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B. Wordsworth - V.S

The narrator meets B. Wordsworth, an eccentric older man who claims to be a great poet. B. Wordsworth takes an interest in the narrator and teaches him to appreciate nature and observe the world with curiosity. Through their unusual friendship, the narrator's horizons are expanded. However, B. Wordsworth ultimately fails to achieve his goal of becoming a renowned poet and leaves little impact on the world after his death, though he had a positive influence on the narrator.

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286 views

B. Wordsworth - V.S

The narrator meets B. Wordsworth, an eccentric older man who claims to be a great poet. B. Wordsworth takes an interest in the narrator and teaches him to appreciate nature and observe the world with curiosity. Through their unusual friendship, the narrator's horizons are expanded. However, B. Wordsworth ultimately fails to achieve his goal of becoming a renowned poet and leaves little impact on the world after his death, though he had a positive influence on the narrator.

Uploaded by

Officially AB
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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B. WORDSWORTH – V. S.

NAIPAUL
 TITLE = B. Wordsworth as a title is very apt as this story mainly revolves around a character named the same. The B in
the name stood for black. His name is an intended pun to the greatest poet of the romantic era, William Wordsworth.
Like him, the character had an intense appreciation and love for nature and would take walks and watch stars. His
position of the house too aligned with his personality as it was set away from the ‘concrete city life’ and had a yard
filled with bushes and trees. The character was in the thought that he will become the greatest poet in the world like
William Wordsworth but did very little to make his thought a reality. This points out he had made escapism a routine of
his life.

 ESCAPISM = B. Wordsworth is a character from the short story named the same, written by V.S Naipaul. He was a
creative and intellectually curious person which alienated him from the crowd. To deal with the inner futility of the city
life in Post-Colonial Trinidad, he embraced escapism.
Escapism is defined as the habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape
from the real problems of life. He made a failed attempt to associate his name with one of the greatest romantic poets
of all time, William Wordsworth. He felt that they “share the same heart”. It would be wrong to declare him as
delusional because he knew that he was not able to sell even a single copy of his work, even after he called his poem
“the greatest poem about mothers” and tried to sell it at a bargain price. This did not deter him from claiming that he
was writing “the greatest poem in the world” which would sing to all humanity.
Throughout the story, B. Wordsworth kept telling the young boy that he had the eyes of a poet yet he made no effort
in grooming him into one. Conscious of his stagnant nature, he shattered the narrator’s illusion of a romantic world in
the end because he had realized that he still had a chance to help the narrator become what he (B. Wordsworth) never
was – a part of the real world.

 What did the narrator learn from his friend?


The friendship explored in the story B. Wordsworth by Sir. V.S. Naipaul is an unusual one, as unusual as their first
meeting. The young boy lived in Miguel Street and the old man happened to visit his house with a mere curiosity to
watch the uninvited bees in the yard. Eventually, the young boy questioned the old man about his personal details. The
man told him that he was ‘Black Wordsworth,’ one of the greatest poets. The boy and B. Wordsworth form an unusual
friendship pretty soon, a genuine friendship. Each of the two contributed something substantial to it. The young boy
found ‘B’ to be an interesting personality, unlike anybody else. B. Wordsworth might be seen as living an unproductive,
pointless life, comforted by illusions, but in reality, the old man plays an important and a positive influence on the boy.
The old man taught the boy how to observe nature and for the brief span of their friendship, he had made the boy’s
life exciting, full of tricks to local places of interest. He taught the boy to observe everything in the world with wonder
and inquisitiveness. The young boy too listens with intent to the fanciful words of the old man. His horizon expands as
a result of the friendship with the old man and the world becomes one exciting place for the young boy. The boy
becomes emotionally attached to ‘B’. The poet, he explains, should reflect on his experiences and write about them in
a way that they sound meaningful to every reader. Fascinated by the old man, the boy says, “He did everything as
though he were doing it for the first in his life. He did everything as though he were doing a church rite.” But B.
Wordsworth’s tragedy is that he fails to make an impact on the world, the way he wanted to. The old man cherished
the fact that he finally found someone who listened to him with sincerity and seriousness. Probably, no one ever
listened to him before. But he failed in the implementation of his desire to be the greatest poet. In fact, after his death,
it seemed as if he never existed. Only the boy remembered him, for they happened to fill the void in each other’s lives.

 Describe the interaction between the narrator and B. Wordsworth


One day, a strange caller had come to the narrator’s house to asked for permission to watch the bees surrounding
their gru palms. Initially, the boy is quizzical and enquires details about this strange man. It is at this point that the
readers begin to learn B. Wordsworth’s poetic and a possibly fantastic view on life. He told the young boy that ‘B’ in his
name stood for ‘Black ‘and that he had a brother named ‘White Wordsworth’ with whom he shared a heart. While
speaking he cries. When the boy asks him the reason, he says - "why, boy? why? You will know when you grow up.
You’re a poet, too, you know. And when you're a poet you can cry for everything" ‘B’ told the boy that he was one of
the greatest poets of all time, yet he had never sold a poem. In fact, he even tried to sell a poem based on mothers to
the boy’s mother for four cents, but was shoved off. The boy then asks him why he kept going around. He replies that
in that way he watched many things and always hoped to meet poets. When ‘B’ leaves the boy’s place, interestingly he
wishes to see him again, hence giving a hint that the relationship between the boy and ‘B’ will continue to grow

 Characters
 Identity
 Love for nature
 Word doc

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