SOURCE: “Tradition, Miguel Street, and Other Stories: The First Period of Naipaul's Development,” in V. S. Naipaul: A Materialist Reading, University of Massachussetts Press, 1988, pp. 16-36.

In the following excerpt, Cudjoe positions Naipaul in tradition of the Caribbean short story and traces the development of themes in his short fiction.

The only independence which they [the Africans and East Indians] would desire is idleness, according to their different tastes in the enjoyment of it; and the higher motives which actuate the European labourers … that to be industrious is a duty and a virtue; that to be independent in circumstances, whatever his station, raises a man in the moral scale amongst his race; and that his ability to perform his duties as a citizen, and, we may add, as a Christian, is increased by it. These, and such motives as these, are unknown to the fatalist worshippers of Mahomet...