Interrogating Ralph Singh as Floating Signifier: A Study of Displacement and Diaspora in V.S. Naipaul’s The Mimic Men
Open Access
- 28 February 2023
- journal article
- Published by Perception Publishing in The Creative Launcher
- Vol. 8 (1), 48-56
- https://doi.org/10.53032/tcl.2023.8.1.06
Abstract
Claude Levi Strauss coined the term 'floating signifier' by which he means “to represent an undetermined quantity of signification, in itself void of meaning and thus opt to receive any meaning” (Levi Strauss p. 56). Fundamentally, the term refers to the disorientation of the connection between the signifier and the signified in the Saussurian sense. Its reception as a non-linguistic sign is quite popular nowadays. This paper seeks to investigate the portrayal of Ralph Singh, the protagonist of V. S Naipaul’s novel; The Mimic Men (1967), and interpret all the possible factors that justify him as a non-linguistic floating signifier. Ralph Ranjit Kripal Singh or Ralph Singh is a Hindu born, lives in a fictitious Caribbean Island, Isabella. He later goes to England for his education, where he marries an English woman named Sandra. He comes back to Isabella and then travels back to England again. Ralph feels displaced from his real root to be a part of the country which he could not relate himself to and eventually metamorphoses into a ‘sign’. In the novel, wherever he travels, Ralph strives to make his life meaningful and significant. But every time his effort ends up in an insignificant way. So, throughout the novel, Ralph Singh behaves as a floating signifier but wishes to be signified. This paper also explores the relationship between displacement and diaspora, and its correlation to the floating signifier. The final purpose of this article is to ignite the discourse of the diaspora from an entirely different perspective.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- GIFs as floating signifiersSign Systems Studies, 2018
- Fake News as a Floating Signifier: Hegemony, Antagonism and the Politics of FalsehoodJavnost - The Public, 2018
- Trauma of Displacement in V.S. Naipaul’s The Mimic MenAsian Social Science, 2015
- Debate - Trafficking as a Floating Signifier: The view from BrazilAnti-Trafficking Review, 2015
- Global Citizenship as a Floating Signifier: Lessons from UK universitiesInternational Journal of Development Education and Global Learning, 2014
- Introduction to the Work of Marcel MaussPublished by Taylor & Francis Ltd ,2013
- Max ChandlerProceedings of the Acm Siggraph 05 Electronic Art and Animation Catalog on - Graph '05, 2005
- Race: The floating signifierPublished by American Psychological Association (APA) ,1996
- Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial DiscourseOctober, 1984
- The "Floating Signifier": From Levi-Strauss to LacanYale French Studies, 1972