A House for Mr. Biswas

Houses are an important symbol in A House for Mr. Biswas, and they are included in the title alongside the protagonist. Rather than any specific building, the titular house is a symbolic entity. Mr. Biswas is a man who craves his own independence and agency and, to him, the only way he can envisage himself attaining such a level of agency and independence is to own his own house. The house is a vital symbol because the protagonist invests houses with an emotional meaning that encapsulates his hopes and ambitions. Rather than one single building, the house is an abstract concept. The house for Mr. Biswas is an ideal, a symbol of the person he wants to be in direct contrast to the person who he is. As such, the plot of the novel becomes a pursuit for this independence in the form of house. The progress and failure of Mr. Biswas's search for agency and independence is measured—by himself—in terms of home ownership.

The importance of the house as a symbol can be illustrated by the often-desperate attempts by Mr. Biswas to find a house that he can call his own. He owns three houses throughout the course of the novel (though not always the land on which these houses are built).