A House for Mr. Biswas

Mr. Biswas is the protagonist of the novel and the person from whose perspective all events are portrayed. From the moment of his birth, he is revealed to be a tragic figure. The pundit lists the myriad ways in which Mr. Biswas's life is inauspicious, from being born the wrong way to being born at the wrong time to being born with an extra finger which soon falls off. Mr. Biswas's bad luck is shown when his father dies and when his mother is forced to rely on her family for help getting by. This bad luck and dependence on others creates within Mr. Biswas a driving need for agency. He wants to live on his own terms, independent of others. To do so, he believes that he needs money and a house. The pursuit of a home of his own becomes one of the key plotlines in the novel, to the point of lending the book its title. The unfortunate circumstances of Mr. Biswas's birth, however, create a distraction in his life. He often blames bad luck or fate for his misfortune, rather than his own material conditions and the institutions and structures which govern his life.