A Bend in the River

by

V. S. Naipaul

Yvette Character Analysis

Yvette is Raymond’s wife with whom Salim has an affair. Yvette is an intelligent and modern woman who Salim first meets in the Domain when Indar invites him to a dinner party at their house. Salim is struck by her beauty but also the liberated femininity and independence with which she conducts herself, associating her with the music of Joan Baez and the allure and glamour of the Domain on that first evening. It is implied that Yvette was previously having an affair with Indar, and after he leaves town, Salim and Yvette begin seeing each other. Yvette is quite a bit younger than Raymond, and as their relationship deepens, Salim comes to understand that Yvette must have been beguiled by Raymond’s influence and seeming potential for greatness, and is now trapped with him, her only real power and freedoms coming by association. By extension, Salim is also trapped with Raymond, as his relationship with Yvette relies on Raymond’s mood, success, and ability to remain in the Domain. Overcome with feelings of inadequacy and feeling like an accessory, Salim becomes physically abusive toward Yvette. Yvette calls him in the aftermath and Salim notes that they never felt more domestic than in that moment, and it is the last time they ever speak. When Salim returns from London, he finds their house in the domain occupied by someone else and cannot ascertain where they have gone.

Yvette Quotes in A Bend in the River

The A Bend in the River quotes below are all either spoken by Yvette or refer to Yvette. 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:
Power, Freedom, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8  Quotes

Not all the songs were like “Barbara Allen.” Some were modern, about war and injustice and oppression and nuclear destruction. But always in between there were the older, sweeter melodies. These were the ones I waited for, but in the end the voice linked the two kinds of song, linked the maidens and lovers and sad deaths of bygone times with the people of today who were oppressed and about to die. It was make-believe—I never doubted that. You couldn’t listen to sweet songs about injustice unless you expected justice and received it much of the time. You couldn’t sing songs about the end of the world unless—like the other people in that room… African mats on the floor and African hangings on the wall and spears and masks—you felt that the world was going on and you were safe in it.

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), Raymond , Yvette
Related Symbols: Masks and Costumes
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

“Yvette goes on about the boys’ uniforms. But that’s the army background, and the mother’s hotel background […] The boys in the Domain have to wear theirs. And it isn’t a colonial uniform—that’s the point. In fact, everybody nowadays who wears a uniform has to understand that. Everyone in uniform has to feel that he has a personal contract with the President. And try to get the boys out of that uniform. You won’t succeed […] We have all these photographs of him in African costume nowadays […] I raised the issue with him one day in the capital […] he said ‘Five years ago, Raymond, I would have agreed with you […] But times have changed. The people now have peace. They want something else. So they no longer see a photograph of a solider. They see a photograph of an African. And that isn’t a picture of me, Raymond. It is a picture of all Africans.’”

Related Characters: Raymond (speaker), Salim , The President / The Big Man , Yvette
Related Symbols: Masks and Costumes
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

But you couldn’t forget where you were. The photograph of the President was about three feet high. The official portraits of the President in African garb were getting bigger and bigger, the quality of the prints finer (they were said to be done in Europe). And once you knew about the meaning of the leopard skin and the symbolism of what was carved on the stick, you were affected; you couldn’t help it. We had all become his people; even here at the Tivoli we were reminded that we all in various ways depended on him

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), The President / The Big Man , Yvette
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13  Quotes

I didn’t know where I could go on to. I didn’t think—after what I had seen of Indar and other people in the Domain—that I had the talent or the skills to survive in another country […] My panic grew, and my guilt, and my feeling that I was provoking my own destruction […] I began to question myself. Was I possessed by Yvette? Or was I—like Mahesh […] possessed by myself, the man I thought I was with Yvette? [...] She gave me the idea of my manliness I had grown to need. Wasn’t my attachment to her an attachment to that idea? And oddly involved with this idea of myself, and myself and Yvette, was the town itself—the flat, the house in the Domain, the way both our lives were arranged, the absence of a community, the isolation in which we both lived.

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), Yvette, Mahesh
Page Number: 201-202
Explanation and Analysis:
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Yvette Quotes in A Bend in the River

The A Bend in the River quotes below are all either spoken by Yvette or refer to Yvette. 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:
Power, Freedom, and Identity Theme Icon
).
Chapter 8  Quotes

Not all the songs were like “Barbara Allen.” Some were modern, about war and injustice and oppression and nuclear destruction. But always in between there were the older, sweeter melodies. These were the ones I waited for, but in the end the voice linked the two kinds of song, linked the maidens and lovers and sad deaths of bygone times with the people of today who were oppressed and about to die. It was make-believe—I never doubted that. You couldn’t listen to sweet songs about injustice unless you expected justice and received it much of the time. You couldn’t sing songs about the end of the world unless—like the other people in that room… African mats on the floor and African hangings on the wall and spears and masks—you felt that the world was going on and you were safe in it.

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), Raymond , Yvette
Related Symbols: Masks and Costumes
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

“Yvette goes on about the boys’ uniforms. But that’s the army background, and the mother’s hotel background […] The boys in the Domain have to wear theirs. And it isn’t a colonial uniform—that’s the point. In fact, everybody nowadays who wears a uniform has to understand that. Everyone in uniform has to feel that he has a personal contract with the President. And try to get the boys out of that uniform. You won’t succeed […] We have all these photographs of him in African costume nowadays […] I raised the issue with him one day in the capital […] he said ‘Five years ago, Raymond, I would have agreed with you […] But times have changed. The people now have peace. They want something else. So they no longer see a photograph of a solider. They see a photograph of an African. And that isn’t a picture of me, Raymond. It is a picture of all Africans.’”

Related Characters: Raymond (speaker), Salim , The President / The Big Man , Yvette
Related Symbols: Masks and Costumes
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

But you couldn’t forget where you were. The photograph of the President was about three feet high. The official portraits of the President in African garb were getting bigger and bigger, the quality of the prints finer (they were said to be done in Europe). And once you knew about the meaning of the leopard skin and the symbolism of what was carved on the stick, you were affected; you couldn’t help it. We had all become his people; even here at the Tivoli we were reminded that we all in various ways depended on him

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), The President / The Big Man , Yvette
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13  Quotes

I didn’t know where I could go on to. I didn’t think—after what I had seen of Indar and other people in the Domain—that I had the talent or the skills to survive in another country […] My panic grew, and my guilt, and my feeling that I was provoking my own destruction […] I began to question myself. Was I possessed by Yvette? Or was I—like Mahesh […] possessed by myself, the man I thought I was with Yvette? [...] She gave me the idea of my manliness I had grown to need. Wasn’t my attachment to her an attachment to that idea? And oddly involved with this idea of myself, and myself and Yvette, was the town itself—the flat, the house in the Domain, the way both our lives were arranged, the absence of a community, the isolation in which we both lived.

Related Characters: Salim (speaker), Yvette, Mahesh
Page Number: 201-202
Explanation and Analysis: