The Prisoner of “Freedom”: Cultural Displacement of Santosh in Naipaul’s In a Free State

In a Free State is a post-colonial novel written by Naipaul. “One out of Many” is one of the stories in this novel to explore the freedom of the culturally rootless. The protagonist, Santosh, lives under the collision between the Indian culture and American culture. In the “crevice” of two different cultures, he is deeply involved in the tumultuous and painful process of cultural displacement. His behaviors in cultural displacement can be divided into three stages. Firstly, he has experienced a “cultural shock” after his arrival in Washington, D.C. as a new comer. Secondly, after being fully exposed to the host culture and American style, he has experienced assimilation and absorption to be like an American. Finally when he escapes from his employer and chooses his own way of living, he finds that he is not free at all because he is confronted with an awkward cultural dilemma: he can neither return to his past life; nor can he aspire to a better future. The anxiety about the dislocation causes misery for his fate. As a result, he becomes a prisoner in an unfamiliar culture, and his “freedom” can only be a rootless “freedom”.