Introduction
“B. Wordsworth” is a short story written by V. S. Naipaul, a Trinidad-born descendant of indentured workers shipped from India, and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. The story is about the relationship between a young boy (from whose perspective we see the story unfold), and a man named Black Wordsworth – an elderly poet with a tragic past. The boy meets him when he approaches their house, “asking to watch the bees” (“B. Wordsworth” 1). They quickly became friends, and the boy gets to learn about the poet’s past and the way he views the world today. The story has many interpretations; this paper will focus on the subject of immortality – B. Wordsworth living on in the boy’s memory even after his house and his garden are gone. Thus, it is required to establish a way to gain immortality even after death.
Wordsworth and the Path to Immortality
It is important to note that the man’s good attitude toward the guy and helping him contributed to the fact that the memory of his good actions will live after his death. It is said that the purpose of any writer or a poet is to immortalize things, events, and people that deserve to live on forever. It is a gift that few, and yet everyone, possesses. B. Wordsworth shows this by identifying the boy as a poet, even though in the story he is presented as an average child – his interests are largely in staying out of his mother’s way, and to learn more about his new friend. The boy’s ability to speak is still in development, as he speaks English with mistakes, much like blacks and immigrants did back when the story was set up (“B. Wordsworth” 2). Nevertheless, B. Wordsworth saw the value in this child, not simply because of his good heart and caring nature, but also because in him he saw a ticket to his own immortality. He tried to psychologically facilitate communication and adapt to it, for example “I have waited here for you to tell you this and to invite you to come and eat some of my mangoes” (“B. Wordsworth” 2). Therefore, the author encouraged the child to develop and showed that with certain shortcomings it is possible to strive to achieve success.
The man tells the boy about himself, bit by bit. He teaches him about what it is to be a poet, shows him where he lives, and explains how he earns enough money to last a year. He treats the child to delicious mangos that grow on a splendid mango tree in his garden (“B. Wordsworth” 2). When asked about why the garden is so wild and unkempt, B. Wordsworth shares a tale about a young family of poets, expecting a child, and the woman dying in childbirth. In so doing, he plants a seed in the boy’s memory, preserving the story of his own family in him (“B. Wordsworth” 3). It does not stop there, however – throughout the short tale the relationship between the author and the poet progresses, they see each others as friends. The boy seems genuinely distraught when he learns that the poet is dying (“B. Wordsworth” 3). In less than a year, the man is gone, and with him goes his hut and his garden too. A building is raised in its place, all the trees cut down (“B. Wordsworth” 4). However, despite the man and his garden being gone, he is still remembered, and is alive, in someone’s heart.
Conclusion
Thus, the text raises the theme of a man’s immortality even after his physical death, demonstrating that the memory of a good man can be preserved. The story seems like it has a bad ending, implying that there is nothing left of him and his life, but that is not the case. The boy is left to live and remember B. Wordsworth, his story, his garden, and his family that was never meant to be. So long he is alive, that memory carries on. But it goes beyond that – true to his calling as a writer and a poet, the boy grew up to write the story and see it printed, for everyone else to read. With each person who read the story, a new seed is planted – more and more people know that there was such a man named B. Wordsworth, that he had a wife and a child, who never made it into this world. And that he had the best mango tree in Port of Spain. So long as even one person remembers B. Wordsworth, he will never truly die.
Work Cited
““B. Wordsworth” by V. S. Naipaul.” NC State Univeristy, Web.