Summary
Chapter 4: Among the Readers and Learners
Mr. Biswas is happy to move out of the Tulsi house in Shorthills, but due to a housing shortage, he must share a house in Port of Spain with W. C. Tuttle's family, Govind's family, and Basdai, a widow who rents out her rooms to other widows and their children who have come to the city to study. Mr. Biswas refers to these aspiring students sarcastically as "the readers and learners," and feels annoyed by the noise they make.
At the Sentinel, Mr. Biswas manages to hold onto his job and begins to report on so-called "Deserving Destitutes" to give the paper some sensationalistic material and distribute bits of charity. He encounters some troubles on his bike trips through poorer neighborhoods, and some of the widows even come from Shorthills to ask him to get them status as Deserving Destitutes. He visits Bhandat, who is living with a Chinese mistress, and he makes weekly visits to Pagotes to escape the ruckus caused by the children in the house.
Meanwhile, Anand approaches college age and begins to study in a grueling cram style for an island-wide exhibition examination that would provide a scholarship to study in Britain. Mr. Biswas invests a great deal of hope in his son and promises to buy him a bicycle if he wins a spot. Right after the exam, Anand admits to having neglected some problems of the test, while Govind's son Vidiadhar boasts of having done superbly; however, when the results come out, all are surprised to learn that Anand has placed third, placing him comfortably within the top twelve who won scholarships, while Vidiadhar has only passed without winning a scholarship. Not long after, Bipti, Mr. Biswas' mother, dies; Mr. Biswas does not get the chance to properly mourn and even has to deal with the frustration of the autopsy doctor's fumbling proceedings.
Chapter 5: The Void
As Anand begins to attend college, Mr. Biswas follows his education closely and with great enthusiasm, investing his attention in his son's life to the point that he loses ambitions for himself and feels himself falling into a "void." At this moment, he receives a great stroke of luck: Ms. Logie, the head of the newly formed Community Welfare Department, offers him a position as a Community Welfare Officer that comes with a hefty salary. He quits his job at the Sentinel without much drama, even though he had drafted many flamboyant resignation letters in the past.
Although Mr. Biswas, given his experiences with poor Indian villagers, feels highly cynical about the Welfare Department's ambitions to organize communities and economic development in the country, he is more than satisfied by the richer life that his much-increased means allow him. He begins to buy more expensive suits, choosing them with a dandified sense, and he even acquires a car, a Prefect, which brings him great pride, especially among the family. This achievement is surpassed, however, by W. C. Tuttle buying a house for his family and moving out; before he is able to rent out the rooms to gain some extra income, Mrs. Tulsi comes to occupy it. Weakened by sickness, she becomes needy for her family's attention and care.
With the news that Owad will be returning from England, much of the family flocks over from Shorthills to the Port of Spain house, crowding Mr. Biswas and his family out of their room; however, Mrs. Tulsi promises Mr. Biswas that he can move back later. Mr. Biswas continues his work as a Welfare Officer, distributing leaflets and holding meetings. He calculates the money he has accrued and how much he needs to buy his own house.
Analysis
These two chapters see the narrative center of gravity shifting subtly but significantly from Mr. Biswas to his son Anand, who comes of age and stands for the exhibition exams. The chapter "Among the Readers and Learners" introduces the importance of education—not only as a practical matter, but also for the very fate of the Indian Trinidadian characters; Mr. Biswas' move with his family from the large Tulsi family house in the countryside to smaller accommodations in the city with its educational institutions reflects the larger social transition away from a traditional family system in which all children can depend upon their parents for support (such as the daughters or widows on Mrs. Tulsi). Increasingly unable to sustain so many people living together, the family begins to pull apart, with parents depending on their children's good academic performance as the only means of social mobility.
Thus, while Mr. Biswas' change from his previous work at the Sentinel under Mr. Burnett to his position as investigator of Deserving Destitutes does not amount to much of a change at all, Anand's storyline begins to occupy a place of importance and drama, as he studies, takes, and then passes the exhibition examination. The way that Naipaul narrates Anand's unexpected success in the examination—and the boastful Vidiadhar's unforeseen failure—is consistent with his penchant for sudden reversals of fortune (for example, the two times Mr. Biswas' house is destroyed) but is unusually happy; although Anand grows up in the shadow of his father's wry cynicism and their family's difficult circumstances, the opportunity his education affords him gives his life a cast of hope and openness towards the future.
Mr. Biswas may have been unlikeable (though still comic) on account of his narrow-minded, if also creative, egoism; but his realization of the dead-endedness of his life in comparison with the great potential of his son's gives him a tragic cast that, while still wryly ironic, moves the reader. The last paragraph of "The Void," the chapter in which this tragic consciousness comes to the fore, is worth quoting in its entirety to note how Naipaul prepares a melodramatic line:
And now Mr. Biswas began to make fresh calculations, working out over and over the number of years that separated each of his children from adulthood. Savi was indeed a grown person. Concentrating on Anand, he had not observed her with attention. And she herself had grown reserved and grave; she no longer quarreled with her cousins, though she could still be sharp; and she never cried. Anand was more than halfway through college. Soon, Mr. Biswas thought, his responsibilities would be over. The older would look after the younger. Somehow, as Mrs. Tulsi had said in the hall of Hanuman House when Savi was born, they would survive: they couldn’t be killed. Then he thought: "I have missed their childhoods" (480).
What begins as Mr. Biswas' purely practical calculations unexpectedly leads to a very honest and painful conclusion of his failure as a father, the melodramatic potential of which is emphasized by the chapter ending immediately thereafter.
