (full context)

Mrs Tulsi’s renovations in Port of Spain went slowly, as she underpaid and “regularly abused and dismissed” various contractors, while Miss Blackie... (full context)

The Port of Spain house filled with Tulsis and festivities unparalleled since Owad’s departure. The evening before Owad’s arrival,... (full context)

A House for Mr Biswas

V. S. Naipaul

Port of Spain Term Analysis

Port of Spain Quotes in A House for Mr Biswas

Port of Spain Term Timeline in A House for Mr Biswas