A House for Mr Biswas

by

V. S. Naipaul

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Dehuti Character Analysis

Dehuti is Mr Biswas’s sister. Throughout their childhood, Dehuti and Mr Biswas play together frequently while their brothers, Prasad and Pratap, are busy working in the cane fields. After Raghu’s death, Bipti sends Dehuti to live with Tara as a servant in the hopes of teaching her upper-class etiquette and eventually marrying her off to a wealthy family. However, she instead elopes with Tara’s yard boy, Ramchand, and moves to a well-built hut and then a shanty in Port of Spain. Eventually, she becomes an honorary Tulsi sister, joining the others at Hanuman House on important occasions.

Dehuti Quotes in A House for Mr Biswas

The A House for Mr Biswas quotes below are all either spoken by Dehuti or refer to Dehuti. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Independence vs. Belonging Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

And so Mr Biswas came to leave the only house to which he had some right. For the next thirty-five years he was to be a wanderer with no place he could call his own, with no family except that which he was to attempt to create out of the engulfing world of the Tulsis. For with his mother’s parents dead, his father dead, his brothers on the estate at Felicity, Dehuti as a servant in Tara’s house, and himself rapidly growing away from Bipti who, broken, became increasingly useless and impenetrable, it seemed to him that he was really quite alone.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Bipti, Raghu, Dehuti
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

“This education is a helluva thing,” Ramchand said. “Any little child could pick up. And yet the blasted thing does turn out to be so damn important later on.”

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Dehuti
Page Number: 298
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

Mr Biswas went past Dehuti to look at the body. Then he did not wish to see it again. But always, as he wandered about the yard among the mourners, he was aware of the body. He was oppressed by a sense of loss: not of present loss, but of something missed in the past. He would have liked to be alone, to commune with this feeling. But time was short, and always there was the sight of Shama and the children, alien growths, alien affections, which fed on him and called him away from that part of him which yet remained purely himself, that part which had for long been submerged and was now to disappear.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Shama, Savi, Anand, Bipti, Dehuti
Page Number: 461
Explanation and Analysis:
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Dehuti Quotes in A House for Mr Biswas

The A House for Mr Biswas quotes below are all either spoken by Dehuti or refer to Dehuti. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Independence vs. Belonging Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

And so Mr Biswas came to leave the only house to which he had some right. For the next thirty-five years he was to be a wanderer with no place he could call his own, with no family except that which he was to attempt to create out of the engulfing world of the Tulsis. For with his mother’s parents dead, his father dead, his brothers on the estate at Felicity, Dehuti as a servant in Tara’s house, and himself rapidly growing away from Bipti who, broken, became increasingly useless and impenetrable, it seemed to him that he was really quite alone.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Bipti, Raghu, Dehuti
Related Symbols: Houses
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

“This education is a helluva thing,” Ramchand said. “Any little child could pick up. And yet the blasted thing does turn out to be so damn important later on.”

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Dehuti
Page Number: 298
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

Mr Biswas went past Dehuti to look at the body. Then he did not wish to see it again. But always, as he wandered about the yard among the mourners, he was aware of the body. He was oppressed by a sense of loss: not of present loss, but of something missed in the past. He would have liked to be alone, to commune with this feeling. But time was short, and always there was the sight of Shama and the children, alien growths, alien affections, which fed on him and called him away from that part of him which yet remained purely himself, that part which had for long been submerged and was now to disappear.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Shama, Savi, Anand, Bipti, Dehuti
Page Number: 461
Explanation and Analysis: