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Human Predicament

Critiquing Vikram Seth’s Novels


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Human Predicament Critiquing Vikram Seth's Novels

Dr.Mayurkumar

Mukundbhai Solanki

EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011)

www.educreation.in


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Shri Late Mukundbhai

Chotalal Solanki

Shri Yasodharaben

Mukundbhai Solanki

“Parental love is the only love that is truly selfless,

unconditional and forgiving.”

Dr. T.P. Chia


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PREFACE

Literature is a powerful means to know the truths of life.

By and large, there may be two objectives of literature.

Art for Art’s sake and Art’s for morality’s sake. Good

literature instructs and entertains both. Sometimes, it

appears that a writer has a strong urge to disseminate his

ideas or visions or philosophy of life. Sometimes, a

writer has a strong urge to share his aesthetic insights

and pleasure. Sometimes, a writer has strong reformist

zeal to change his surroundings. He is not at all happy

with his surroundings and he wants to make aware his

readers about the topicality and contemporary issues.

Such writers write to change the mindsets of the people.

They want to sensitize them through his writings. It is a

common experience of the intelligentsia that truths

realized and understood through literature become more

penetrating. Struggle and Suffering is a common subject

matter of World literature. It is said that happiness and

misery are the two aspects of the same coin. The cycle of

day and night goes on. They are the essential component

parts of our life. However, in world literature, it seems

that treatment given to struggle and suffering is

uncommon and unique. Many times, the suffering and

struggle turn into predicament. Every person has to pass

through this stage of life when he has to face great

dilemma and utter helplessness. Hamlet’s famous

Soliloquy exquisitely portrays the state of Human

Predicament:

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis

nobler in the mind to suffer. The slings and arrows of

outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of

troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;


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No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache

and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis

a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd.

Hamlet ponders over his own realizations that

sufferings of life are inevitable. Everyone must

encounter this dark bottomless abyss. Struggle and

suffering are the part and parcel of life. To Hamlet, they

appear to be sea of troubles, the slings and arrows, the

heart-ache, the thousand natural shocks so on and so


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forth. Hamlet experiences the fear of the uncertainty of

death and of imminent danger of suicide. Whether it is a

man-made predicament or destiny-made, one feels the

same situation as Hamlet describes in his soliloquy. In

man-made predicament, man is responsible for his or her

misfortune. His deeds, mistakes or perverted vision is

responsible for his misfortune. Aristotle calls it hamartia

or tragic flaw. Tragic flaw is the detrimental flaw that

brings about the downfall of a human being. One may be

helpless and cannot clearly see it and mend it. Destiny-

made predicament is irrevocable. Man tries hard to

change his destiny and tragedy occurs from his very

attempt to change his destiny. But it is important to

notice what is man-made or destiny-made in our life.

One cannot have any control over destiny-made

circumstances. Of course!! One can control one’s

responses and reactions and be proactive but one can

never control the circumstances that are created by

destiny. Stimulus response is natural and unskilled. One

has to develop proactive approach. Many times, one

mistakenly considers man-made predicament as destiny-

made and make destiny responsible for everything unjust

that happens in one’s life. One cannot realize one’s own

tragic flaw. Without realizing one’s tragic flaw nothing

can be made to change one’s situation. A will to change

can happen only when one has strongly realized one’s

flaws.

Hamlet is not at all happy with his life situations.

He gives a list of his troubles and dissatisfaction in the

soliloquy. Untold misery makes one think about death

and the fear of death is the crescendo of suffering.

Hamlet has a dilemma “to be or not to be”. He broods

over the death and wants to know what death brings. It

may be sleep but in perchance to dream he is

speculating that it is perhaps an experience worse than

life. Death is called the undiscover'd country from


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which no traveller returns. John in Vikram Seth’s

Golden Gate has brooding questions to ask his own self:

One evening as he walked across

Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss

Of a red frisbee almost brained him.

He thought, "Who'd gloat? Who would be glad?

Would anybody? “As it pained him,

Vikram Seth’s characters pass through the trials and

tribulations of life. This book is an extraordinary

exploration of Seth’s ideas on ‘Human Predicament’ and

‘The Great Possible Escape”. The first chapter elucidates

the phrase ‘human predicament’ and how western and

eastern philosophical schools have examined the term.

This book can help those scholars and critics and lover

of literature who are in pursuit of gaining complete

understanding of human predicament. I passed through

untold predicament. I was writing this book while my

father was suffering from rectum cancer. His struggle for

survival was the struggle of the writer too. His sudden

death dealt a terrible blow to the entire family. I have

tried to find solution of my own predicament in this

book. Hence, Like the predicament of Seth’s characters,

my own predicament has made the process of writing

this book more intensive and experiential. The second

chapter provides complete analysis of Human

Predicament in the context of Indian and Western

philosophy as well as Indian and Western literature. The

third chapter reveals the psychological condition of

Seth’s characters as depicted in his first novel The

Golden Gate. The fourth chapter is a sincere effort to

depict different human predicaments as presented in

Seth’s A Suitable Boy. The fifth is about an ill fated love

story of Michael and Julia and their courage in the midst

of difficulty but their problem remains unsolved. The

last chapter of the book is a sum of all the chapters in


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which I talk about Seth’s style of writing and his

greatness as a versatile writer.

I am indebted to Dr. Mihir M.Dave, Associate

professor, G.D. Modi College of Arts Palanpur for his

invaluable guidance during my Ph.D. research work. He

understood my predicament and encouraged me to go

ahead in research work. He is truly my friend,

philosopher and guide. He also helped me for the

publication of the thesis in a book form. I also remember

my father who bought five philosophical books when I

began research work. These books provided a new

vision to me to clarify philosophical aspect of human

predicament by analyzing philosophy of different saints

and sages.

DR. MAYUR KUMAR

MUKUNDBHAI SOLANKI


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Contents

Sr Chapter Page

Preface vi

1. Introduction 1

2. The Concept of Human

Predicament

57

3 Human Predicament in Seth’s

The Golden Gate

151

4. Human Predicament in Seth’s A

Suitable Boy

195

5.

6.

Human Predicament in Seth’s An

Equal Music

Conclusion

249

284


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Human Predicament

1

INTRODUCTION-I

It is said that life is very peculiar because it takes

sadness to know happiness, noise to appreciate silence,

and absence to value presence. No one is able to

understand the real meaning of life as it seems

meaningless between the boundaries of birth and death.

Sometimes the biases of human beings keep them aloof

from doing certain things and all the wishes of human

beings are not fulfilled even they have to do the work

unwillingly. This is called human predicament.

Dissatisfaction invites evils like: malice, envy, and greed

etc. no one is free from these evils. It is believed that

there is no difference between man’s fate and that of the

animals. Swami Bhasyananda in his book From the

Unreal to the Real, talks about two principal entities

without which no experience is possible i.e. self and

non-self; spirit and matter; subject and object. These are

different things as different as light and darkness. It is

believed that the non-self consists of tangible and

intangible matter. It is always changing, for it is mortal

with beginning and end, perishable, multiple and inert.

In Vedic philosophy, it is stated that the self identifies

with the non-self due to ignorance. This identification is

not based on reality even one can consider it as ‘Maya’.

Vedanta terms ‘Maya’, a state of error due to ignorance

and self-forgetfulness which has two aspects i.e. the

power of veiling or covering and the power of

projection. As long as one is under the influence of

Maya, one takes such visions to be real.

Through Maya alone, one identifies one’s self with

various objects such as body, mind, senses, community,

country etc. The daily life of human beings is wavering

between bondage and unhappiness. In Taittiriya


Human Predicament

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Upanishad, there are five coverings of the self which

produce experiences on different levels. The goal is to

realize the freedom of the Self from non-self through the

discipline of renunciation of the non-self. Renunciation

is the basis of the spiritual life and discipline.

Renunciation is not possible for every humanbeing.

According to Hindu mystics, the world process is

sustained by two forces: one is called Pravritti, a desire

for worldly prosperity and other is termed as Nivritti, a

desire for liberation. Even the desire for worldly

prosperity must be controlled by spiritual laws r it

creates chaos, confusion, wars and destruction. Man has

a body and senses which seek satisfaction in material

pleasures even there is no control over passion are the

causes of man’s unhappiness. It is believed that animals

and uncultured men drive their pleasure from senses on

the contrary educated men get it from art, science,

philosophy; and spiritual man from the spirit within.

Vedanta considers God as embodiment of freedom and

the master of nature; and through the control of his

passions and desires, man can achieve union with God as

well as self-mastery by renouncing materialistic

pleasure.

The word ‘Predicament’ has shades of meanings,

but the history of its etymology is as old as our culture.

It is derived from the Late Latin word

‘Praedicamentum’, which means ‘Predicated’,

‘Predicament’, or ‘Category’. The Latin word

‘Praedicare’ means ‘To declare’, ‘proclaim’ or

‘Predicate’. It is believed that Aristotle interpreted the

word ‘Predicament’ as ‘Category’, ‘Class’, is an alone

translation of Aristotle’s Greek word ‘Katagoria’. On the

other hand the Greeks interpret the word ‘ Predicament’

originally means "a state of being", which makes sense

considering the words that sound like predicate are all

about states of being predict, or say what's going to


Human Predicament

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happen in the future. ‘Predicament’ is believed to be an

unpleasant state of being. It seems that the meaning of

the word ‘Predicament’ is not bound only in one sense

because it contains different interpretations at different

times. The researcher wants to study the problem of

human predicament by displaying unpleasant situations

of human beings.

It seems that no one is able to understand the real

meaning of life as human beings only wander in the

darkness and there is nothing to show them the right

path. Lord Krishna talks about the cycle of life and death

in the Gita but human beings still remain in dilemma

about the things that is cause of human predicament.

Lord Krishna suggests remedy to overcome from the

problem of predicament but only enlighten beings can

follow the path and go ahead in life. It is believed that

there is nothing after death but soul is immortal and

takes rebirth. The cycle of predicament begins with the

birth of man as he passes through various stages of life

finds it difficult as well as complex. The complexity of

life leads man from aloofness from the truth to

degradation.

There are two boundaries of life i.e. birth and death

in between it is impossible to make sense out of life.

Between those two boundaries life appears to be

meaningless. Bad people flourish, and it is simply not

the case that eventually they get what they deserve.

People lie and cheat and swindle, and bring despair, and

yet they prosper. On the other hand people struggle, and

work, and they are honest people of the highest integrity,

and yet everything seems to go wrong for them.

Everyone does not experience the apparent

meaninglessness of life in quite these stark terms. It is

convincing that bad things happen to good people. For

most people life generally makes sense, but always,

somewhere, there is the experience of gross unfairness,


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