THE MAN AND THE MILIEU: A STUDY OF

THE SHORT FICTION OF R. K. NARAYAN

THESISSUBMITTED FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHYIN ENGLISH

TOKUMAUN UNIVERSITY,

NAINITAL

2011

Supervisor : Researcher:Professor A.S. Adhikari Mrs. Beena KarnatakDepartment of EnglishKumaun University,S.S.J. Campus,Almora – 263601India

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THESIS

DEDICATED

TO

MY DEAR TEACHER

LATE Dr. NEETA JOSHIEstelar

Acknowledgement

It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge my deep and

affectionate gratitude to late Dr. (Ms.) Neeta Joshi, Department

of English, Kumaun University, D. S. B. Campus, Nainital for

initiating me to Narayan studies. But for Dr. Joshi’s

encouragement the work would never have begun. She guided

and stimulated me at every turn in the initial stages of the work

and in her I found the inspiration of an ideal scholar and a great

teacher.

I express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor

Professor A. S. Adhikari, Department of English, Kumaun

University, S. S. J. Campus, Almora for his invaluable guidance

without which this study could not have been possible. I am

truly indebted to him as he was kind enough to supervise my

thesis after the sudden demise of my supervisor Dr. (Ms.) Neeta

Joshi. My thanks are also due to Professor S. A. Hamid for

encouraging me and the other teachers of the English

Department of Kumaun University for the same. I take this

opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Lalji Mishra,

Head (Retired), Department of English, M. B. P. G. College,

Haldwani who was kind enough to go through the draft of my

thesis and gave me valuable suggestions.

I also owe my thanks to the Librarian and staff of Central

Library, Kumaun University, Nainital, S. S. J. Campus, Almora

and Central Library, M. B. P. G. College, Haldwani, Sahitya

Academy Library, New Delhi for providing me library

consultation facilities. I owe special thanks to Mr. Mahesh Joshi,

Assistant Librarian M. B. P. G. College, Haldwani for his help.

This dissertation would have been simply impossible without the

confidence, endurance and support of my family. I would like

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SUMMARY

R. K. Narayan emerges as one of the most important novelist

and short story writer in presenting the realities of the simple lives

of the people living in Malgudi, a microcosm of South India. Using

the form of short story as a probe, he highlights simple South

Indian people’s lived experience in search of identity in the

complex social order. He displays the different facets of ordinary

people’s life and shows what it is to be a middle class simple

person, and the efforts, a person has to make towards establishing

his identity. The present analysis of Narayan’s short stories is with

a view to understand the short story writer’s concept of man and

his milieu. It is in this context that Narayan’s deep and profound

relationship with society is analyzed.

Narayan’s initial perception and recognition of the condition

of middle class people in the Indian society has generated a unique

change in his stories. Narayan’s stories present the mosaic of

middle class characters, encompassing fathers, mothers, brothers,

sisters, servants, armors, monkey performers, postmen, clerks,

teachers, cricketers, children etc. which is achieved by the

integration of the individual self and the social self. The stories

begin with the specific realization of the situation of being a

character. In spite of being rooted in material experience,

Narayan’s characters are able to move out of the confinement in

search of a better independent life.

Narayan records a distinct departure from the subjective

world of characters specially of women to envision society as a

whole where meaning of life and their relation to something larger

than the self, preoccupy the protagonists. Having explored the

various aspects of human psycho-specially with reference to

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women, an attempt has been made to understand their

responsibility towards something outside the self and establish

meaningful relationship with the society. Through these various

relationships, the protagonists struggle to survive, strengthen

themselves and attain fulfillment.

Narayan’s synthesis of tradition and modernity in his stories

mark the emergence of the self defined middle class people who

have forged an independent existence and voiced previously

unspoken conflicts and experiences. Narayan has established

himself as a unique writer in making literary articulation, a

responsible soil function. By enhancing middle class

consciousness, his stories project the feelings and perceptions

associated with human progress towards self-definition.

The present research work deals with the man and the miliue

as presented in the short fiction of R. K. Narayan. Narayan was

busy in writing almost for five decades. He not only got success in

his country but also earned the reputation as an international figure.

He was remarkably praised by famous novelists such as Graham

Green, V. S. Naipaul and John Updike. For every writer

environment or background plays a prominent role. It is like the

background of a body. Narayan has chosen Malgudi as the

background of his stories. It is an imaginary town but it has

emerged as an important character. It is essentially Indian in spirit

and appears as a living presence in his stories. Malgudi can be

called “Mini India”. Narayan has tried to present his point of view,

his concept of life through the world of Malgudi. It is an effort to

experience the Malgudi world in its essence.

Referring to R. K. Narayan’s love for Malgudi, P. K. Singh

writes:

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3R. K. Narayan frames his fictional imagination within themunicipal limit of Malgudi. Malgudi is his an ‘imaginary regionallocales’ like the ‘Lake District’ of Wordsworth ‘boarder countries’of Sir Walter Scott, ‘The Wessssex’ of Thomas Hardy or ‘The FiveTown’ of Arnold Bennet. As an imaginary South Indian town, it issituated between Madras and Tiruchirapalli. Narayan’s allcharacters-students, teachers, artists, Sannyasis, dreamers andrealists-live within its limits (65).

Many critics do not accept Malgudi as a mere geographical

expression in Narayan’s stories due to its all absorbing interest to

the readers. Critics find Malgudi as the real hero of Narayan’s

stories R. S. Singh also holds the same opinion. In his, book Indian

Novel in English. He writes:

Malgudi is not only the microcosm of India in its multifariousmood but it is also the real hero of his novels, Swami, Chandran,Ramani, Krishnan, Sampath, Sriram, Raju, Vasu and Mali-all thesecharacters are typically Malgudian, therefore, Indian, despite theirangularities and oddities (56).

Malgudi world is greatly discussed by critics. It has become an

important character in itself. Malgudi does not exist anywhere on

the map of India. In an interview John is Easy to Please, Narayan

himself reveals the secret of Malgudi to Ved Mehta:

I remember waking up with the name Malgudi on Vijayadashmi,the day on which the goddess of learning is celebrated. Malgudiwas an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind forfacts and things like that which would be necessary in writingabout Malgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town butjust the railway station, which was a small platform with a banyantree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and onegoing.(66)

Malgudi is a small town of South India. It has a modest size. It is

the only imaginary town which lives in the mind of an Indian

English writer. Though Malgudi is an imaginary town but it

appears to us as a live character rather more real than any real town

of South India. Readers can easily see how Narayan’s characters

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are typically Malgudians, deeply rooted in the local customs and

traditions.

Narayan has written a number of stories of rare charm and

skill. These stories were contributed to “The Hindu” and his own

short lived “Quarterly Journal, Indian Thought”. Just like his

fiction, his short stories also show the hand of a delicate and

original artist. He believes in “Art for arts sake”. In his stories, he

presents life as it is than to find a meaning behind it. In his stories,

he mainly chooses a specific condition or a miniature of life and

then projects it for his readers. In his stories, he never exaggerates

his characters and the situations. The present work has been

divided into five chapters.

The first chapter deals with the nature of short story and

gives a description of the changes which have come in short story

writing from the beginning till the present time. Narayan’s short

stories have also been compared with the short stories of different

writers such as Shankar Ram, A. S. P. Ayyar, S. K. Chettur, K. S.

Venkataramani, Manjeri Isvaran, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, R. A.

Abbas etc.

The second chapter makes an analysis of the short stories of

Narayan written during the early phase of his career. Narayan

started his carrer as a writer dealing primarily with the characters

such as school boys, teachers, college boys and college teacher. His

early short story collection include Malgudi Days and An

Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories. These stories present a

sociological study of the pre-independence era.

The third chapter makes an analysis of the stories collected

in Lawley Road and Other Stories and A Horse and Two Goats and

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Other Stories. The stories of Narayan’s middle phase are delightful

showing stories of various middle class characters. While

describing the middle phase of his stories K. R. S. Iyengar in

Indian Writing In English writes:

We enter an exotic world as half-headed or half-hearted dreamers,artists, financiers, speculators, twisters, adventures eccentricscracks cinema-stars, sanyasis, several of them not Malgudiproducts at all but staying or important from outside (373).

The stories of Narayan’s later phase are based on the

classical myths, middle class, the inevitable victory of good over

the evil, the law of life and concept of Karuna, the concept of

cyclical existence and the various stages of middle class human

beings lives. The short story collections of this phase are Under the

Banyan Tree and Other Stories and Salt and Sawdust and Other

Stories.

R. K. Narayan began his short story writing almost a decade

after Anand’s. His famous short story collections are Cyclone and

Other Stories, Dodu and Other Stories, Malgudi Days and Other

Stories, An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories, Lawley Road and

Other Stories, A Horse and Two Goats and Gods and Demons and

Others. The most characteristic note of his stories is a gentle irony.

Sometime this ironic exposure helps us to understand human

psychology. For example, in “The Doctor’s Word”, a physician

famous for his ruthless truthfulness speaks a lie to save his best

friend, who is on his death bed. In “Missing Mail”, a humble

postman hides a letter bearing the news of a relative’s death so that

the marriage in the family may complete without a disturbance. “A

Horse and Two Goats” is a first class comedy of international

misunderstanding. An unlettered Indian goatherd thinks that the

American visitor to his village wishes to buy his two goats,

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whereas the tourist is actually bargaining for the big clay horse in

the village of which he wrongly thinks the goatherd is the owner.

Here is a competition in single minded simplicity on two different

cultural places. “Engine Trouble” tells the different fate of a man

who wins a road engine in a lottery. This road engine proves white

elephant for the family. At the end one great storm, solve their

problem. In “The Magic Beard”, beard makes a man a prosperous

beggar organizer, but all the power of his hand disappears when he

shaves it off, without anticipating the consequences. “The White

Flower” presents a light satire against the Hindu system of

marriage according to which the union of two hearts depends upon

the wishes of other people. “An End of Troubles” is the most

moving and pathetic of all the stories of Narayan, the story

describes the tragic death of Kuppan, a poor rickshaw driver.

“Man-Hunt” is a funny story based on an ironical situation. The

main interest of the story arises from a printing mistake in

connection with the search of a missing boy. The “Mute

Companions” And “Attila” are stories about animals. They

describe how mute animals often prove more helpful and

serviceable to man than members of his own species. “The

Comedian”, “Under the Banyan Tree” is the psychological stories.

These stories point out that artist fail to charm people when age

begins to leave its fatal impress on them and then their talents fail.

In “The Axe” we are told of the great shack which Velan, an old

gardener gets when he finds that the garden he has grown with

great care is going to be cleared off and the trees he has reared with

the boundless love of a fond parents are going to be hacked. In “A

Shadow” The author gives a very successful description of the

internal working of the mind of a mother and son. “Father’s Help”,

“Unbreakable Doll” and “A Willing Slave” are the stories about

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children. “Old Man of The Temple”, “The Level-Crossing” and

“The Magic Beard” is the ghost stories and deal with mysterious

situations for which the writer gives no convincing explanations.

“Forty-five A Mouth”, “The Birthday Gift”, “Dodu” and “Leela’s

Friend” are also stories about children. These stories hinge upon

ironical situations which besides being amusing and entertaining,

provide a peep into the nature and character of the eager, innocent

and easily credulous children. “The Birthday Gift” is a very

humorous story. It describes the trials and tribulations of Sonu, a

young boy who loses the costly pen his father has presented to him

on his birthday. “Dodu” is the story named after an eight year old

boy who is always found in need of money for hundred reasons. In

“Gandhi’s Appeal”, we are shown how a lawyer and his wife,

Padma, are led to do something which they have taken every care

to avoid. In “Blessing of Railway”, a clever father, Sambasivan,

plans to show his beautiful daughter to a promising young man in a

railway compartment. “Dasi The Bridegroom” is the tragic-comic

story of a simpleton who having fallen a pray to the pranks of his

neighbours is driven to complete madness. “A Change” Shows the

impact of the machine age on human lives. “The One Armed

Giant” is the sketch of a beggar with one arm. It gives eagerness

with which he waits for the young man who promises to give him a

coat. “The Broken Pot” is the pathetic story of a family which is

completely ruined due to the hard-hearted behaviour of a vile

woman, Kali. The story gives a moving description of the socially

discarded and poverty, stricken people. “Mother and Son” portrays

very successfully the mental condition of a fond mother who

rebukes her son for not acting according to her wishes and then

feels very much concerned about him when he does not return

home that night. “An Astrologer’s Day” is one of the famous

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stories of R.K. Narayan. It describes an accidental meeting of a

run-away criminal turned an astrologer with his old enemy, Guru

Nayak whom he has thrown in a well in a fit of drunkenness and

taken for dead. “Gate man’s Gift” portrays the shake and

bewilderment of an aged toy-maker, Govind Singh at receiving a

registered letter from the office where he had worked as a gateman

for twenty five years. “Fellow-Feeling” shows a study in the

character of a bully who tries to harass Rajam Iyer and other

passengers in a Railway compartment by encroaching upon their

legitimate space and inflicting useless secrets upon them. “The

Evening Gift” describes the misfortune of Sankar, a sturdy peasant

from a village near Malgudi “Chippy” provides a very fine study of

the psychology of animals. “A Night of Cyclone” is narrated by a

Talkative man. It is also full of improbable incidents described in a

thrilling and convincing manner. It tells the difficulties faced by

him on a might of cyclone, when by unfortunate coincidence his

wife delivers her first child without any human or medical aid. In

“The Artist’s Turn”, an artist who fails to satisfy the whims of a

publisher regarding the sketch of the great clown Tenali Rama

decides to draw the publisher’s own face. His trick works for the

sketch is immediately approved by the publisher. “The Roman

Image” is another story narrated by the Talkative Man. It gives a

humorous description of a funny situation in which an archeologist

and his assistant get involved. “An Accident” is a ghost story

describing the encounter of the author with the ghost of Arul Doss,

a driver, who has earlier lost his life in a car accident. “Such

Perfection” is another story containing super-natural elements in it.

It describes the misery of Soma, a skillful image maker who is

advised against the consecrations of his idol of Nataraja in a

temple. In “A Parrot Story”, Ramani whose talents as a poet remain

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unrecognized because editors and publishers stand between him

and his public, decide to improve his fortunes by starting the parrot

business. In “All Avoidable Talk”, the readers are told of the great

ordeal that Sastri has to face when he tries to avoid all avoidable

talk under the instructions of an astrologer. “Crime And

Punishment” is a very humorous story. It describes the tricks and

tribulation of a tutor engaged for coaching the pampered son of

wealthy parents. “The Tiger’s Claw” is an animal story. “The

Watchman” and “A Snake In the Grass” are based on subtle ironic

situations. In the “Martyr’s Corner”, Narayan ridicules the craze

for erecting monuments in honour of big and small leaders.

“Another community” is the only story in which Narayan

makes a reference to the savage and shameless carnage in India,

witnessed at the time of the transfer of the power. “Half A Rupee

Worth” describes the tragic death of the avaricious Subbiah, a rice

merchant, who falls victim to his own greed for wealth. “Flavours

of Cocoanut” gives a funny description of the hunt and trial of a

little mouse who has been guilty of ratting the vessels, ravaging the

food-stuffs and so on. “At the Portal” describes how a certain

member of an important committee misses one of its meeting as he

is held up by the pleasant sight of a baby squirrel’s repeated

attempts to climb the port-holes in a compound wall. “A Breach of

Promise” describes the dizzy joys of a young boy who passes

higher Secondary Examination turns into fear as he appears before

the goddess Chamundi and is reminded of breaking his previous

promise of ending his life if he failed. “Uncle’s Letters” gives a

very interesting account of the experiences that come in the life a

man as he grows from a child into an aged man. “Around a

Temple” is narrated by the Talkative man. It describes the

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punishment inflicted on a forest officer by the deity in Anjaneya

temple, “Trial of The Green Blazer” describes how Raju, a

pickpocket, who has successfully removed a purse from the pocket

of a man putting on the green blazer, is moved by the presence of a

balloons lying in the purse. “Four Rupees” is very humorous story.

It describes the ironical situation in which Ranga, a jobless labour,

is a caught when he unwittingly agrees to pull out a bucket from a

deep well. “The Shelter” describes the accidental meeting of the

long separated husband and wife on a stormy and rainy day. “In

“The Magic Cure” Kannan and his brother-in-law play a trick upon

an old lady, Thayi, and rob her of her ornaments under the pretext

of providing her the magic cure for her severe stomach-ache. “Like

the Sun” is one of the most humours stories of Narayan’s

collections. It describes the trials and tribulations of Sekhar, a

teacher who suffers because of the habit of speaking truth.

Narayan’s makes use of tragic irony, such as in “Isvaran”. In

this story, a college student who has failed many times in

intermediate at last passes in second class. But he cannot bear this

happiness and goes mad on this sudden pleasant surprise. Narayan

is not successful in using tragic irony. Equally, he is not successful

in using supernatural themes.“Level Crossing” and “Accident” are

better stories of this group. A few of his stories are purely

character-sketches and they reveal Narayan’s keen eye for

eccentricity, “Uncle” “Annamalai” and “Breath of Lucifer” are

some of the best examples.

Narayan’s Malgudi milieu is uniformly compact and his

Malgudi stories are told in his usual seemingly artless style. In

many of his stories, there is a universal narrator. It is known as the

“Talkative Man”. In one of his stories “Uncle’s Letter”. The style

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of narration is entirely different. In this story, the complete life

span of a south Indian is described through letters.

Another important characteristic of Narayan’s stories is the

thematic interconnection between some of his stories and his

novels. A few of his stories are influenced by his famous novels.

“The Regal”, “A Hero”, “Father’s Help” and “Dodu” are stories of

boyhood experiences which could very well have fitted into

“Swami and Friends”. In “The White Flower”, the horoscope

problem is the same as in “The Bachelor of Arts” The situation in

“The Seventh House” has close affinities with The English

Teacher. The story “Four Rupees” repeats The Guide theme on a

different level and with a happy ending. Though Narayan is a good

short story writer and his stories are, always readable they are

perhaps not as significant an achievement as his major novels.

Even in the best of his story, what we miss is that transformation of

irony from a simple stance into a meaningful vision of life. Time is

undoubtedly present in almost all of his novels.

R. K. Narayan works neither with the aristocracy at the top

nor with the poor. He, like Jane Austen, identifies himself with the

middle class people and their life cycle, their clashes and

adjustments. In his stories, he emerges as a critic of contemporary

society. In a wild manner, he criticizes the follies and foibles of

modern civilization. However, in a soft manner, he raises social

problems of Algoid society but, he believes in the principle of “Art

for Art’s Slake”. This characteristic of Narayan’s writing can be

compared with E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence. Like H. G.

Wells and Galsworthy, he writes also for the pleasure of creation

and beauty. He has a special liking for religious life and hence in

all his short stories, readers are bound to come across Sanyasi,

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temple and rivers. Narayan’s subject is man-in-society. Man in his

environment is the basic theme of his stories. Not only Narayan but

almost all Indian English writers present historical and

geographical awareness of Indian situations. In Narayan’s short

stories, the theme is sociological. His approach is to deal basically

with the manners, customs, conventions and system of Indian

society.

The different phases of his career as a short story writer

show that Narayan deals with the contemporary social issues.

National Freedom movement provided rich and ready materials to

writers of Narayan’s generation and thus social problems and

political issues became an inseparable part of Indian literature.

Indian English literature in particular is a sociological study of the

contemporary society. Most of Narayan’s stories deal only with the

social issues of the present society because they deal with a central

theme that keeps the strands of the narrative bound together. R. K.

Narayan’s stories witness the stream of social consciousness which

gripped Indian literature. The present study is a humble attempt to

explore his social consciousness and to assign the writer his due

place among Indian English short story writers. A chronological

evaluation of his stories has been made for this purpose.

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CONTENTS

Page no.

1. Introduction 1 – 71

2. The Earlier Phase 72-177

3. The Middle Phase 178-230

4. The Later Phase 231-323

5. Conclusion 324-356

6. Bibliography 357-363

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