By now, R.K Narayan took a turn from his usual way of writing. Moving away from writing books, which were more or less auto-biographical, his exposure to foreign lands would have inspired him to move beyond his world and hone his creativity. Starting right from ‘Mr. Sampath’ (1948) to ‘The Vendor of Sweets’ (1967), this trend was seen in all books written in this period. ‘The Guide’ and ‘The Man-Eater of Malgudi’ is analyzed here, in this context.
‘The Guide’ is R.K. Narayan’s best and most famous work. A 1958 novel, it won the SahityaAkademi Award for English in 1960. It was made even more famous and popular by the on-screen immortalization by DevAnand and WaheedaRahman in the 1965 movie of the same name.
Tracing the story of Raju, commonly
…show more content…
Raju travels all over South India to close deals for Rosie’s performance. The regular Malgudisites, however do appear. As a boy, Raju is seen loitering around his father’s shop. With Malgudi getting a new station, the shop moves to the innards of the station, selling coconuts, “Mempu” oranges, huge troughs of fried stuff, colored peppermint, sweets in glass containers and loaves of breads and nuts. The old Indian tradition of snake charming is also mentioned, in the book. This passing mention adds to the Indianess quotient. Snake charming, though a dying profession, is quintessentially seen as a very Indian thing. Though the modern India has interfered with this tradition, it still remains a thing of typical Indian culture. It is a quite a common sight for foreigners, who visit India, to go to any extent to see a snake charmer performing. Such an instance is also shown in the book, where Rosie takes Raju to a remote are just to see a snake charmer’s …show more content…
Narayan came up with a witty and humourous work, ‘The Man-Eater of Malgudi’. When a bullying taxidermist, Vasu comes to Malgudi for work, the protagonist, Nataraj finds his life disrupted. From forcefully moving into the attic of Nataraj’s printing press to bringing over dancing women, Vasu makes life difficult for Nataraj. However, Nataraj’s decision to stand uptoVasu when he decided to shoot a temple elephant, during a procession leads to more complication. With Vasu’s unexpected death, the people of Malgudi maintain a distance from Nataraj, suspecting him ofVasu’s murder. Transformation of Nataraj’s character from being spineless and cowardly to being able to stand up for himself forms the crux of the
It is a coming of age story that outlines a boy’s personal growth and triumphs. Being able to reflect on the significance of the events that have led to his triumphs is critical, as it helps the reader understand their impact on his life and where he is coming from in the decisions he makes in the story. Such reflection is very important; as it makes the situations in the story more clear to the reader, and the story is then more easy and enjoyable to read. First person is the best point of view, in this story, for recounting these events, as it allows for a more personal and thereby more insightful reflection on the importance of the experiences he has. For example, the reader only learns of the importance of Paresh to the main character when he reflects “if I hadn’t tagged along with my family [that] day, I wouldn’t have met him that first time”(109). This indicates to the reader that Paresh will be an important figure in the protagonist’s life, which helps guide the reader’s understanding of the situation. The reader recognizes that Paresh will play a critical role in the main character’s life, and this helps the reader anticipate what may happen
Hermann Hesse and Albert Camus were both talented authors whose works have greatly influenced the world of literature. Hesse’s Siddhartha and Camus’ The Stranger have impacted readers for decades. These novels centralize around a common principle of finding inner truth. The main characters, Siddhartha and Meursault, have very different ideologies by which they live their lives. These opposing perspectives greatly influence their individual decisions and the people around them. The style in which each of these novels is written exemplifies these differences between Siddhartha and Meursault. The impact of the opposing perspectives of Siddhartha and Meursault on their individual decisions and on the people around them is seen through the styles of Siddhartha and The Stranger.
When Sripathi and his family receive the news of Maya’s and her husband’s fatal road accident, they experience a dramatic up heaval. For Sripathi, this event functioned as the distressed that inaugurated his cultural and personal process of transformation and was played out on different levels. First, his daughter’s death required him to travel to Canada to arrange for his granddaughter’s reverse journey to India, a move that marked her as doubly diasporic sensibility. Sripathi called his “foreign trip” to Vancouver turned out to be an experience of deep psychic and cultural dislocation, for it completely “unmoors him from the earth after fifty-seven years of being tied to it” (140). Sripathi’s own emerging diasporic sensibility condition. Not only must he faced his own fear of a world that is no longer knowable to him, but, more importantly, he must face his granddaughter. Nandana has been literally silenced by the pain of her parent’s death, and her relocation from Canada to Tamil Nadu initially irritated her psychological condition. To Sripathi, however, Nandana’s presence actsed as a constant reminder of his regret of not having “known his daughter’s inner life” (147) as well as her life in Canada. He now recognizeed that in the past he denied his daughter his love in order to support his
The main character is Mrs. Das whom is flirtatious, careless, and needy. She and her husband take their family to see the country India for the first time. The tour guide Mr.Kapsi whom is curious, understanding, and quite aware. He sees something unusual at the beginning of the trip, but does not say anything. As the children continue their site seeing, the husband takes picture with his camera as if he lost in his own world. Meanwhile the wife gets to know the driver instead of site seeing. Mr.Kapsi is aware that the family is not like most Indians which lead him to be attracted to Mrs.Das. It states, “The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors (29). This quote shows the difference in cultural clash as well the difficulty of communication. Mr.Kapsi tells Mrs. Das that he is an interpreter for a doctor which makes her believe she can discuss her personal business without him telling anyone. It states, “He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, “Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?”(39) Made the wife realized what she was truly feeling about her mistakes. After the conversation Mr.Kapsi did not look at the Mrs.Das the same way. The unusual
...ness in the form of all "of those creeping women" trying to escape from the oldness that trapped them, acted as a premonition for changes in women’s rights movement (Gilman 89). For Gilman and her story "The Yellow Wallpaper" life is imitating art.
Different angles and difficulties of movement and osmosis are investigated in The Namesake. Throughout the novel, Ashima (the mother) and Ashoke (the father) attempt to make their kids Bengali while the brother and the sister, Gogol and Sonia, demand that they are Americans. The conflicts must do with everything from giving the youngsters their names, to regardless of whether they ought to make intermittent visits to India.
Kothari employs a mixture of narrative and description in her work to garner the reader’s emotional investment. The essay is presented in seventeen vignettes of differing lengths, a unique presentation that makes the reader feel like they are reading directly from Kothari’s journal. The writer places emphasis on both her description of food and resulting reaction as she describes her experiences visiting India with her parents: “Someone hands me a plate of aloo tikki, fried potato patties filled with mashed channa dal and served with a sweet and a sour chutney. The channa, mixed with hot chilies and spices, burns my tongue and throat” (Kothari). She also uses precise descriptions of herself: “I have inherited brown eyes, black hair, a long nose with a crooked bridge, and soft teeth
Have you ever wondered why the lions of Tsavo attacked the men who were building the railroad, or why Kevin Richardson is such good friends with lions? In Attack of the man Eaters it focuses on Colonel Patterson and how they’re being attacked by 2 lions in Tsavo. Meet the Lion Whisperer focuses on Kevin Richardson and how he tries to save the lions from canned hunts, and all the other bad things they do to the lions. In Attack of the man Eaters they saw the 2 lions as devils, because they were dragging people out of their tents and eating them at night time. In Meet the Lion Whisperer the guy thinks of the lions as friends, and plays with them on a daily basis.
...t the novel imparts a systematic, methodical tone to Siddhartha, and together with the consciously created form unifies the experiences of Siddhartha, permitting a feeling of closure and meditation on the thoughts and ideas presented therein. There is certainly a unique rhythm to Siddhartha which is skillfully communicated both consciously and subconsciously. One can appreciate the conscious craftmanship" of the novel's structure and style, while at the same time allowing the rhythm, feelings, and experiences to sift into one's mind on a deeper, more subconscious level.
Farewell To Manzanar On December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, leading to the United States entrance into World War II. A couple months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that all persons of Japanese descent must be secluded. The Japanese were sent to internment camps outside of the Pacific military zone, due to the fear Americans had of Japanese espionage.
The story Q & A, written by Vikas Swarup, illustrates the lives of those in the slums of India and how those living there experience life. The novel recites the unimaginable journey of a slum dog who becomes a billionaire. Throughout the rags to riches story of Ram Mohammed Thomas, he is presented with several catalysts which change his life.
The dramatic personae move within the framework of a plot that is like a slow train to India: there is the noise and confusion of the departure, and the fatigue of a midnight arrival, all of which provide the illusion of a think is what Jhabvala is trying to tell us: we are all travelers on a train going nowhere. We come, we go and only India remains.(Aruna P 199)
In this story, Rukumani, the protagonist faces a number of external conflicts; the conflict between her and her traditional Ceylonese Tamil family, the conflict between her and her mother, the conflict she has with her younger brother who messes up things for her, to name a few.
R.K. Narayan's Presentation of Indian Society in His Stories R.K. Narayan is an Indian novelist and short story writer who writes in English. His novels show how the lives of ordinary
Dr. Agarwal Beena. Chetan Bhagat : A voice of Seismic Shift in Indian English Fiction. Jaipur : Y King Books, 2013.