CU-BA-Eng-SEM-IV-English literature-IV

BACHELOR OF ARTS ENGLISH SEMESTER-IV ENGLISH LITERATURE-IV

CHANDIGARH UNIVERSITY Institute of Distance and Online Learning SLM Development Committee Prof. (Dr.) H.B. Raghvendra Vice- Chancellor, Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Punjab:Chairperson Prof. (Dr.) S.S. Sehgal Registrar Prof. (Dr.) B. Priestly Shan Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Nitya Prakash Director – IDOL Dr. Gurpreet Singh Associate Director –IDOL Advisors& Members of CIQA –IDOL Prof. (Dr.) Bharat Bhushan, Director – IGNOU Prof. (Dr.) Majulika Srivastava, Director – CIQA, IGNOU Editorial Committee Prof. (Dr) Nilesh Arora Dr. Ashita Chadha University School of Business University Institute of Liberal Arts Dr. Inderpreet Kaur Prof. Manish University Institute of Teacher Training & University Institute of Tourism & Hotel Management Research Dr. Manisha Malhotra Dr. Nitin Pathak University Institute of Computing University School of Business © No part of this publication should be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording and/or otherwise without the prior written permission of the authors and the publisher. SLM SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR CU IDOL STUDENTS 2 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

First Published in 2021 All rights reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Chandigarh University. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this book may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. This book is meant for educational and learning purpose. The authors of the book has/have taken all reasonable care to ensure that the contents of the book do not violate any existing copyright or other intellectual property rights of any person in any manner whatsoever. In the event, Authors has/ have been unable to track any source and if any copyright has been inadvertently infringed, please notify the publisher in writing for corrective action. 3 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

CONTENT Unit 1: The Dark Room By R.K Narayan (Indian English Writer)........................................ 5 Unit 2: Tughlaq By Girish Karnad....................................................................................... 53 Unit 3: Poetry By Kamala Das: My Grandmother's House................................................... 79 Unit 4: Poetry By Kamala Das: An Introduction................................................................ 102 Unit 5: Poetry By Nissim Ezekiel: Goodbye Party For Miss Pushpa T.S ........................... 127 Unit 6: Poetry By Nissim Ezekiel: Night Of The Scorpion ................................................ 151 Unit 7: Composition Part I: Sounds Of English: Consonants, Vowels, Diphthongs, Stress, Intonation.......................................................................................................................... 177 Unit 8: Composition Part Ii: Voice, Simple, Compound And Complex Sentences ............. 203 4 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

UNIT1: THE DARK ROOM BY R.K NARAYAN (INDIAN ENGLISH WRITER) STRUCTURE 1.0Learning Objective 1.1Introduction 1.2 About the Author 1.3 Analysis of “The Dark Room” 1.4 Central Theme 1.5 Character Analysis 1.6 Literary Elements 1.7 Summary 1.9 Keywords 1.11Learning Activity 1.12Unit End Questions 1.13 References 1.0LEARNING OBJECTIVE After studying this unit, you will be able to:  Analyze The Dark Room by R.K. Narayan.  Illustrate the character of Savitri.  Summarize The Dark Room. 1.1INTRODUCTION R. K. Narayan was an Indian writer known for his works set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English, along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. Narayan's mentor and friend, Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan’s first four books, including the semi- autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. The fictional town of Malgudi, was first introduced in Swami and Friends. Narayan’s The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951, and Sahitya Academy Award winner The Guide, was adapted for film and for Broadway. Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters, and he has been 5 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

compared to William Faulkner, who also created a similar fictional town, and likewise explored withhumour and compassion the energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories have been compared with those of Guy de Maupassant, because of his ability to compress a narrative. However, he has also been criticized for the simplicity of his prose. Indian writing in English fiction has been acclaimed around the world for its innovative and radical new approaches to storytelling. The multitude of such writing explores India in its various aspects. Apart from the continued literary output by older generation of Indian English writers, we also have newer generation that explores the contemporary angst, alienation and existentialism felt by the „middle-class liberal humanist‟. R. K. Narayan was born on October 10, 1906, in Madras. He began his writing career with Swami and Friends in 1935. Most of his works including Swami and Friends is set in the fictional town of Malgudi, which captures everything Indian while having a unique identity of its own. His writing style was marked by simplicity and subtle humour. He told stories of ordinary people trying to live their simple lives in a changing world. The Dark Room (1938), the novel presents the struggle of a sensitive woman Savitri struggling to come into terms with her predicament as the wife of an adulterous husband after having married for fifteen years. Savitri has received nothing from her husband Ramani except rebukes and abuses. He treats the children similarly. She then revolts and leaves the house in despair to commit suicide. She is saved, decides to live an independent life but realizes the futility of her attempt to escape from her bonds with the temporal world and returns home. My study is about the existential maturity shown by R.K. Narayan‟s characters at the time of crisis on his famous fiction The Dark Room, my aim is to focus on how she overcome them and how she decides to lead a fulfilling life. It also explores the psyche depth of his characters. In The Dark Room, for instance, Narayan presents two major female characters, Savitri (within the matrimonial framework) and Shanta Bai (rebelliously outside it), begrudgingly co-existing inside a codified social structure. Savitri is legally married to the protagonist of the novel while Shanta Bai is the other woman in his life. But neither of them is allowed to venture out independently in the society, without a male identity tag in front of their names. Savitri is Mrs. Ramani, while Shanta Bai is the Mistress of Ramani. And this happens because Narayan is well aware that the society, despite multiple changes, will never permit a woman to step out on her own. From a rationalistic point, both Savitri and Shanta Bai are stereo-typical characters performing two diametrically opposite functions. Savitri is the traditional housewife, while Shanta Bai is the modern woman in search of emancipation. But both are equally vulnerable when it concerns their positions in the patriarchy. Shanta Bai is ostracized not by the entire community but only by Savitri, whose interests are at stake. The rest of the community accepts her benevolently as the other woman in Ramani’s life. And despite her cravings for liberation, she seems quite happy with the recognition. Savitri, on the other hand, feels threatened initially and revolts, but ultimately conforms for the well-being of her children. She has no personal resources to bring them up single handedly. But neither 6 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

of these two women characters can ultimately manifest an individual identity because the patriarchy will not allow them to do so; both are victims of circumstances with different connotations. Hence, neither displays a power to supersede the patriarchal strictures. 1.2ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001), was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. Narayan's mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan's first four books including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. The fictional town of Malgudi was first introduced in Swami and Friends. Narayan's The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951 and Sahitya Academy Award winner The Guide was adapted for film (winning a Filmfare Award for Best Film) and for Broadway. Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his characters. He has been compared to William Faulkner who also created a similar fictional town and likewise explored with humour and compassion the energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories have been compared with those of Guy de Maupassant because of his ability to compress a narrative. In a career that spanned over sixty years Narayan received many awards and honours including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third highest civilian awards. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's parliament. R.K.Narayan, the most outstanding writer of Indian fiction, a novelist who has no axe to grind, belongs to the 20th century writers of Indian English. Born in 1906 in Chennai, known for creating the immortal town of Malgudi, isa rare example of a pure artist, who writes for the sake of art, and not out of any ulterior motives. That is why his popularity has been worldwide and lasting. His works have been translated into a number of languages of the world. He has 15 novels and many story stories to his credit. He is known as a story-teller in the Indian tradition. His tales are episodic. Except in The Guide, there is a straightforward, chronological narration. His great regard for family ties and parties of the home make him an exception from the other writers of his genre. Human relationships, particularly domestic relationships, occupy a central place in his novels. Most of his novels present the simplicity of a middle-class Indian family. This stress on the role of the family shows his Indianness. His novels are talked much because of the Indianness that is reflected in various ways. His works present the typical Indian wife who are housewives, who bear the tyranny of their husbands, passively and weakly. Even when they revolt, like Savitri in The Dark Room, the revolt is temporary, and they return to their home and their children. Even Rosie in The Guide shows the essential Indianness in her solicitude for her husband and in the attitude of resignation, she adopts when Raju is arrested for forgery. She tells him; ‘I felt all along you 7 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

were not doing the right things. This is Karma'. Many popular superstitions, rituals and beliefs are frequently exploited in India. R.K.Narayan has presented these Sadhus, Sanyasis and Swamis as the characters in his novels. In The Guide, there is fasting to bring down the rain, and Raju is easily taken to be a Mahatma by the credulous villages. Communication with the spirit of the dead, the undertaking of a fast to please a god or goddess to win some favor or other, are other relevant examples. Much is woven into the fabric of his novels, which recognizes no logic. There is the exploitation of such Indian merits as cobras, a dancing girl, as devadasis for example, in The Guide. Rosie reads Natya Shastra of Bharat Muni. Frequent use of Indian myth and legend as in Gods forms the background of his works. The Man-Eater of Malgudiis an example for this. All his novels, except The Guide, are straightforward narrations, uncomplicated by chronological disjointedness or multi-point of view. The flashbacks in The Sweet – Vendor and Mr.Sampath are clear in the chronological sequence. According to Paul Vergheese, ‘Narayan’s is the simplest form of prose fiction – the story which records a succession of events. There is no separation between character and plot, both are inseparably knit together. The qualities of the novelist attribute to his characters who determine the action and the action in turn progressively changes the characters and, thus the story is carried forward to the end. In other words, as a good story-teller, Narayan sees to it that his story has a beginning, a middle and an end. All of his novels present a solution to the problem which sets the events moving; R.K.Narayan’s plots do not follow any standardized form. It may mean no marriage, no happy ending and no hero for standardized stature. Accidents, no happy ending and sudden reversal of fortune are used only on a very limited scale; his action mainly develops logically from the acts and actions of his characters. In this respect, Narayan is as much a ‘materialist' as Henry James, H.G.Wells and Arnold Bennet. Narayan's craftsmanship in plot construction does not reveal a consistent quality. In his novel Swami and Friends,the story flows on in a very easy manner and helps us understand an Indian middle-class family but developed an architectonic sense in his second novel, The Bachelor of Arts, and his third novel, The Dark Room, reveals definite signs of technical maturity. Narayan uses both fantasy and realism in his works. As Uma Parameswaran points out ‘Narayan uses both fantasy and realism in eight of his ten novels, they are to properly balance. The first half has excellent realism – drawn setting, characterization and action. About halfway through, there is a distinct break and fantasy takes over'. Generally, his plots split into two parts – the realistic and the fantastic – ‘the realistic vein being carried alongside the fantastic and then dropped altogether’. The plots of his novel are loose and episodic. Swami is not a vagabond. He is a simple character with all the innocence in him. There is a string of episodes and incidents, and the only unity is the fact that they all cluster round Swami, the chief protagonist. As in a picaresque novel, characters appear and disappear never to be met with again, and new characters are introduced quite late and most of the characters contain there, shadowy figures. There are a number of incidents, and their order can easily be changed as in most cases the logical unity of cause and effect is lacking. 8 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

However, none of them is superfluous, for each serve to illuminate someone fact or other of Swami's character and to establish ‘the boy's world' which is looked at from the boy's point of view. In all his novels except The English Teacher, The Guide and The Man-Eater of Malgudi, Narayan is the omniscient narrating in the third person and thus following the traditional and conventional mode of narration. In The Guide alone, Narayan deviates from the traditional mode of narration, wherein part of the story is told by the author and part in the first person by the hero himself. The novel begins with the release of Raju from prison. What happens to Raju after his release is told by the narrator whereas whatever had happened to Raju before he was imprisoned, is told in series of flashbacks in Raju's own words and finally in the form of a confession to Velan who has come to think of him as a saint. The effect of this technique is to think of him as a saint and to make the figure of the hero more sharp and real than that the other characters. R.K. Narayan is a straightforward descriptive artist. His narrations are very much impressive as well as interesting. Narayan has a peculiar way of narration wherein the keen situations described by him, lingers in the memory of the readers. He describes his characters with sympathy. His descriptions are full of interest because they abound in realism and fantasy. He does not fail to depict human life with all its flaws and frivolities, therefore, an element of bizarre is also present in his novels. Narayan is one of the most celebrated Indian English writers. His style is simple, gentle andhumorous. Narayan is remarkable not only for his outstanding and grand qualities of humour, descriptive beauty and characterization but also for his simple and easy language and unaffected and elegant prose style. He has used the language of the common man in his novels. His sentence patterns are conventional and easy to grasp without having any ambiguity. He uses appropriate and suitable words conveying the desired sense in a most straightforward manner. Unlike other Indo- English writers like Mulk Raj Anand, he keeps his language free from Hindustani words and phrases. He is not in the habit of using these words and phrases in his narrative and dialogues. His sentences are simple and natural, they are never complicated in structure or ambiguous or obscure in meaning. Narayan has attained the reputation of being one of the greatest descriptive artists among Indo-Anglian prose writers because of the qualities of simplicity, purity and elegance in his writing style. In his narratives and dialogues, he is always straightforward, free from affectation and obscurity. His style is never pompous, dull and ornate. It is free from repetition and is marked by precision, exactness and clarity. Just as he is conservative in his thinking, also he is conservative and traditional in his style. His expression is free from artificiality and picturesqueness. It is always transparent, easy and full of elegance. The rare qualities of clarity, exactness, lucidity, fluency mark his prose style. R. K. Narayan insists on keeping his language free from ornamentation, sometimes he uses similes, to make the speech effective. William Walsh writes, ‘Narayan uses a pure and limpid English, easy and natural in its run and tone. But always an evolved and conscious medium, without the exciting, physical energy – sometimes adventitiously injected – that marks the 9 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

writing of the West Indians’. Narayan's language is beautifully adapted to communicate a different, Indian sensibility'. He is away from the naturalistic mode of expression and photographic representation of reality. He creates fantasies and uses his language to depict his understanding of the fundamentals of life. An example for this goes like this ‘The sun was setting;its tint touched the wall with pink. The tops of the coconut tree around were aflame. The bird’s cries went up in a crescendo before dying down for the night. Darkness fell. Still, there was no sign of Velan or anyone.’ He uses a language fit for his characters. Many of his heroes and heroines are common men and women whom we find around us. He uses a language appropriate to their standard and does not use long or terms of abuse. His language is free from the mannerism. His language doesn’t differfrom character to character. It is almost uniform. It, however, differs when a character speaks in emotion or sentiment. On meeting Rosie for the first time, Raju started feeling excited and spoke a few sentences to Velan in appreciation of beauty romantically, but immediately Raju said, ‘forgive me waxing poetic’. Another example: - ‘The River dripping away in minute driblets made no noise. The dry leaves of the Peepal tree rustled. Somewhere a jackal howled. And Raju’s voice filled the night.’ This shows how Narayan's language hasausterity. It pretends no sophistication; it does not have any literary qualities. It has the tendency to catch and state poeticism. Yet has beauty too. It lacks intensity; it is incapable of participating in the subtler function of imaginative life. Narayan's journalistic touch can be seen in the passage such as ‘in spite of rote stations to the contrary’, ‘to will whom it may concern’, ‘inside the bars of outside’. She was a sorry sight in every way’, ‘Now I had made a mess’, ‘go from strength to strength’, ‘It does not matter’. Narayan also uses hyperbole’s, like, here he was in the presence of experience. This man will finish me. ‘Oh, monster what do you do her that makes her sulk like this on rising? What a treasure you have in your hand without realizing its worth like a monkey picking up a rose garland’. Narayan’s neologisms are also suitable and suggestive. ‘Freeze-gazing’, ‘goldmine’ (for Rosie), ‘dance practice’, ‘art business’ are the examples of Indian English. His language is like a one-stringed instrument. Sometimes Narayan applies Tamilian idiom into English which, he does with a natural manner. Narayan has been using the stylistic device from the very beginning of his career as a novelist. Through this device, he creates not only the atmosphere but characters also. Narayan describes the most absurd and even the most serious events in the same vein. In order to impart naturalness and simplicity, the author uses popular Tamil words liberally in his novels. The words like ‘Asura, Barian, Dhoti, Lungis, Karma, Moha, Krodha, Lobha, Puja occur in his novels often. Narayan’s language is the language of the ordinary people. It is the language of Malgudi people. His language gives us an idea of a small South Indian Community with their setting, their manner, conventions and thoughts. Though hislanguage is simple, Narayan's style is rich and suggestive. He mix’s imagination and his skill so perfectly while describing the day of the match in Swami and Friends. The parting scene of Rajan has been described with pathos and poetic style. The scene is full of emotions and intensity. In The Bachelor of Arts, Chandran’s affair has been described in such a way that we can see his narrative art. In The English 10 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Teacher, his style is picturesque and lyrical when he describes Krishna's passion for his wife. The story of the marital life of Krishna and Susila is like a prose lyric. In The Guide, we witness the blending of several artistic devices in a very differentmanner, the language is mild in metaphor and simple in syntax. Through easy action, he expresses his feeling towards his characters. Narayan's characterization is realistic and lifelike. He is satisfied with his ivory inch'. And like Jane Austen portrays only a limited type of people. That is to say that he portrays only those characters who are known to him. His character is full of life and vitality. They are thoroughly human in their likes and dislikes. Krishnan the philosophic minded, lectures in English with all his idealism that stands insharp contrast with the worldly-minded Ramani, who founded his happiness in a mistress. Mr. Sampath, the happy-go-lucky opportunist serves a contrast to Raju in The Guide, Savitri, the proud but staunch Hindu wife is quite different from modern independent-minded Rosie. Narayan’s heroes are drawn on a heroic scale. His heroes are the unheroic heroes. They do not control the events, but the events control them. In the case of Narayan’s heroes character is destiny as well as destiny in character. Many of his heroes are compelled by the force of circumstances to level their homes. Raju goes from town to town, and after a brief span of time in jail settles down on the banks of the Sarayu near Argayya Village. Mr. Sampath, the cunning shark is impelled by luck and levels Malgudi forever. Narayan portrays his characters realistically. He also gives details of their traits, manners, habits and dress. He also gives their background. Narayan always grasps the psychological essential which gives his characters their reality. Mr. Sampath is one such character who may not be as full of life, but we understand him. We know his psychological make-up and we know just how he will behave and why. This psychological grip enables Narayan to draw complex character better. A character like Raju or Sampath is full of complexities. He is not only a sinner, but also a saint. If he can cheat, he has his moments of generosity too. Mr. Sampath is an unscrupulous and cunning rogue, who is the victim of high ambition and over-confidence without adequate corresponding abilities. Another such character is Srinivas, an idealist, who lives with his wife and children. Structurally the role of Srinivas is very important. It is he who integrates the plot. All the characters in the novel are known to us in the preparation to their relationship with him. His repeated reading of Upanishad's makes him indifferent to his family life. He holds a philosophical attitude to the life and the world. He is fixed about his duties and responsibilities. Living absorbed in the work of The Banner, he forgets to remember his wife and children. Through his characters he wants to convince his readers that ‘family duties come before any other duty. In Narayan's novels, we don't have pure villains and pure saints. We can find an array of good and bad in his major characters. Mr.Sampath and Margayya and Raju and Rosie all have their weaknesses as well as virtues. In fact, they are more sinned against than sinning. This is another proof of his realistic characterization, for in life we have neither purely good nor 11 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

entirely bad people. His minor characters play an important role in the novel. For example, without Velan of Mangala village, it could have been impossible to develop the action of the novel in an existing manner. Narayan brings out some merits of a joint family. Soon after coming out of a joint-family, Srinivas found domestic duties an extra-burden. Since there is a division of labour in the joint family system, no particular person can feel more burden. Casteism is one of the worst evils of society. Sriram detected the feeling of casteism and untouchability because it divides human beings into compartments. He, therefore, bursts into anger when his wife hesitates to take food-stuff brought from a nearby hotel for the fear of pollution of touch by a lower caste: ‘What foolish nonsense is this?’ Srinivas cried. He stood looking at her for a moment as if she were an embodiment of knotty problems. He knew what it was rigorous upbringing, fear of pollution of touch by another caste, orthodox idiocies – all the rigorous compartments of human beings. Narayan's novels are supreme instances of the psychological quest. His minute psychological observation reminds us of the great psychologist like Aller and Freus. Through his novels he displays the typical mentality of an Indian house-wife. Srinivas's wife is an ideal housewife. She prepares nice foodstuffs with all care and expects admiration, like every house-wife's, from her husband. Keeping in mind her husband's taste, she prepares ‘leaf’, ‘potato chips’, ‘cucumber soaked in curd’ etc., with full interest. She serves it to her husband and wants appreciation. But when her husband eats silently, she is hurt: ‘He ate his dinner silently ruminating over it’. His wife stooped over his leaf to serve him. She had fried potato chips in ghee for him and some cucumber soaked in curd; she had spent the day in the excitement of preparing these and was so disappointed to see him take so little notice of them’ This picture presents the common Indian family life that we see around us. We can say that Narayan’s purpose is to entertain, to amuse his readers by telling them an interesting story, which does not necessitate any great effort on their part. He does not preach or moralize. Though there is an analysis of human feelings, emotions and motives, there is no probing into the subconscious and the unconscious as is the case with the modern novelist. To conclude, Narayan’s place among the Indian novelists is supreme. There is, no doubt, a novelist of common people and common situations. R.K. Narayan, an Indian of the purest Brahmin stock who spent his life in the city of Mysore in South India composing fiction in English can be read as the chronicle and the embodiment of the state and the history of the English language. New movements in literature are new uses of language, and this is true of R. K. Narayan in the last century. The new mind requires the new voice, and the new voice is discovered by the writer's genius for intimately registering the idiom of his own world. It is this new voice in English literature which I recognize in the work achieved in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If Anand is the novelist as a reformer, Raja Rao the novelist as a metaphysical poet. Narayan is simply the novelist as novelist. R. K. Narayan, now no more, has produced a sizable body of work – more than a dozen novels and several collections of short stories – which makes him one of 12 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

the most prominent novelists in the British Common Wealth. Over a period of forty years of composition he had built up a devoted readership throughout the world from New York to Moscow. The location of his novels is the South Indian town of Malgudi, an imaginative version of Narayan's beloved Mysore, which is as familiar to his readers as their own suburbs, and infinitely more engaging. His writing is a distinctive blend of Western techniques and Eastern material, and he has succeeded in a remarkable way in making an Indian sensibility at home in English art. R. K. Narayan was born in 1907 to a Brahmin family, his family, like that of most Indians, settled ultimately from a village, Rasipuram. 1.3ANALYSIS OF ‘THE DARK ROOM’ Indo-Anglican literature, which forms almost an integral part of English literature, has now attained a distinct place in the literary landscape of India. Indian writing in English fiction has been acclaimed around the world for its innovative and radical new approaches to storytelling. The multitude of such writing explores India in its various aspects. Apart from the continued literary output by older generation of Indian English writers, we also have newer generation that explores the contemporary angst, alienation and existentialism felt by the „middle-class liberal humanist‟. R. K. Narayan was born on October 10, 1906, in Madras. He began his writing career with Swami and Friends in 1935. Most of his works including Swami and Friends is set in the fictional town of Malgudi, which captures everything Indian while having a unique identity of its own. His writing style was marked by simplicity and subtle humour. He told stories of ordinary people trying to live their simple lives in a changing world The Dark Room (1938), the novel presents the struggle of a sensitive woman Savitri struggling to come into terms with her predicament as the wife of an adulterous husband after having married for fifteen years. Savitri has received nothing from her husband Ramani except rebukes and abuses. He treats the children similarly. She then revolts and leaves the house in despair to commit suicide. She is saved, decides to live an independent life but realizes the futility of her attempt to escape from her bonds with the temporal world and returns home. My study is about the existential maturity shown by R.K. Narayan‟s characters at the time of crisis on his famous fiction The Dark Room, My aim is to focus on how she overcome them and how she decide to lead a fulfilling life. It also explores the psyche depth of his characters. Existentialism and Freedom of Choice Existentialism analysis the existence of the human beings and impel light on the way they find themselves existing in the world. Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century philosopher is regarded as The Father of existentialism. He maintained that the individual has the sole responsibility for giving one’s own life meaning and with living life passionately and sincerely despite many obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, choice, boredom and death. Due to the Great Depression of 1930 and World War II, people all over the world were affected and a deep sense of despair prevailed in the society. It was then the 13 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

existentialistic ideas came out in the society. The spirit of optimism in the society was totally destroyed by the World War I and its mid-century calamities. This despair has been articulated well not only in the 20thcentury but also in the 21st century. Existentialism is a philosophy of reaffirming and regaining the lost status of man in the advanced scientific and technological society. In this modern society, the creator of science himself becomes a victim of his own creation and feels like a mere cog in a highly mechanized system. Various existentialists differ on the fundamental problems but agree on perceiving certain objective realities like the crisis in human values, the significance of human anxiety, deprivation of human freedom and importance of human emotions. No emotional problem is more threatening than the existential problem. Søren Kierkegaardclaimed, ‘life for the individual is a risk-filled existence’, and it is on this basis that Existentialism is founded. David Cooper in his book „Existentialism’; elaborately explains that this philosophy offers a positive way through the themes of anxiety, alienation, uncertainty, possibilities and crisis. Therefore, there is a growing interest in Existentialism recently. ‘Feelings of anxiety or angst can be manifested when one gets alienated.’ The individuals are uncertain as to how the new world is going to emerge as these themes dismantle one’s world and leaves it in an unfinished state. A central focus is upon the individual rather than on the masses. Existential writings are aimed to engage each reader as an entity. Kierkegaard often referred to 'my dear reader' and the 'existing individual' and Nietzsche often used phrases such as 'the sovereign individual' and 'the superman'. Heidegger referred to Dasein, meaning literally 'being there' – to represent where the individual is at, with regards to her or his concerns for existence in relation to being. One must note that no doctrine is more optimistic than existentialism. The destiny of man is placed within himself. Initially existentialism did appear to be a morbid philosophy because it deals with depressing themes such as alienation, anxiety, death and crisis. However, the purposes of so many of the philosophers who have contributed to this school of thought have had a vision that is to allow people to experience a greater richness and happiness in their lives and to feel at 'home' in their world. In order to achieve a richer and more valuable existence however, the philosophy often refers to some 'uncomfortable' suggestions. For example, the individual is encouraged to stand at the edge of the abyss, to introspect oneself and to contemplate the terror of freedom and then to make a leap. At the point of departure there cannot be any other truth than this, ‘I think, therefore, I exist.’ which is the absolute truth of consciousness. The inevitabilities of human condition may give a bleak picture, but existentialism has optimism and hope because of the potential the human condition has, and all people have to transcend those inevitabilities. An inherent aspect to this concept of freedom of choice is responsibility. The existential perspective developed here considers that the individual who exercises personal freedom of choice must also be willing to accept responsibility for these decisions. But the individuals find it difficult to accept that they always have possibilities and are free to choose between them. They may not have the choice to affect the 'objective reality' of certain entities, but they do have possibilities in how they relate to their relations with other entities. This means that individuals are responsible 14 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

for their subjective/inward existence, which can be a daunting challenge. Existential psychology is about human existence and the human drama of survival. It helps in overcoming or confronting existential anxieties and living an authentic life. Existentialist psychologists avoid treating a person as if they were isolated from events and situations in the world. The features of choice, responsibility, and freedom in human lives are of particular importance in existential psychology. For both good and bad, people are expected to seize their freedom and take responsibility for the choices they make in their lives. Choice is one of the most fundamental concerns in existentialism. We may not choose to be born but once born, we are responsible for the lives we lead. We create the structure of the world around us and realize our self-based on our choices and decisions, even though there are factors that aren’t entirely within our control. The concept of Self-realization or inner self has become widely popular in the Western world, greatly influenced by some Eastern religions. In the Hindu religion, self-realization refers to profound spiritual awakening. The branch of Advaita Vedanta is the one that has especially developed this concept. Analysis: Existential Maturity Shown by Savitri The Dark Room presents the marital unhappiness and domestic disharmony. Narayan sets down a fragment of life as he actually sees. Though the storyline is thin, underlying theme is profoundly realistic and presents the struggle of a sensitive woman to come to terms with her predicament. The crisis in the novel is adultery. The heroine is left trapped in an existential predicament of unrequited moral struggle close to life in death: ‘A part of me is dead.’ The Dark Room and Savitri are deliberately named so by Narayan. The Dark room for the dark room in the house is a room used to store junk of the house. The protagonist Savitri identifies herself with the junk, which has outlived its utility. The room is dark, and she feels that there is no light waiting at the end of the tunnel. Her self - worth is wounded. According to S. C. Harrex, the dark room here symbolizes as: ‘the emotional and domestic claustrophia which can result from a circumscribed marital orthodoxy.’ The Dark Room portrays the protagonist alienated from herself, from the society and from the world and is in quest for marital identity. Savitri also goes through the crisis of discontent to the quest for happiness. Savitri of the ancient legend is a paragon of virtue and courage who confronts even Death to save her husband is finally victorious. Ironically unlike the legendary Savitri, Narayan’s Savitri chooses to leave home, husband and children once she comes to know of her husband’s infidelity. There is a touch of irony at the start of the novel when her husband tells Savitri: ‘What a dutiful wife! Would rather starve than precede her husband. You are some of the women in our ancient books.’ Contrary to the legend, Savitri is just an ordinary, amiable, housewife. Our first impression is that of a traditional, docile and submissive Indian wife. The wives, mothers, grandmothers all illustrate the passive feminine characters in Narayan’s novels. They are not even named. They are merely slotted. The Dark Room is the only novel of Narayan which is woman- centric until A Grandmother’s tale (1993), his last book which was a novella. After the first two novels ending with a positive note, the narrative technique 15 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

with a dramatic element is incorporated with themes of dissonance and despair in marital relationship between the protagonist Ramani and Savitri. The heroine of the novel is Savitri. There are two critical phases in the novel. The second phase has greater intensity as it throws light on the disintegration of the family whose familial ties were amiable in the first phase. In the first phase, Ramani showers all the love and affection and takes Savitr into the cinema. He sits in the first-class seat with his wife by his side. He is proud of her and has a satisfaction of possessing her. He decides to take her separately and take the children the next day. He is very possessive and constantly enquires if her chair is comfortable. ‘It’s a Tamil film. I thought you would like it.’ He also wants her to see the film care free without bothering about children. When Ramani claims the children as his own, she breaks down: ‘Yes, you are right. They are yours, absolutely. You paid the midwife and the nurse. You pay for their clothes and teachers. You are right. Didn’t I say a woman owns nothing?’ She is totally heartbroken and in Harish Raizada’s words: ‘She feels that she has been denied the dignity of living a human being and has to depend on her father, husband and children.’ Realisation of her helplessness hits Savitri: ‘I don’t possess anything in this world. What possession can a woman call her own except her body? Everything else that she has is her father’s, her husband’s or her son’s.’ Ramani’s words pierce her heart when he says: ‘They will get on splendidly without you, don’t worry. No one is indispensable in this world!!’ Ramani has been very domineering and cynical in his ways and is very authoritative. He is also very strict with his children. He has complete control over his family and this behaviour is enough for Savitri to go through the mental agony. Now, to add to it he also has an affair with his office secretary, Shantabai, a new employee in his office who has deserted her husband and has joined as an insurance canvasser. Savitri confronts him and forewarns him of the consequences. Realizing that all her life she has been treated as a stooge first by her father before marriage and secondly by her husband, she grows in to a rebel against the traditionally defined position of women in Indian society. A meek Savitri turns against the mythical implications of her name, protesting that she is a human being and that in general men never agree to it. For them women are playthings. When they feel like hugging, they hug otherwise are slaves to them. She also retorts that men should not think that they can fondle women whenever they wish and kick them whenever they choose. ‘He does not bother and refuses to change his ways. She rebels and shouts at him saying that he should not touch her, He is impure and even if she burns her skin, she will not be able to cleanse herself of impurity of his touch.’ The scene vividly depicts the agonized and tormented wife’s rage and sentiments. Savitri is shattered with the repeated reprimands, rebuke, and now infidelity from her husband of fifteen years, leaves the house to commit suicide. She decides to go empty- handed leaving all her ornaments. She also leaves behind the ornaments given by her father too because she 16 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

feels that all men are alike and doesn’t want to depend upon any men. Her existential agony is unbearable, and she rightly retorts: ‘What is the difference between a prostitute and married women? -the prostitute changes her men, but a married woman doesn’t; that are all, both earn their food and shelter in the same manner.’ Her interior monologue reveals her mental anguish, and she feels pity for the women who have no support. Savitri is on her way to commit suicide in the Sarayu River. Narayan reveals her state of mind where she herself is amazed at her rebellion. ‘She feels that she has changed. She imagines whether she is the old Savitri or someone else. This must be a dream and she does not have the courage to talk back to her husband and she has never done it in her life’. She can never think of indulging in any controversies with her husband. Thus, after her decision of leaving home, she is caught in a conflict between a wifely devotion and her new individual existence. It is my dispute that Narayan is being accurate in portraying his women as inclined by traditions and customs and other values sustained by the society. We can see that women even today believe in conforming to pacts at least most of them do. By presenting both the kinds of women the conventional and non-conformist side by side in this novel, R. K. Narayan is being true to life. It would seem too artificial and contrived if we had only one ideal type of woman because this is not the case in the society. Shantabai has questioned the traditions and conventions of the society. She defies them in leaving her husband and ending her marriage. The need to be free from bonds of matrimony and commitment is great, but in her attempt to be free, she drifts anchorless for want of an ideal alternative to traditional values. In modern woman’s quest for self-fulfilment, apart from facing personal and social conflicts, she also has to undergo the painful experience of severing the family bonds and re-establishing herself. Shantabai is the proverbial butterfly, the type of woman who imitates her western counterpart. She is an educative, manipulative seductress who knows how to use woman’s charm to win the man. She is cunning and makes the right move to trap her prey. He visits her home for the first time; her style of talking is conspicuous of her intention of enticing him. She narrated her sob story and at the end of every ten minutes of her narration she would say: ‘As for me life is... something or other, some simple affair like Living Today and Letting Tomorrow Take Care of Itself or Honour being the One Important Possession and so forth.’ She defies the traditional status of the woman in Indian society. She abandons her gambler and drunkard husband and her family. But her independence proves detrimental to Savitri’s familial peace. In Shantabai we find all the characteristics of a „coquette‟ in Indo English literature. Narayan skilfully portrays her every action and in his ironic subtle fashion puts across the artificiality behind it. She shows how she compresses her lips, tosses her head in perfect Garbo manner: the temperamental heroine and the impending doom. 17 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Narayan shows that how she poses as an intellectual and explains her own philosophy of life: ‘Tonight, I feel like pacing the whole earth up and down. I won’t sleep. I won’t sleep. I feel like roaming all over the town and the whole length of the river. I will laugh and dance. That’s the philosophy of my life.’ R.K.Narayan has created Shantabai not just to reveal or portray the other type of woman but also to point out indirectly the hypocrisy implicit in middle-class value systems. Shantabai represents the pseudo-emancipated woman who in her outward manner seems to know exactly what she wants and how she gets it. Ramani is hopelessly spellbound by her. Her theatrical display of hysterics moves him deeply and he contrasts it with his wife’s crude sulking in the dark room. Shantabai indirectly brings certain hypocrisies of the male psyche to the fore. Narayan gives the women a chance to break away from the fold and assert their strength. But then again it cannot be said that making them return is a contrived act. When the women break away from the fold as Savitri does or when they undergo suffering, they become aware of their inner selves and of the predicament of women in general. The experience of self-realization is a transforming experience. Her existential crisis is vividly portrayed in the following lines: ’One definite thing in life is fear. Fear from the cradle to the funeral pyre and even beyond that, fear of torture in the other world. She is also afraid of her husband’s displeasures and of the discomforts.’ Gangu is an educated woman and Savitri’s friend, who stays in the neighbourhood. She aspires to be a professional singer. Her husband is a teacher. She is a Malgudi delegate to the All-India Women’s Conference and a politician. She has full support of her husband who believes in women’s freedom. Her husband is very broadminded, and she manages to keep a balance between tradition and independence. She too has her daily squabbles and has thrown everything at home. She comes to meet Savitri and confesses her mood swings that day. She tells her husband: ‘Don’t expect any tiffin this evening when you come back from school. I would advise you to fill your stomach in a hotel.’ She tells Savitri that he has to get a packet for her and the children otherwise he will be driven back out to get them. Gangu is the new woman, whom Narayan throws light on being at par with her man. Gangu is the one to convey to Savitri about her husband’s scandalous affair. She had seen Shantabai with Ramani in the theatre watching the film. She indirectly instigates her to assert herself, question her husband about the affair. Narayan throws light on the woman Ponni of the Sukkur village whose husband Mari saves Savitri when she attempts to commit suicide. Mari was a burglar at night and a blacksmith during the day. He cared for his wife although he chased her about and threw things at her whenever he was drunk. Ponni has been a dominating woman and Mari does fear her. Ponni 18 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

is a childless middle-aged woman, who is vulnerable but is a woman who has complete freedom and dominance over her husband Mari. After listening to Savitri’s predicament, Ponni advises the vanquished Savitri how to manage and treat a man. She says: ‘Sister, remember this. Keep the men under the rod and they will be all right. Show them that you care for them, and they will tie you up and treat you like a dog.’ Perhaps what Narayan wants to emphasize in his indirect subtle way is that self-realization is the first step towards self-actualization. In fact, to emphasize that all women characters in his novels conform to conventions and traditions, does not mean that they are passive and meek. They are inherently passive because they are conditioned to be passive and in embracing the traditional values and upholding them, they prove not only wiser but also stronger. The women emerge after the turmoil stronger in spirit and go about their lives with greater knowledge and strength. While Narayan makes them come back and accept the dictate of the society, the women are no longer the same, docile weak persons that they were at the start. His novels reflect on his narration. He is detached observer and leaves the interpretation to the reader. In India men make fun of a woman if she speaks of freedom. Men may appear to think that when woman becomes aware of her capabilities, she stops being a woman! Herein lies their faulty thinking. The word „freedom‟ is misconceived, misunderstood.Freedom from whom?Freedom from what? In fact, the Indian woman has chained to her own misconceived ideas, there are number of shackles around her. But the fact is today these shackles are rusted but she is not aware of the rust. She has to awaken from her slumber. She has to see the things in their true perspective and colours. She has to recognize her own SELF. That can happen only when she discards her fear out of her mind. But in reality, is it easy for an Indian woman to cast fear of society and its dictates, to lead independent individual life? Freedom is certainly the concept when one is reminded about the women’s lib. R. K. Narayan has admitted being obsessed with the philosophy of woman as opposed to man, her constant oppressor. This must have been an early testament of the Women’s Liberation movement. The following lines in the book are a standing testimony to his farsightedness and existential vision: I was somehow obsessed with a philosophy of woman as opposed to man, her constant oppressor. This must have been an early testament of the„ Women’s Lib movement. Man assigned her secondary place and kept her there with such subtlety and cunning that she herself began to lose all notion of her independence, individuality, stature and strength. A wife in an orthodox milieu of the Indian society was an ideal victim of such circumstances. My novel dealt with her, with this philosophy broadly in the background. 19 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

R. K. Narayan being a traditionalist lauds the resilience of women who faces all kinds of pressures from different quarters and yet emerges quietly triumphant and all wiser for it. Today, spans after this novel is written women are said to share an equal status in society. Yet we hear about murders and suicides caused by inadequate dowries or infidelity. The values are gradually degenerating. As Shyam Asnani says: ‘Our Ramani’s can still lay down one law for themselves regarding sexual indulgences and another for their wives and sisters......’ Psychological deliberations underline an acute awareness of general human concerns that transcend the novels‟ rootedness in India. R. K. Narayan has employed the streams of consciousness technique in the context of Indian consciousness and not the consciousness of Camus or Kafka’s protagonist. He documents the critical moments of the protagonist’s life when she is faced with a psychic crisis in to self-revealing internal monologues: A dutiful wife, she has not to be obedient and loyal: ‘There is no quarrel. I have not uttered a word’.......That makes it worse. You should either let your words out or feel that everything your husband or argued with him at any time in my life. I might have occasionally suggested an alternative but nothing more, what he does is right. It is a wife’s duty to feel so. Bullying husbands like Ramani and patient wives like Savitri was the scene in numerous households of those times. It is still prevailing in a male dominated society of the 21st century and is the hapless plight of many Indian housewives. P. S. Sundaram maintains: ‘The bully who will bring guests in to the house without notice and expect them to be fed is hardly thought of as a bully by anyone. It is the India tradition to honour the guest as God, to share whatever one has with the stranger.’ The stream of beliefs of Savitri is not incessant. The impartial declaration soften intercept them. Interior monologue and soliloquy is a sensitive representation of Savitri’s oppressed female psyche. He executes the stream of consciousness technique to project the psychic reverberations of her character in order to lend the authenticity to the narration. The Hindu mind still prevails. The Hindu philosophy, the classical theory of Karma implies a pragmatic approach to life’s problems. It is held that an effective experience is painful or pleasurable because karmic traces are produced by our actions and so deserved. Every man has to live out his own Karma. The reality of the writers‟ predicament is the reality of a universal predicament. The quest for an individual identity in the psychological realism is being authentic to one’s evolving self. Thus, R. K. Narayan cannot be tallied as a feminist, and he never claims to be one, but he really considers women’s issues consciously from the very beginning. The women in R. K. Narayan’s work are reflective of the women he saw in life around him. He does promote the status of women but does not show that westernization to be the only way out. The fiction of Narayan can be regarded as epics capturing modern India’s plight. His fictional town Malgudi serves as the periscope for observing the living state of women, the challenges and 20 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

problems they face in reality. Hence, it is rightly stated by Simone de Beauvoir, a French author, philosopher that: ‘One is not born a woman but becomes one.’ Narayan thus progressively creates a healthier position for women within India’s own traditions. His women characters grow stronger and show the advent of New Woman who will uphold the traditional values and also be self-reliant. Savitri is fully aware of the dignity a woman possesses and she knows that by succumbing to the status quo which includes Ramani’s petty tyrannies and flirtation, she has proved be her own enemy like Janamma. What she needs is courage recalls Virginia Woolf: ‘Courage in the manner of Moll Flanders, the power to stand her ground. ‘ After such unpleasant involvements, a new awareness stifles in her. She has to make a choice and lead a meaningful life. When Mari passes by her window, her natural urge is to rush out, hail him and reward him for having helped her. But she feels its futile and is helpless: ‘What am I? A part of me is dead.... Why should I call him? What have I?’ Though such questions worry her, she is not the meek and timid Savitri anymore. Her new awareness would enable her to see that her daughters at least do not fall in the same trap when they grow. Nazar Singh Sidhu asserts: ‘The dark room in the ultimate analysis becomes a point of irony –the more Savitri suffers behind its dark, the more she achieves her authentic self. ‘ In this milieu alienation is the very essence of existence and the most glorious recovery of being. She overcomes all the existential storms through patience and fortitude and the belongingness towards Malgudi. This simple novel brings out Narayan’s concern for the „Savitris‟ of our country. Savitri is an agent for Narayan’s quest for psychological insight and awareness of the plight of unfortunate woman who has neither the strength of will nor the economic and educational opportunities to withstand unfair male aggression. Narayan‟s view matches with Dr. Paul Wong‟s duality hypothesis. It states that positives cannot exist apart from negatives and that authentic happiness grows from pain and suffering. This hypothesis reflects Albert Camus insights: There is no joy without despair. Narayan is quite conscious of the complexity of the experience. Uma Parmeswaran, a critic states: ‘Though Narayan’s vision is positive his „affirmation is not a thunderous one, it is found only if one looks for it.’ This justification cannot be accepted. When claim of affirmation is doubted the question whether it is so bold or not is not significant. The most interesting feature of the novel is Narayan’s conscientious effort to present the entire narrative from the perspective of Savitri. Hence, the world of The Dark Room is the world as Savitri perceives it, and not Ramani. The novel begins on a mundane note with a detailed account of an Indian middle-class family. Ramani is the ruling deity here, while his spouse and three children are enforced worshippers. And this happens because of Ramani’s unpredictable whims. Whether it be his food or his office wear, Ramani’s wrath never seems to be appeased. The children are afraid to talk loudly when their father is at home, heaving a 21 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

sigh of relief the moment he steps out of the house. So is the case with his wife Savitri. On a superficial level, the storyline of the novel The Dark Room appears to be rather bleak. At the beginning, Ramani is a happily married man whose fidelity is beyond question. But with the arrival of Shanta Bai, Ramani is a changed man. Likewise, Savitri, the unquestioning, submissive female presence of Ramani’s household, transgresses her boundaries of a model wife and dares questioning the validity of conjugal fidelity of her husband. Pompous and proud of his acquired position in the company Engladia Insrance, Ramani is of little use both to his wife and children. His presence is the cause of awe to the household and only with his departure to office every day, do the other inmates find time to relax and breathe freely. To worsen matters, Ramani is infatuated by Shanta Bai who joins his company as the first female probationer. Savitri feigns ignorance initially, but finally when Ramani fails to turn up one night, she decides to strike back. Savitri is representative of all women in a traditional family in the Indian context. O.P.Saxena remarks, ‘Savitri is the typical Indian housewife. She lives according to the traditional precept of feminine and wifely submission and sacrifice’. In Indian society, it is an established rule and practice sanctified for ages that a woman in a conservative family is born only to stand and serve the man, bear, beget and bring up his children. She is enjoined to be subordinate and submissive to the other sex. She is believed to be intellectually inferior to man and expected to carry out his commands without any kind of protest and argument. She cannot express any opinion of hers. If this ‘unequal equation’ is disturbed even slightly by the woman, she will have to face disastrous consequences, even eviction and expulsion from home sometimes. Savitri, the wife of the hero Ramani, exemplifies this predicament experienced, not expressed, by most women destined to live in a conservative social milieu. ‘Through her Narayan pictures the predicament of a woman belonging to traditional Hindu society who is always pushed to inferior position than that of her counterpart who enjoys superior status in every respect’ Susan Ram and N.Ram are much impressed by The Dark Room’s ‘relentless expose of the position of women in traditional Indian Society’. Savitri plays different roles simultaneously. She is the kind-hearted, sympathetic, considerate and obliging mother. As the mistress of the house, she has greater control over her servants, regulates and supervises the house-hold matters ably. But her role as a wife is nerve-wracking and precarious though she is quite obedient, dutiful, tolerant, accommodative and submissive. Being astonishingly familiar with her husband’s moods and temperament of varying degrees and intensity-she instinctively knows from the hooting of the horn whether he is angry or happy or normal-she adjusts her responses accordingly. She is the representative of the typically traditional Indian woman-docile, submissive and sacrificing like her epic prototypes, Sita, Savitri and Shakuntala. To quote Margaret Berry: Certain general patterns of Lila are clearly discernible in the novels as, for example, the cycle of creation-dissolution-rebirth…. Savitri of The Dark Room lives in a world of order if not happiness; in jealous rage, she runs from it, becomes temple sweeper, is converted psychologically reborn, and with new understanding goes back to her role-playing as wife of Ramani.2 Her husband Ramani, on the other hand, is overbearing, aggressive, unsympathetic, 22 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

continuously abusive and relentless in denouncing or condemning Savitri even for an inconsequential lapse. Mrs.VeenaV.Mohod comments, ‘Her husband is the perfect embodiment of male dominated chauvinism He thoroughly disapproves of his wife’s manner of dealing with the children with a bit of indulgence. He is unusually or usually and uncompromisingly rigid and strict in his treatment of his children as well as his servants. In other words, he is a virtual dictator, a Hitler at home, terrorizing every living soul with a free distribution of severe reprimands, reproaches, rude words and punches when needed. In spite of her best efforts, Savitri finds it extremely difficult to please her husband except, of course, when he is in his romantic mood. She feels exasperated when her husband, unmindful of her pleadings, forces their son Babu to go to school though he is really ill. Ramani’s imperious, impervious, masterful, highly un-accommodative conduct hurts her ego. His tendency to overrule any objections or views, she now realizes, is a deliberate insult which she cannot endure any longer. She resents his arrogance. She feels sorry for having permitted him to exercise his power as a husband in an arbitrary manner. She reflects, She had the slightest power to do anything at home and that after fifteen years of married life. She ought to have asserted herself a little more at the beginning of her married life and then all would have been well. (DR 5). Her idea of asserting herself is no doubt a belated one but it is certainly a suggestive hint of a significant change in her relationship with her husband. When Ramani thrashes Babu mercilessly, rudely and contemptuously brushing aside her intervention, he is quite unaware then that he is a triggering a change in her and rousing unknowingly a sense of revolt in Savitri. Cut up by his unkind act, she finds no other way except to take refuge in the dark room of her house. One may find that Narayan uses ingeniously the motif of darkness which recurs’ throughout the novel. In fact, most of the scenes are structured to take place in the dark or at night. ‘Despite Savitri’s ultimate defeat to assert her individual identity in an orthodox milieu of Indian society’, avers Shyam M. Asnani, ‘her ambition is symptomatic of an early testament of the ‘women’s lib’ movement’. 3 From times immemorial, man has assigned women a secondary place and kept her there with such subtlety and cunning that she herself began to lose all notion of her independence, her individuality, her status and strength. To quote Narayan: A wife in an orthodox milieu of Indian society was an ideal victim of such circumstances. My novel deals with her with this philosophy broadly in the background.4 The dark room of the house reveals and defines the character of the heroine in a new light. Darkness is generally held to be symbolic of intellectual ignorance and enlightenment. But Narayan uses it creatively, investing it with meanings totally different from its commonly held symbolic implications. As a symbol, it works back and forth throughout his fiction, through description of places, incidents and characters, providing it structural unity, besides setting an appropriate background and atmosphere for the story to unfold itself. The symbolic variations of the dark rooms are quite striking. They stand for clarity and ambiguity, assertion and acquiescence, progression and regression, resurrection and death related to Savitri in one way or the other. Her self-confinement to the dark room is a non-violent protest of a silent, suffering woman against the aggressive and arbitrary behaviour of her husband. It is a 23 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

psychological reaction to and assertion of a suppressed and helpless woman against male oppressiveness and callousness. Her non-violent form of protest appears to have no impact on Ramani. He blatantly dismisses it as mere ‘sulking’. Nevertheless, he is a nervous which may be seen in his pretended indifference and in his usually kind overtures and affability to please his children. Finally, Savitri has to yield to the pressure of Janamma who successfully persuades her to come out of the dark room. Savitri’s revolt, as it were, ends as suddenly as it starts. She is reconciled to the existing condition as swiftly as she is estranged from it. But the spirit of revolt or assertion dies not. It appears with greater vigour very soon. In the story of Savitri’s passive endurance, Narayan seems to be enacting the ancient Tamil bardic story of Kovalan and Kaunaki. One can discern mythical parallels in the character of Savitri in The Dark Room which strike comparisons with the character of Kaunki. The story of Kaunaki and Kovalan has its beginning in Puhar, the capital of one of the Southern Indian Kingdoms, mentioned by Ptolemy in that century.6 She, a devoted wife, walks out of her home in uncontrollable rage when Ramani, entrenched as he is in his firm belief in male superiority, refuses to sever his illicit connections with Shanta Bai. To quote Pashupati Tha, ‘The archetypal devoted wife deserts her husband when he does not give assurance of mending his ways’. Savitri can tolerate his insulting treatment but can never put up with infidelity. As Shiv K.Gilra points out, marital fidelity is ‘the most precious and durable of the Indian values’ and any attempt to violate it ‘is nothing short of sacrilege’. Infidelity of a husband or a wife is, one may remark, the chief cause of domestic disquiet, discord and separation in the Indian social context. Savitri reacts to this sinful act of her husband with hysterical fury: ‘Don’t touch me!... You are dirty, you are impure. Even if I bum my skin, I can’t cleanse myself of the impurity of your touch’. Her earlier violent response is also to be relevantly recalled: ‘I’m a human being. You men will never grant that. For you, we are playthings when you feel like hugging and kick us when you choose’. This ironical remark is not only her vehement attempt to reassert her lost dignity and status but also the author’s open indictment of the male attitude to women, severely flawed by its own inherent injustice and false and self-conceited assumptions. Han Mohan Prasad comments: Savitri is here speaking like a Shavian woman though she is neither conscious of the significance of a woman’s role in the creative evolution nor domineering enough to master the situation like Candida. She leaves her husband’s house all alone and without any thing. Joanna Kirkpatrick interprets Savitri’s walk-out as an expression of her innermost longing for freedom, and it is her response ‘to promptings of autonomy and self-identity under the Indian family system. Room is, in essence, Narayan’s fictionalization of the inherent tension between the oppressive man and the oppressed woman. The unquestionable power of man is a social reality that derives its validity and support from ancient Indian texts and mythologies. The true cause of the rift between Ramani and Savitri can be better understood in the context of this age-old confrontation in man-woman relationship. Ramani feels that his wife should be loyal and duty-bound to be grateful to him for all his kindness and consideration he has shown her. He is indignant that she should become ungrateful. In his opinion Savitri’s threat of leaving the 24 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

house is a shameful act of ingratitude. Narayan shows, here, that he, as a male, sings his own praise and loses himself in his own thoughts of self- importance and self-glorification without caring to recognize and acknowledge the sweat and labour, the toils and sacrifice of a woman in her role as a home-maker. To a man what he has done to her appears to be more important than what she has done to him. Ramani’s obsessive recitation and reiteration of a wife’s place and duties are a striking reflection of male authority. He underscores the subordination of women as the essential feature of womanhood, and it is the very cause of India’s spiritual greatness in his view. He lays particular stress on the primary duty and ‘divine privilege’ of a woman, which is ‘being a wife and a mother’ And the woman has no right to be called a wife if she disobeys her husband. Savitri leaves the house alone in the dark without her children. Once again, her rebellious spirit is suggestively associated with darkness. It is the darkness of her life denoting her mental agony, misery and it sears her very soul that she is not permitted to take her children with her. Her remark that even her children are not hers but his is a pathetic, yet ironic cry of a woman-mother who is denied the basic call right to claim her children as hers: ‘They are yours absolutely. You paid the midwife and the nurse. You pay for their clothes and teachers’. Nazar Singh Sidhu comments: ‘It is a renunciation of supreme order’. It implies that the statement is a sorrowful expression of the harsh reality a woman has to face in life. A woman owns nothing except her body. She remarks, ‘What possession can a woman call her own except her body? Everything else that she has is her father’s, her husband’s or her son’s’. There is an inexpressible, piercing sorrow in her remark. Savitri seems to be extremely disgusted with her own gender having no face and identity of its own, no power to free itself from male control and no strength to live with dignity and honour in a man’s world. Savitri refuses to take even the ring, necklace and stud given by her father as ‘they are also a man’s gift’. There is an inescapable sarcasm in Savitri’s blunt reply. It is Savitri’s pungent comment on the pernicious and oppressive male pervasiveness in society and her brusque rejection of anything that savours of ‘male touch’ or patronage. It is not the daughter in Savitri who looks at her father as ‘father’ but the hurt and humiliated woman in Savitri who views him as ‘man’-a member of the male tribe antagonistic to all women. Narayan ironically pictures male hegemony and a woman’s precarious state. Further, her life is one of fear from birth to death, even beyond death-fear of rupture in the hell. This haunting sense of fear is chiefly due to the manner of her ill treatment which affects her whole physical being and leaves a deep scar on her psyche. Savitri sadly reflects: ‘Afraid of one’s teachers and everybody in early life, afraid of one’s husband, children, and neighbours in later life- fear, fear till the funeral pyre was lit. The fear-ridden and shaky life of a female who lives in fear and dies in greater fear is here forcefully brought out by Narayan. Savitri is exploited at home by her husband and by the priest in the temple, but she displays a tremendous power of endurance characteristic of all Indian women. Savitri, after she leaves her home, sustains her assertion of independence and pride. Narayan draws the attention of the readers to this aspect of her character when she firmly spurns Ponni’s offer of food and shelter which she has not earned: ‘I am resolved never to accept food or shelter which I have not earned’. Her 25 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

resoluteness is quite amazing. She maintains her spirit of freedom and self-dependence in the temple as she is prepared to eat even the plain rice without salt and butter milk which Ponni wants to offer her. This unusually strong fervour of independence and sense of self- dependence are the direct result of her bitter experience at home and the denial of freedom of expression and action by her husband. What she hates most is charity. She feels a great thrill, and her joy knows no bounds when she cooks a little rice for herself in the temple. She remarks with pride: ‘This is my rice, my very own; and I am not obliged to anyone for this. This is nobody’s charity to me’. This triumphant sense of her self-reliance, as opposed to her compulsion to slavishly depend on her husband at home, fills her mind with a rare kind of Peace which she savours with great contentment and happiness. Though out the novel, the novelist ‘presents a detached approach to life by perceiving the wrong and the right actions of the characters with certain equanimity.’ She is now free in the temple and elated. Very soon, the reader finds a shocking change in Savitri. The fire of independence burning bright, as it were in her heart is doused quickly by circumstances. An overpowering and intense longing for her dear children and the comfort of home subdues her stubbornness and ignites an unbearable feeling of homesickness. Further, the situation is aggravated by her fear of loneliness. Narayan peeps into her mind and perceives and recognizes the true cause of her anguish ‘and her futile attempt to control her emotional turmoil and check her homeward thoughts-frenzied and uncontrollable-which simply flatten her ‘fiery vows’. And she grew homesick. Nostalgia for children, home, and accustomed comforts seized her. Lying here on the rough floor, beside the hot flickering lamp, her soul racked with fears, she couldn’t help contrasting the comfort, security, and un-loneliness of her home. And then the children. What a void they created ‘I must see them; I must see Babu, I must see Sumati, and I must see Kamala. Every object frightens her. It is a new, terrifying kind of darkness that envelops and subjugates her brave heart. If the first dark room symbolizes the awakening of her slumbering spirit of independence and resurrection, the second dark shanty in the temple indicates her quiet determination to accept the slavish and choking life at home. It is death, death of the soul. It is an ignominious retreat into the former battered self. Savitri’s mute acquiescence and uncomplaining attitude reminds us of Draupadi who felt that happiness is not derived from happiness but a good woman experiences happiness through suffering.8 By she despises her own weakness and lack of mental strength and courage. ‘What despicable creations of God are we that we can’t exist without a support.’ she reflects. Narayan comments: ‘The futility, the frustration and her own inescapable weakness made her cry and sob.’. She admits, ‘This is defeat. I accept it. I am no good for this fight. Her later reflection ‘A part of me is dead’ However, one may still maintain that Savitri, crushed by her inadequacy, returns home rather crest-fallen, and her self-acknowledgement of her defeat and the death of a part of her being testifies to her sad realization of the futility of sustaining the struggle against male suzerainty and the complete disintegration of the spirit of independence and conscious and meek acceptance of what is or has been. It is submission, pure and simple, whatever be the real cause, perhaps ‘a magnified submission’. Veena V.Mohod observes that ‘her revolt and 26 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

her quick retreat are the inevitable facets of predicament that the Indian woman faces in a society where the orthodox traditions still have considerable influence’. Jayant K.Biswal also feels that ‘The walls of the orthodox society close in on woman,’ given the situation in the Malgudi of the nineteen thirties, and ‘Savitri’s return is of course inevitable’. Michel Pousse lends support to this ‘inevitability-thesis’ in different words stressing the intolerance of the masculine world: ‘Indian society does not tolerate individualism. Feminine individualism is not acceptable. Savitri fails because she moves within a masculine world’ (‘Women in the Early Novels’ 40). It is Harsharan Singh Ahiuwalia who defends the novel’s controversial denouement: ‘In the given situation, Narayan does not feel the need of offering any solution to the problem of a loveless marriage except patient endurance. It would indeed be unauthentic in 1938 to suggest separation or divorce as the solution’. Viewing the story from another angle, it may be said that Savitri’s defeat is no defeat at all but a victory of the mother in her. She ennobles herself by reaffirming her profound love and affection for her children. To a mother nothing is sacred than her close bond and ties with her children. She is prepared to face any kind of humiliation or sacrifice any amount of liberty, precious identity and dignity and even her very life for their sake. What Savitri regards as defeat is really the spontaneous reassertion of the mother in all women. Savitri does exactly what any mother will do in her situation. Room is, in a different way, the story of the Return of the Native, the Return of the Mother in triumph. Rajalakshmi’s comment is relevant her: The rebel in her is overshadowed by the mother. Motherly fulfillment illumines the darkest of the dark rooms like that of Savitri. Her willing acceptance of her defeat for the sake of her children is, as remarked by Pashupati Jha, ‘an act of courage and endurance, almost like the acceptance of Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James’. Further, Jha observes: ‘She now, emotionally ceases to be a wife without ceasing to be a mother’. She leaves the house in wrath as a wounded wife, which is her primary role, and returns home as a loving mother intensely longing to be with her children, is her secondary role, and both the roles, equally important, form part of Indian woman, signifying the plight of wife and the pride of mother. Savitri after her short ‘exile’ or short-lived stint in the temple seems to be a changed woman. She looks the very picture of sorrow. She is shorn her erstwhile ‘fieriness’ and self- confidence. A sort of oppressive weariness crushes her soul. She, of course, speaks with her children with affection but not with her customary cheer, fervour and self-assurance. She is nervous, timid, meek and hesitant. She is not excited at the arrival of her husband, as she was in the past. She serves food to her husband mechanically, not with the interest and involvement of a wife. She is cold and indifferent to Ramani’s husbandly overtures and his special efforts to make peace with or please her. She turns down even his plea to have ‘a little talk’ with her. Nothing is more humiliating and tormenting to Savitri than the excruciating consciousness of her unavoidable, ‘destined’ dependence on her husband. She symbolizes, here, the Indian woman whose plight and pitiable condition is in no way different from hers. Narayan brings out the distressful situation of Savitri with creative sensitivity when Savitri gives up her idea of calling Mari, the lock-repairer and husband of Ponni. She feels strongly 27 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

that she must ‘give him food, water, and a magnificent gift, and inquire about her great friend Ponni’ and repay her debt of to her. But she checks herself after she painfully realizes that she does not have anything, which she can claim to be her own, to offer Mari bout the consent of her husband. She reflects, ‘Why should I call him? What have I?’ She silently stands by the window, haunted memory of Mari’s shining hungry face and his cry ‘locks repaired’ after he is gone. Savitri remains a dejected and oppressed woman end of the novel brings to light Savitri’s kindness and helplessness. Savitri, representing the suffering woman, is a lock that cannot be repaired. K.V. Suryanarayana Murti rightly identifies the rich suggestiveness of the end: The closing is suggestive of Savitri’s humanity and charity and inability. Her failure is that she is like an irreparable lock-a symbol of the feminine. The novel closes with Savitri’s helpless dependency after her returning home which points to the same condition of her dependency at the beginning of the novel. Savitri attempts to commit suicide by drowning herself in the river Sarayu after she quits her house. Her mental toughness in enduring the insults of her husband, her courage in leaving her home and children and her bold resolve to be independent do not match with her sudden and cowardly decision as only those who are mentally weak and fear to face the failures and disappointments in life will be tempted to commit suicide. Perhaps, Narayan wants to heighten the impact of his heroine’s misery on the readers or imply that self-destruction is the only-or the best-option available to a helpless and unfortunate woman like Savitri to whom life, without her children, becomes meaningless and killing. This episode, no doubt, strikes a jarring note in the characterization of Savitri but one has to admit that it develops the plot as it brings in time Ponni’s husband Man to rescue with from death. In the character of Savitri in The Dark Room, R.K. Narayan highlights her genius for suffering which is in absolute consonance with the ancient Indian tradition. She closely resembles her mythical namesake, Savitri, for her fidelity and devotion to her husband. 1.4CENTRAL THEME The Dark Room offers a feminist view of the contemporary South Indian society. The very essence of the autobiographical tone is not there in the dark room. The story of a middle-class female set against the backdrop of South India; the dark room echoes the frustration of an autobiographical tone is not there in the dark room. The story of a middle-class female set against the backdrop of tormented wife. The main female character Savitri retires to the dark room which is there at house whenever the frustration, disgust, pain and torment becomes somewhat too much to bear. The dark room here acts as the catharsis whilst aiding the main character to vent out her frustration; Ideally the title therefore matches with the symbolism of the novel. The Dark Room by R. K. Narayan is a work of literature that was first published in Great Britain in 1938. This piece was not autobiographical as his two previous books. More specifically it was with a feminist view of middle-class family life in South India. It was published on October 11, 1938. This book also received good reviews from Western writers. In this story Narayan reflects on the uselessness of life and the helplessness of his protagonist Savitri. He tries to fill each scene with undertones of as many changes as there are aspects to 28 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

human nature. This novel is full of different feelings of life like hypocrisy, deception, kindness and desperation. All of these are present in their full glory with colourful as well as shades of the characters. It also includes their morality and their situations. The central character or protagonist of this story, The Dark Room is Savitri, married to Ramani. R. K. Narayan portrays that being a submissive housewife she gives birth to three children. Her husband always dominates her and whenever his tortures become unbearable to her she retires in a dark room in their house. As the story progressed in certain distance, her husband got engaged with another woman and in order to set up her place he shifted many of their furniture from home. These include one of her favourite furniture also. While shocked by the news of his relation Savitri tries to win back her husband but cannot do so because of Ramani's adamant nature. During the course one day she fights back and leaves home without thinking anything. This tragedy of domestic life gets a clear vision in Narayan's write-up. The Dark Room is published by University of Chicago Press in USA and by William Heinemann Ltd. in UK edition. Published by Vintage, Minerva and Mandarin this story has beautifully crafted the marital saga of a couple interlarded with conservatism along with the dawn of reformist's ideas. The story entails the tale of a tormented wife. The Dark Room is a superb examination of a patriarchal society and also reflects the injustices that this type of society causes to woman and children. This is regarded as an impressive as well as controlled novel, which eventually moves and hits the society. R. K. Narayan is the novelist of an individual set in the milieu which is characteristic of an Indian middle-class family. There is wide range of individuals with distinct mindset, interacting with one another in the fictional world of Narayan and these interaction widespread along a well-defined range of time and space (generally Malgudi), provide essential fictional values to the narrative. M.K. Naik rightly points out that Narayan is ‘the novelist of the individual man, just as Mulk Raj Anand is the novelist of social man and Raja Rao that of metaphysical man’. He further analyses the essentials of Narayan's fictional domain and says: ‘The total fictional campus of R.K. Narayan, therefore, presents a panorama of men and women in different life roles, ranging from school boy indulging in his characteristic pranks in Swami and Friends to the old man about to renounce the world in The Vendor of Sweets. The protagonist of Narayan's novel is made to play his life role during the course which he or she either natures in the process, or rebels, or simply drifts or again is chastised or even destroyed by a characteristic inner weakness’. The observation of Naik holds perfect relevance in connection with the theme and characters of almost all the novels of Narayan. It is another important observation that the characters and events which constitute the fabric of the novel, owe their origin to day-to-day experiences and occurrences of the middle-class of the locale. The Dark Room is a great example of the recreation of middle–class milieu with its agony and ecstasy fused into one structure. It has been discussed earlier that the Narayan is a novelist of individual and his novels are structured on the interactions between these individuals. The Dark Room is the novel about the family with 29 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Ramani, his wife Savitri and three children Babu, Kamala and Sumati. It has been stated earlier that the interaction among individual makes the prime preference of Narayan as a novelist. The Dark Room is also structured on the interactions between these characters. It is obvious that the human relation contributes quite significantly to the theme of the novel, which, in due course of the development of the narrative acquires new shades. The novel opens with a simple dispute between Ramani and Savitri caused by Babu's sudden dress: ‘At school time Baboo suddenly fell ill and Savitri fussed over him and put him to bed. And in the bed, he stayed till Ramani come in and asked – ‘What is this?’2 The opening paragraph of the novels introduces us the nature of action of the novel and also the major participants of the whole drama. The introductory paragraph of the novel reminds us of the views of Ian Wall. He, commenting on the introductory paragraph of The Ambassador, says that ‘the function of an introductory paragraph in a novel is presumably to introduce’ (540). It is important that the opening paragraph of The Dark Room, performs the task with great success. The nature of interaction between the two principal characters foretells the nature of action during the whole narrative span of the novel. The nature of action revealed in the first paragraph of the novel is ratified again in the succeeding paragraph: ‘I don't know when I shall have a little decent food to eat. I slave all day in the office for this mouthful. No lack of expenses money for this and no money for that. If the cook can't cook properly, do the work yourself. What have you to do better than that?’ 4 Ramani's outburst makes the dominance clear and Savitri's subordination to masculine authority sets the nodes and antinodes of the tension that shapes the fiction. Ramani is delineated with sudden unpredictable outburst, but Savitri endures the rage with convention submission of an Indian woman. ‘As this was almost a daily routine, as regular as her husband's lecture. Savitri ceased to play attention to it and ate in silence. His thoughts reverted to Babu. The boy looked unwell and perhaps at that moment was very ill in his class. How impotent she was, she thought: she had not the slightest power to do anything at home, and that after fifteen years of married life’ It is quite ironical that Savitri's submission seeks apt revelation in a comment passed by her autocratic husband: ‘After undressing and changing, Ramani came very quickly towards the dining hall and said to Savitri, ‘Hope you have finished your dinner’. ‘Not yet’. ‘What a dutiful wife! would rather starve than precede her husband. You are really like some of the women in our ancient books’. It is also remarkable that the harshness of Ramani is not confined to Savitri. Narayan delineates him with natural arrogance and short–temperedness. The event when Babu plays some mischief resulting into the power cut, is a fine instance of his attitude: ‘When Babu returned from the Electric office, he found his father standing in the hall and shouting. As soon as he sighted Babu he asked, You blackguards, who asked you to temper with the electric lights? Babu stood stunned’. The character of Babu demands attention at this point. He cuts special figure amidst the child characters of Narayan. Most of the children that are born of the pen of Narayan are limited to playful delineation withhumorous irony. Generally, the contempt for school is a common phenomenon in almost all the child characters of Narayan in his novels and short stories. These characters share their creator's 30 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

contempt for school. Ramesh Srivastava rightly observes that 'his own childhood may easily be reconstructed from them'. It is an undeniable observation that Babu's character in the narrative is not restricted to the enactment of playful irony, but he is delineated with will act and imitate. His visit to Electric office symbolizes his will and at the same time, it also puts forth a convincing testimony to this act in the future. The complication of the plot begins with a new appointment in Engladia Insurance company. The new employee, Shanti Bai contributes to the complication of the situation. There is ironical reversal of the situation. Ramani endures subordination to the new participant of the enactment of the whole action: ‘Ramani fell that he had been snubbed, but presently he appreciated the candour and smartness which had released the snub. He smiled and replied brickly that he was grateful for timely warning, otherwise he would have wasted some money and time in going to Mangalore’. The complication in the pre–existing set up is attributed to Shanta Bai, who is delineated with sharp wit and all worldly guts of snatching sympathy. Shanta Bai had a split marriage and then she did graduation from Madras and joined the office of Engladia Insurance Company. Shanta Bai replies with admirable candour when Ramani asks about the people around her. ‘It is a difficult question', she replies, 'and it will take a lot of answering’. Besides candour, her extrovert behaviour in fetching the sympathy of a man is another very conspicuous aspect of her character: ‘I passed my B.A. three years ago. Since then, I have been drifting about. I have had odd teaching jobs and I have also been companioning to a few rich children. On the whole it has been a very great struggle. It is all nonsense to say that women's salvation lies in education. It doesn't improve their lot a bit, it leaves them as badly unemployed as the men’. Shanta Bai's guts and candour excites the passions of Ramani that works out the chaos and disorder in his family set up. She drives Ramani crazy and makes him oblivious of his duties towards his wife and children. She earns Ramani care that is due for Savitri. Narayan make use of Savitri's bench to illustrate the idea. It makes the absence of the bench prominent through the words of Gangu. She asks: ‘What has happened to the bench which used to be here all these days? You are lying on the floor’, asked Gangu and unwittingly started the very thoughts that Savitri had been at points to smother since morning’. Ramani's growing fondness for Shanta Bai draws a close parallel with his growing indifference to Savitri and his children. He develops a habit to visit the office on his way back home from the club. 'It would be improper', he tells himself and passes on ‘,but the car had hardly run a few yards when he told himself that ought to inspect his office periodically at nights', whereas Rani on his 'unconventional' visits proclaims that she 'loves conventional things' otherwise 'she shouldn't be here but nursing children and cooking for a husband'. Ramani's growing endearment with Shanta Bai is paralleled with growing estrangement between Ramani and Savitri. He is never worried about his wife and children but his care for Shanta Bai grows up day by day. Ramani gets infatuated like a teenager and Shanta Bai's hypnotism works on him almost completely; ‘I suggest that we go round Race Course Road and then, if you don't mind, to the river. Have you seen it at night?’ ‘Is it a very lovely night?’ ‘Come and see it yourself’, he said. ‘You don't mind the trouble?’ ‘Don't ask ridiculous 31 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

question!’. The conversation quoted above is a wonderful illustration of the infatuation of Ramani for Shanta Bai. On one hand he was incessantly growing indifferent for his wife and children, on the other hand, he was beginning to feel worried about Shanta Bai because even after one month, 'she exhibited no aptitude for canvassing work'15. This is the reason why K.V. Suryanarayana Murti likes 'Shanta Bai's Life to be a failure in identity'. He further elaborates: ‘Married to an unscrupulous husband she rejects identity with him and escapes to Madras, studies up to B.A...., seeks a job and joins the Insurance Office of Ramani as Probationary Assistant. She fails to fulfil the insurance business and thrives on luring identity with crazy Ramani. But Ramani can hardly exempt her forever from doing her business, and failure forces her to leave Malgudi’ 16. Ramani's eccentricities and infatuation bring out the wreck of the family. Ramani's involvement with Shanta Bai reminds us of the view of Suryanarayana Murti that Narayan's 'characters are prisoners of their ego and ignorance and their actions are silly'. Ramani is delineated with pathetic irony that he gets infatuated after fifteen years of marriage. His visit to the movie is conveyed to Savitri by Gangu. The narrator confides: ‘Gangu wept a little herself and said, clearing her throat: I won't hide anything from you. They didn't stay very long in the theatre. She said something and both of them went out at ten o' clock’. The growing estrangement between Ramani and Savitri leads to revolt on the part of Savitri: ‘Don't touch me!’ she cried, moving away from him. ‘You are dirty, you are impure. Even if I burn my skin, I can't cleanse myself of the impurity of your touch’. He clenched his teeth and raised his hands. She said, ‘All right, strike me. I am not afraid’. He lowered his hands and said, ‘Woman, get away now’. Ramani's attitude reminds us of the views of M.K. Naik. He points out that Ramani is 'an utterly self-centred and self-indulgent man', and this attitude of Ramnai obliges revolt in Savitri that begins with escape from her monstrous husband; ‘She walked all the way to the north end of the town and reached the river an hour later. Sarayu was flowing in the dark with subdued ramble’. Savitri's exile reminds us of many mythological characters who suffered exile. Sita and Shakuntala are two leading female characters of Indian mythology that invite a close comparison with Savitri. It is, however, remarkable that Savitri is closer to Sita than Shakuntala. The use of Sita myth is an important aspect of the narrative. The concept of myth invites our attention. Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics states: ‘Myth may be defined as story or a complex of story elements taken as expressing and therefore as implicitly symbolizing certain deep lying aspects of human and trans–human experience’ Savitri, in this part of the narrative owes its meaning and experience to the leading female character of the Ramayana – Sita. Irony operates the use of myth. Savitri, like Sita is submissive and dedicated but unlike Sita, her exile is not an act of obedience to her husband, but it is a revolt against male domination. It is chiefly the reason why Narayan himself take Savitri to be 'an early testament of Woman's Lib. Movement' Mari and Ponni reconstitute the identity of the sage, Valmiki which in the context acquires completeness in the temple. It is ironical that unlike Valmiki, Mari and Ponni are untouchables and cannot offer food to Savitri from their kitchen: ‘Only fruits and coconut. I knew that you wouldn't like anything else cooked by me, so I have brought only 32 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

fruits and coconut’. Savitri's exile in the temple is metaphorical to her quest for identity as a woman. She refuses the food offered by Ponni not because of her social status but because of consciousness for identity. Mari tells the vendor of fruit about her consciousness for identity: There is a mad woman in there who won't touch food unless she is given work. Hard enough for men to get work these days. The temple under the old man, makes the last station of Savitri's exile. The character of Valmiki has been split into Mari and old man. Mari as a thief is Valmiki's past whereas the old man of the temple is the present. Mathur observes that Savitri has more points of similarity with Sita, the heroine of the Ramayana. Savitri's stay at the temple accounts for the realization, which has been ratified through the recreation of the image of the dark room. The symbol of the river, Sarayu makes us identify Savitri with Sita, but the symbol of the temple and the dark room with stink of burning oil and smoke obliges realization on her part. There is cyclic recreation of the image of the dark room, which, in the first part of the novel is applied with much simpler meaning but now in the last phrase of the narrative it is used with deeper layers of irony. Savitri refuses mercy when Mari and his wife offers him food. She denies fear when she agrees to stay in the dark lonely shade: ‘Charity! Charity! Savitri was appalled by the amount of it which threatened one. 'All right I will live in this', she said choosing the lesser charity’. Savitri's stay in the dark room, now excites nostalgia and home sickness. The rebel dies. The woman is reborn. Fear returned. 'A nostalgia for children, home and accustomed comforts seized her'. It is a master stroke of irony that all the emotions that she forcefully denies are fused into one: ‘When she shut the door and put out the lights, how comforting the bed felt and how well one could sleep! Not this terrible state. And then the children, what a void they cheated! ‘I must see them: I must see Babu. I must see Sumati, and I must see Kamala. Oh...’ But what about the fiery views, and the coming out at midnight? ‘The realization of Savitri makes D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu infer that the novel ‘has, after all been kept ajar to the influx of undeceived self-vision’. Savitri returns Narayan celebrates the festivity of her return by recreating the symbols of dialogues between Ramani who doesn't question anything about his wife's absence in the house. The novel ends with a pathetic note on the Savitri's part which culminates the realization. It was 'one afternoon when she was lying on her carpet in the hall' and heard the loved call from a distance ‘Lock repaired sirs, umbrellas repaired’. Savitri's excitement draws a sharp contrast with her realization. She felt excited that she 'could give him food, water and a magnificent gift and inquire about her great friend Poony'. She almost called him, but she suddenly checked herself and let him pass. She felt 'unhappy' and felt that it was 'leman and unjust'. K.V. Suryanarayana Murti opines that ‘at once she realizes her helplessness and dependency in the house though she remains haunted by his cry’. Savitri's realization confirms the cyclic reversal of the situation that Savitri in the beginning of the novel is same as Savitri in the last page. The Dark Room, thus, is an important novel of R.K. Narayan from the point of view of the study of man–woman relation. Narayan explore the wide range of human relations through a love triangle, and a contrast offered by the rustic couple, Mori and 33 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Ponni. The novel begins with echoing reverberation of mate domination and ends with silent realization of it. 1.5CHARACTER ANALYSIS The most interesting feature of the novel is Narayan's conscientious effort to present the entire narrative from the perspective of Savitri. Hence, the world of ‘The Dark Room’ is the world as Savitri perceives it, and not Ramani. The novel begins on a mundane note with a detailed account of an Indian middle-class family. Ramani is ruling deity here, while his spouse and three children are enforced worshippers. And this happens because of Ramani's unpredictable whims. Whether it be his food or his office wear, Ramani’s wrath never seems to be appeased. The children are afraid to talk loudly when their father is at home, heaving a sigh of relief the moment he steps out of the house. So is the case with his wife Savitri. On a superficial level, the storyline of the novel ‘The Dark Room’ appears to be rather bleak. But on a closer analysis, we realize it to be a documentation of two levels of existence, by the two central characters-Ramani and Savitn’. At the beginning, Ramani is happily married man whose fidelity is beyond question. But with the arrival of Shanta Bai, Ramani is changed The Dark Room Novel by RK Narayan is about the discord of a troubled family. It paints a grim picture of a disturbed household plagued with domestic conflict man. Likewise, Savitri unquestioning, submissive female presence of Ramani’s household transgresses her boundaries of a model wife and Daves questioning the validity of conjugal fidelity of her husband. Pompous and proud of his acquired position in the company Nalanda insurance; Ramani is of little use both to his wife and children. His presence in the cause of awe to the household and only with his departure to office every day, do the other inmates find time to relax and breathe freely. To worsen matters. Ramani is infatuated by Shanta Bai who joins his company is the first female probationer. Savitri feigns ignorance initially, but finally when Ramani fails to turn up one night. She decides to strike back. Unlike the previous occasions when she had sought refuge in the ‘dark room’ of the house, she now dares to venture out, to the dark room of a local temple. This dark room, therefore, has a different connotation in a different context. The difference is. Savitri here has chosen the dark room of the temple willingly, with a feeling of acquired emancipation while, in the former case, the refuge of dark room is enforced upon her. From the days of the Ramayana, Indian women have sought the recluse of a dark room to score a point in familial matters. Savitri’s effort to bring back her wayward husband to her folds by retiring to the dark room is both strategic and propitious (at least that is what she likes to believe). But her strategy fails and Ramani does not bother to appear of parental estrangement. They realize that something is wrong between their parents, but fail to fathom out the exact cause, for they are too young and inexperienced. Finally, Savitri decides to leave the house for good. And it is at this point we perceive the emergence of a different Savitri. This transformation is so marked that Savitri herself is amazed. ‘Am I the same old Savitri or am I someone else’. Walking down the streets Savitri is at loss and ultimately, unable to come to terms with reality, chooses to 34 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

commit suicide. Lady luck in the form of a Black 5mith-cum-burglar saves her and she decides to dwell in a nearby village temple. In two days’, time, however, the thought of her suffering children overpowers her, and she returns home. The children are naturally overjoyed, and puzzled servants remain puzzled. But Ramani feigning ignorance of her absence remains as unconcerned as before. Consequently, Savitri finds herself in the same predicament. Prior to Shanta Bai’s arrival Savitri appears to be a normal housewife who is in full command of her household. Accept a few digressions, in the form of Ramani’s rebukes she proves to be quite in tune with her husband regarding the workings of the household as a mistress. Savitri rants at the servants whenever she feels they are lacking in subservience and is unbending enough, in allowing the cook enough liberty to add ingredients according to his likings. Added to it, she has a nasty ward for them for every little cause and when necessary, does not desist even from overtaxing them. If Ramani finds the dishes served insipid, it is the servants who bear the brunt-a natural scenario in every middle-class Indian house hold. ‘Not exactly bad Perhaps you would have done well to reduce the tamarind in the sauce. Your master does not like tamarind very much’. Life apparently remains placid and event full for long in the codified world of Malgudi, and Savitri does not seem to be quite unhappy with her plight. Worrying about her children trying incessantly to pacify the wrath of her husband and times talking to the ladies of the extension seems to be her only preoccupations. But does she willingly submit herself to the tedium of her existence? That is the million-dollar question Narayan poses before his readers from the very inception of the narrative. We realize that Savitri is different from both Janamma and Gangu, the two other representative of her class. Unlike them Savitri clearly manifests her discontent by questioning the validity of her monotonous existence. Undergoing the tedium of everyday life, she often questions her self- ‘does life comprise of only filling one's stomach and then again worrying about ways of filling it the next time’? Yet, she complies out of compulsion because that is her expected role in the household. In contrast, neither Gangu nor Janamma ever bothers to raise such disconcerting questions in fact, neither of them aware of it. But Savitri, right from the start, is keenly aware of the noose trap that has bound her to her husband's family. Therefore, the presence of Both Gangu and Janamma’s serves two-fold purpose in the narrative one, ‘to provide the reader with a reasonably complete picture of women in an orthodox milieu of Indian society’, i.e., upper caste, middle-class Malgudi in the later 1930s, Gangu we are told, is an eccentric woman whose scholarly husband teaches her the values of women‘s rights. his, in a way, destroys her inhibitions. Savitri does not quite approve of her free think in yet tolerates her because ‘Gangu was tolerated in the extension: she was interesting: With all her talk she was very religious, visiting the temple regularly and she was not immoral’. Gangu’s interesting talks fascinate Savitri but do not really influence her. Janamma, on the other hand, represents the orthodox and traditional word of Malgudi who never dreams of opposing her husband or arguing with Pim. She believes that her husband is her sole master who can never err. And subservience as a wife is her basic duty towards him. But Savitri does not belong to 35 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

the class of either Gangu or Janamma. She is clearly different from them. Despite her submissiveness, she has her head placed firmly over her shoulder or else such question would never plague her-‘does life comprise of only filling one’s stomach and then again worrying about ways of filling it the next time’? Yet, when crisis strikes, Savitri turns to Janamma and seeks her advice because she is convinced that those advice will be in keeping with wifely decorum. But within, Savitri never really cares to follow the beaten track of Janamma where a wife is a slaved cheerfully for her husband who had three concubines at home. Ramani asked at home, ‘What happened to spare cot we had?’... Send for it. I want it for the office. We are going to fit up a guest’s room’. If it is for the office, buy a cot with your office money. Why should we give ours?’ she dared to suggest this amendment because it was one of his good- humoured evenings. It is Shanta Bai’s defiance of the existing patriarchal order that actually captivates Ramani during the interview when she candidly admits to Ramani, ‘if l had a family to hinder me l shouldn’t have come here with my application’. She is presumed to have done away with all sorts of family ties, husband parents, and siblings’ et al. ‘by defying and despising the traditional values.’ Her drive enthrals Ramani as he remarks, Yours is a very interesting story’. Fair complexion coupled with guts, she simply mesmerizes him, and he does not even care to authenticate her story. ‘He liked her pluck’. After all, pluck is an admirable quality in one’s mistress while blasphemous in a wife! While Shant Bai, much in keeping with her image, seems absolutely impervious to everything else other than fulfilling personal ambitions. Feigning ignorance to Ramani`s material status continues to entice him further to her end justifies the means, and not the other way round. She combines her feminine justifies the means, and not the other way round. ‘She combines her feminine independence with a shrewd opportunism that characteristically belongs to the new civilization’ comments Jayant Biswal. Self-indulgence is her philosophy of life. Hence even though aware of her existence being palpably threatened without the benevolence of Ramani, she dreams of owning a Baby Austin. And it is this attitude of hers which Biswal terms as the product of ‘New civilization’, is at odds with the social set-up of Malgudi. Unlike Savitri, she dares to abandon her drunken husband and her family as a mark of protest against her race. But she carries her newfound liberty to achieve a perverted goal-breaking a family to satiate her growing materialistic thirsts. Ramani, however, fails to fathom out her exact stand in this regard. What makes Shanta Bai‘s presence significant in the novel is the author‘s dear intention to establish the fraudulence inherent in Ramani. At home in the company of Savitri Ramani remains cool and aloof, decidedly maintaining a distance. But in the presence of Shanta Bai, he epitomizes servility-ready to convent himself to a toy in her hands: 'I will see if the probationary period cannot be cut down, and if the stipend cannot be put up a bit. But that’s all by and by. You must rest assured that your interests will have the best support and protection possible.’ It is really hard to believe that Ramani is capable of uttering such sugar- coated sentences to his subordinate the inherent hypocrisy of the Indian middle-class men. Savitri’s worst suspicions are cannoned and not knowing what to do, she initially decides to mend her appearance, which till then was vastly neglected. Believing in the ancient adage 36 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

that feminine charms lure back an errant husband, Savitri decides to dress up as a young bride. But as ill luck would have it, the evening Savitri is thus adorned to charm Ramani, he chooses to spend it with Shanta Bai And Savitri, not knowing how to express her disillusionment stays awaken the whole night. Expectedly, therefore, when during the following night Ramani appears only for dinner. Savrtri works herself up to serve him an ultimatum. Serving dinner silently, she allows him to settle and then threatens him with. ‘This sort of thing has to stop understand’? Ramani pretends unawareness but Savitri is unremitting. ‘I'm not going to, till you promise to come to your senses. She stood hardly beside his cot’. Ramani is taken could a dormouse like her react like this? He tries enticing and coaxing and Savitri momentarily loses her edge. Ramani feels relieved at the fact the crisis has blown off so easily. But Savitri’s subservience is short lived. The moment he refuses to renounce Shanta Bail, she is back to her former self, ‘You won’t give up this harlot’, and she yells drawing her up. ‘You are not having me and her at the same time, understand? I go out of this house this minute. She does exactly that. But before walking out, she makes a desperate effort to take sway her children with her; but Ramani intervene, and she has to leave empty handed. Before parting, however she serves her challenge. Do you think I am going to stay here? We are responsible of our position: We accept food, shelter and comforts that you give, and are what we are. Do you think that I will stay in your house, breathe the air of your property, drink the water here and eat food you buy with our money? No, I’ll starve and die in the open, under the sky, a roof for which we need be obliged to no man ‘Very well. Take your things and get out this moment.’ l don’t possess anything in this world. What possession can a woman call her own except her body? Everything that she has is her father's husbands or her son’s. So, take these too...’ she removed her diamond earrings, the diamond studs on her nose... She quietly walks out of the house. All the hereby about a woman accepting her husband's concubine gracefully, narrated to her by Janamma by way of instruction, goes a waste. Savitri is not ready to share her bed with Shanta Bai. On the contrary, she castigates him as impure and refuses to accept his or, for that matter, anyone else’s munificence for survival. She realizes for the first time that as a married woman, she is no better than Shanta Bai whom she calls a prostitute. Both have to beg for male benevolence forsustenance and shelter. One who cannot live by herself has not any right to live either, she argues and walks out of the house. As she walks along, she realizes her helplessness. Sitting on the banks of River Sarayu she reminisces her past. ‘Am I the same old Savitri or am I someone else.’ She asks herself. She is surprised at her own transformation, yet she cannot gather enough courage to live singly like Shanta Bai. After all, Savitri’ is an Indian woman who cannot think of a life beyond marriage: hence: calamity strikes, she turns fatalistic. It is this transformation of Savitri that has provoked many Critics to compare her with Nora, the protagonist of Ibsen's Doll’s House. But Narayan does not prefer Savitri to turn into another Nora, a crusader says P.S. Sundaram. Refusing to be a discarded drudge, Savitri goes out of the house, not dramatically banging the door like Nora, but fleeing like a hunted animal... Freedom is a tine concept, but creatures likes Savitri can do one thing with it commit suicide. 37 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Providence however saves her in the form of a burglar-cum blacksmith Mali He takes her to his house and his wife Ponni welcomes her with open arms Contrary to her middle-class friends. Ponni does not have a wagging tongue; hence she does not bother to enquire about her social status or the exact nature of her problem. To Ponni, Savitri is a burning example of patriarchal oppression, and it is necessary that she should be rehabilitated instantly. Since Savitri is a verse to charity. Ponni makes it a point search an aloud for Savitri where she can both earn and live respectably. A new life unfolds before Savitri in the dark room of the temple where she has to labor hard to earn her bread. The old priest makes it point to imprint in Savitri’s mind the fact that he is doing her a favor. Her terms of employment are ironically in direct contrast to Shanta Bai’s. The latter has found in her employer a paramour because she is ready to shed off social Inhibitions. And because Savitri is not ready to compromise like her, she has to accept the lesser charity. Savitri is happy at first and tastes the fruits of freedom. ‘She felt triumphant, she lay with her head at the threshold of the shanty gazing at the blue sky... it enhanced one's sense of victory.’ At last, she feels that she has found a way of living alone and not be obliged to any man for sustenance. But is she really free? Shutting from one dark room to another Lying In the darkness of the antechamber of the temple, she realizes that both the dark rooms are actually a part of sacred social Institutions. The dark room of her house merely shelters her from the outside world, while the dark room of the temple exposes her vulnerability. And none of these rooms, for that matter, ere above women's repression. Hence after a day's trial when poignant longing for her children almost overpowers her. She decides to return: Savitri is certainly not a feminist in the modern sense of the world. Because she is not yet prepared to undertake the uncertainties and hardship that threaten to come their way, but can one refute her fear of living alone. A middle-class Indian girl is nurtured in such a way that she never has to undergo the pain of living alone and how can Savitri be a deviation? The comfort to which Narayan makes a passing reference is actually the comfort of gregarious existence and it is this comfort which is missing in Savitri’s life. How can she change this perception overnight? It is therefore inevitable that she has to return home but not without remonstration. Plainly she is shamed of her pitiful plight. As the hours advanced and the stillness grew deeper, her fears also increased. She was furious with herself at this: ‘What despicable creations of God are we that we can’t exist without support. I am like a bamboo pole which cannot stand without a wall to support it.’ She is not Shanta Bai and has no intention to shed off her inhibitions and responsibilities alike. And the support she is seeking is both valid and legal. No one can really deny her that. The respectful husband wife relationship, which is the dream of every married woman, remains unfulfilled for Savitri till the end. Yet, she has to return because she is unable to live alone. Before returning home, finally, she visits Ponni to thank her. Ponni has after all taught her a lesson of holding her head high. Henceforth, this is what she will try to do. On returning home, she is happy to see her children safe and sound. Yet, the earlier hankering of a stressed-out mother is markedly absent in her now. ‘A Part of me is dead’ she reflected. It is as if a part of her former self has simply disintegrated. What is left now is commitment and 38 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

dutifulness of a mother and a wife, nothing more. Separation has taught her one great lesson which ultimately helps her to sustain till the end: She would harden herself not be yearn of them. She would pray for them at the shrine night and day, and God would protect them: they could grow, go their ways and tackle life as fate had ordained for each of them. What was this foolish yearning for children, this dragging attachment? One ought to do one’s duty and then drift away. (Karmanya Vadhikareste Mafaleshu Kadachana the Gita) Did the birds and the animals worry about their young ones after they had learnt how to move? And it is this lesson that really differentiates her from Nora of Doll’s House Being an Indian woman, Savitri has genetically imbibed this great learning and also the ultimate knowledge of life, What was this foolish yearning for children, this dragging attachment? One ought to do one’s duty and then drift away-from The Gita Ponni also proves to be a better human being, compared to all the upper caste middle-class women of Malgudi in her ready acceptance of Savitri. Her edge over Savitri, however, is clearly born from her economic autonomy and that is what demarcates her from this Brahmin housewife. She has no inhibitions either to stifle her feelings and hence she can easily rebuke the priest for being over inquisitive about Savitri’s post. The basic difference between ‘The English Teacher’ and ‘The Dark Room’ is the difference between the two male characters, To Ramani, Savitri is nothing but an extension of his personal property that can be both used and misused according to circumstances and personal whims. But Susila, being Krishna’s spiritual partner, the question of repression never arises. Therefore, contrary to Savitri who is constantly on tenterhooks when Ramani is around Susila never feels threatened in the little haven of delight? Again, contrary to Savitri's attitude towards her children, neither is Susila over protective about her daughter, because Krishana appears to be an ideal father. It is not that Ramani does not love his. Hence, it is Savitri’s prerogative to look after them properly and when need even pamper them to a certain extent. Can we then attribute these distinctive deviations to the academic divergences between the two protagonists? Krishna is a college teacher with an MA in English, while Ramani is an insurance executive with little accomplishments. Does the author by any chance try to hint here that their difference of attitude is born out of their disparity in academic attainments? Even in The Dark Room. Gangu’s husband is an educated youth teaching in a school, and hence, has a liberal outlook. So, is it plausible that Narayan’s emphasis on academic achievement is meant to convey the fact that education improves man qualitatively? Nowhere has Narayan stated this fact explicitly though. It is purely a personal assumption following the existing belief rampant among middle-class Indians that education uplifts a man qualitatively. This fascination for university degree was stronger in the previous century as we find in the writing of the authors of that period. So, it will not be wrong to presume that Narayan's favor too was tilted towards the educated youth. In short, will it be wrong then to presume that both the novels ‘The English Teacher’ and ‘The Dark Room’ are actually two sides of the same coin-the dictatorial patriarchy? Since one chooses to be sternly authoritarian, the ambience is that of hostility, while the other being cleverly manipulative in its benevolent disposition ensures automatic servility of its female members. otherwise, how 39 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

does one explain the lacuna between Krishna‘s and Susila’s understanding at the beginning of the second part of the novel when Susila is dead and Krishna while rummaging her steel trunk discovers a completely new facet of her personality? He is astonished to find so many tidbits in the steel trunk. Could it be his wife loved these things so much? He asks himself. Never did he suspect her of harbouring an interest in things like these. So that part of Susila had remained unknown to him as long she was alive. Later on, after her death when he tries to communicate to her spiritually, he becomes aware of all these little unknown facts. The story revolves around Ramani who is a secretary in a company located in Malgudi called Engladia Insurance Company. He is a man who is consumed by cynicism and is very controlling in his outlook. In his self-interest and arrogance, he runs a very tight ship in his house. Due to his irascible and rude attitude, there is always a sense of dreadful misfortune and sadness permeating his house. He is like a tyrant in his conduct with his wife Savitri, daughters and domestic help. The Wife Savitri is the antithetical or polar opposite of her husband. She embodies the characteristics of a dutiful and faithful wife. She is immersed in the traditions of Indian womanhood and exhibits qualities of loyalty, honesty and devotion to her husband. She suffers her husband’s wrath in meek silence and relegates her presence to her darkroom i.e., the kitchen. Even though she is beautiful, Ramani does not appreciate her. His reaction to her is devoid of any warmth and affection. On the contrary, he abuses and condemns her often. Even after 15 years of marriage and commitment, Ramani can only see flaws and errors in his wife’s service to him. Ramani is a bad husband and an even worse father. He frequently reprimands his children even on trivial matters. Being self-obsessed that he does not show any kind of love and care for his own flesh and blood. The Other Lady Soon the story gets a new character named Shanta Bai. She is a beautiful, middle- aged woman who has left her husband. She is an ambitious lady and starts work at Ramani’s company. She has loose morals and loves to flirt with men and make them fall for her beauty. Unable to fend off the advances and seductive ways of Shanta Bai, Ramani is transfixed by her beauty and machinations. He starts visiting her house and starts an adulterous and illegitimate affair. Savitri is told about the affair by a teacher named Gangu. She is heartbroken and devastated by the news of her husband’s infidelity. She decides to suffer the torment in silence. 40 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Instead of rebuking her husband she wallows in self-pity. She questions her own beauty and inability to give more children to Ramani. The Final Straw Savitri is still strong in her constitution and decides to win her husband back from the claws of her concubine. She prepares and dresses in order to seduce her husband and make him desire her as before. She is naïve in thinking that she can turn the clock back on their relationship and get back to the amorous passions of the first week of their marriage. Unfortunately, all her hope is ruthlessly crippled when she fails in her attempts. She gets angry and loses her calm when Ramani tries to touch her. All her deep-seated and repressed anger and anguish come out in the form of meltdown. Charged with emotions and pain, she leaves her husband’s house with the intention of ending her life. The River Savitri reaches the river and jumps into its fast currents. However, a blacksmith and burglar, is crossing the river at the same time. He sees and rescues her. She is saved by Mari’s bravery and sheer good luck. Savitri is overcome with guilt and pity and narrates her story to Mari and his wife. Ponni, Mari’s wife, entreats Savitri to come with them to their village and live a life devoted to the temple Gods. Savitri agrees. In the village, Savitri becomes a Hindu nun and starts working in the village temple. She hopes it is the start of an independent life away from the tyranny of her husband and married life. The Return However, soon Savitri finds herself broken by various inner conflicts. She is perturbed by the attitude of the temple priest who molests her and hates the fact a woman is working in a place dominated by male Brahmin priests. She also feels homesick. Her biggest worry, however, is her daughters whom she left at home. She becomes more restless by every passing day and finally succumbs to her grief and motherly sentiment. The inevitability of fate and the futility of her exile dawn on her and she decides to go back to her family and house. She returns to the same dark room that was her prison before. Nothing alters. Her husband gloats in the glory of what he considers his victory. He continues to be callous to her devotion and she continues to live a life of pain, shame, self-loathing and devoid of affection. The Dark Room: Key Thoughts 41 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

The tale of The Dark Room paints the ideal Indian wife-submissive, obedient, self-sacrificial and beautiful. The story depicts Savitri has the lacking courage to leave her husband and resigned to a life of pain and embarrassment. They sacrifice their personal destiny for the betterment of their husband and children. The present condition of women in India is not far from that of Narayan’s time. Even though there are more opportunities for women and girls, there are still millions who suffer in silence. They are victims of domestic abuse, intimidation, sexual harassment, physical violence and materialistic greed. 1.6LITERARY ELEMENTS R. K. Narayan is the novelist of an individual set in the milieu which is characteristic of an Indian middle-class family. There is wide range of individuals with distinct mindset, interacting with one another in the fictional world of Narayan and these interactions widespread along a well-defined range of time and space (generally Malgudi), provide essential fictional values to the narrative. M.K. Naik rightly points out that Narayan is 'the novelist of the individual man, just as Mulk Raj Anand is the novelist of social man and Raja Rao that of metaphysical man'. He further analyses the essentials of Narayan's fictional domain and says: The total fictional campus of R.K. Narayan, therefore, presents a panorama of men and women in different life roles, ranging from school boy indulging in his characteristic pranks in Swami and Friends to the old man about to renounce the world in The Vendor of Sweets. The protagonist of Narayan's novel is made to play his life role during the course which he or she either natures in the process, or rebels, or simply drifts or again is chastised or even destroyed by a characteristic inner weakness.The observation of Naik holds perfect relevance in connection with the theme and characters of almost all the novels of Narayan. It is another important observation that the characters and events which constitute the fabric of the novel, owe their origin to day-to-day experiences and occurrences of the middle-class of the locale. The Dark Room is a great example of the recreation of middle–class milieu with its agony and ecstasy fused into one structure. It has been discussed earlier that the Narayan is a novelist of individual and his novels are structured on the interactions between these individuals. The Dark Room is the novel about the family with Ramani, his wife Savitri and three children Babu, Kamala and Sumati. It has been stated earlier that the interaction among individual makes the prime preference of Narayan as a novelist. The Dark Room is also structured on the interactions between these characters. It is obvious that the human relation contributes quite significantly to the theme of the novel, which, in due course of the development of the narrative acquires new shades. The novel opens with a simple dispute between Ramani and Savitri caused by Babu's sudden dress: At schooltime Baboo suddenly fell ill and Savitri fussed over him and put him to bed. And in the bed, he stayed till Ramani come in and asked – ‘What is this? ‘The opening paragraph of the novels introduces us the 42 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

nature of action of the novel and the major participants of the whole drama. The introductory paragraph of the novel reminds us of the views of Ian Wall. He, commenting on the introductory paragraph of The Ambassador, says: that 'the function of an introductory paragraph in a novel is presumably to introduce'. It is important that the opening paragraph of The Dark Room, performs the task with great success. The opening paragraph introduces the three major characters Ramani, Savitri and Babu. The nature of interaction between the two principal characters foretells the nature of action during the whole narrative span of the novel. The nature of action revealed in the first paragraph of the novel is ratified again in the succeeding paragraph: I don't know when I shall have a little decent food to eat. I slave all day in the office for this mouthful. No lack of expenses money for this and no money for that. If the cook can't cook properly, do the work yourself. What have you to do better than that? Ramani’s outburst makes the dominance clear and Savitri's subordination to masculine authority sets the nodes and antinodes of the tension that shapes the fiction. Ramani is delineated with sudden unpredictable outburst, but Savitri endures the rage with convention submission of an Indian woman. As this was almost a daily routine, as regular as her husband's lecture. Savitri ceased to play attention to it and ate in silence. His thoughts reverted to Babu. The boy looked unwell and perhaps at that moment was very ill in his class how impotent she was, she thought: she had not the slightest power to do anything at home, and that after fifteen years of married life. It is quite ironical that Savitri's submission seeks apt revelation in a comment passed by her autocratic husband: After undressing and changing, Ramani came very quickly towards the dining hall and said to Savitri, ‘Hope you have finished your dinner’. ‘Not yet’. ‘What a dutiful wife! would rather starve than precede her husband. You are really like some of the women in our ancient books’. It is also remarkable that the harshness of Ramani is not confined to Savitri. Narayan delineates him with natural arrogance and short–temperedness. The event when Babu plays some mischief resulting into the power cut, is a fine instance of his attitude:When Babu returned from the Electric office, he found his father standing in the hall and shouting. As soon as he sighted Babu he asked, You blackguards, who asked you to temper with the electric lights? Babu stood stunned.The character of Babu demands attention at this point. He cuts special figure amidst the child characters of Narayan. Most of the children that are born of the pen of Narayan are limited to playful delineation withhumorous irony. Generally, the contempt for school is a common phenomenon in almost all the child characters of Narayan in his novels and short stories. These characters share their creator's contempt for school. Ramesh Srivastava rightly observes that 'his own childhood may easily be reconstructed from them'8. It is an undeniable observation that Babu's character in the narrative is not restricted to the enactment of playful irony, but he is delineated with will act and imitate. His visit to Electric office symbolizes his will and at the same time, it also puts forth a convincing testimony to this act in the future. The complication of the plot begins with a new appointment in Engladia Insurance company. The new employee, Shanti Bai contributes to the complication of the situation. There is ironical reversal of the situation. 43 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Ramani endures subordination to the new participant of the enactment of the whole action. Ramani fell that he had been snubbed, but presently he appreciated the candour and smartness which had released the snub. He smiled and replied brickly that he was grateful for timely warning, otherwise he would have wasted some money and time in going to Mangalore. The complication in the pre–existing set up is attributed to Shanta Bai, who is delineated with sharp wit and all worldly guts of snatching sympathy. Shanta Bai had a split marriage and then she did graduation from Madras and joined the office of Engladia Insurance Company. Shanta Bai replies with admirable candour when Ramani asks about the people around her. 'It is a difficult question', she replies, 'and it will take a lot of answering'. Besides candour, her extrovert behaviour in fetching the sympathy of a man is another very conspicuous aspect of her character: I passed my B.A. three years ago. Since then, I have been drifting about. I have had odd teaching jobs and I have also been companioning to a few rich children. On the whole it has been a very great struggle. It is all nonsense to say that women's salvation lies in education. It doesn't improve their lot a bit, it leaves them as badly unemployed as the men. Shanta Bai's guts and candour excites the passions of Ramani that works out the chaos and disorder in his family set up. She drives Ramani crazy and makes him oblivious of his duties towards his wife and children. She earns Ramani care that is due for Savitri. Narayan make use of Savitri's bench to illustrate the idea. It make the absence of the bench prominent through the words of Gangu. She asks ‘What has happened to the bench which used to be here all these days? You are lying on the floor’, asked Gangu and unwittingly started the very thoughts that Savitri had been at points to smother since morning. Ramani's growing fondness for Shanta Bai draws a close parallel with his growing indifference to Savitri and his children. He develops a habit to visit the office on his way back home from the club. 'It would be improper', he tells himself and passes on ‘,but the car had hardly run a few yards when he told himself that ought to inspect his office periodically at nights', whereas Rani on his 'unconventional' visits proclaims that she 'loves conventional things' otherwise 'she shouldn't be here but nursing children and cooking for a husband'. Ramani's growing endearment with Shanta Bai is paralleled with growing estrangement between Ramani and Savitri. He is never worried about his wife and children but his care for Shanta Bai grows up day by day. Ramani gets infatuated like a teenager and Shanta Bai's hypnotism works on him almost completely. ‘I suggest that we go round Race Course Road and then, if you don't mind, to the river. Have you seen it at night? ’Is it a very lovely night? ’Come and see it yourself’, he said. ‘You don't mind the trouble?’‘Don't ask ridiculous question’The conversation quoted above is a wonderful illustration of the infatuation of Ramani for Shanta Bai. On one hand he was incessantly growing indifferent for his wife and children, on the other hand, he was beginning to feel worried about Shanta Bai because even after one month, 'she exhibited no aptitude for canvassing work'15. This is the reason why K.V. Suryanarayana Murti likes 'Shanta Bai's Life to be a failure in identity'. He further elaborates:Married to an unscrupulous husband she rejects identity with him and escapes to 44 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Madras, studies up to B.A...., seeks a job and joins the Insurance Office of Ramani as Probationary Assistant. She fails to fulfil the insurance business and thrives on luring identity with crazy Ramani. But Ramani can hardly exempt her forever from doing her business, and failure forces her to leave Malgudi.Ramani's eccentricities and infatuation bring out the wreck of the family. Ramani's involvement with Shanta Bai reminds us of the view of Suryanarayana Murti that Narayan's 'characters are prisoners of their ego and ignorance and their actions are silly'. Ramani is delineated with pathetic irony that he gets infatuated after fifteen years of marriage. His visit to the movie is conveyed to Savitri by Gangu. The narrator confides: Gangu wept a little herself and said, clearing her throat: I won't hide anything from you. They didn't stay very long in the theatre. She said something and both of them went out at ten o' clock. The growing estrangement between Ramani and Savitri leads to revolt on the part of Savitri: ‘Don't touch me!’ she cried, moving away from him. ‘You are dirty, you are impure. Even if I burn my skin, I can't cleanse myself of the impurity of your touch’. He clenched his teeth and raised his hands. She said, ‘All right, strike me. I am not afraid’. He lowered his hands and said, ‘Woman, get away now’. Ramani's attitude reminds us of the views of M.K. Naik. He points out that Ramani is 'an utterly self-centred and self-indulgent man', and this attitude of Ramnai obliges revolt in Savitri that begins with escape from her monstrous husband.She walked all the way to the north end of the town and reached the river an hour later. Sarayu was flowing in the dark with subdued rambleSavitri's exile remind us of many mythological characters who suffered exile. Sita and Shakuntala are two leading female characters of Indian mythology that invite a close comparison with Savitri. It is, however, remarkable that Savitri is closer to Sita than Shakuntala. The use of Sita myth is an important aspect of the narrative. The concept of myth invites our attention. Princeton Encyclopaedia of Poetry and Poetics states: Myth may be defined as story, or a complex of story elements taken as expressing and therefore as implicitly symbolizing certain deep lying aspects of human and trans–human experience.Savitri, in this part of the narrative owes its meaning and experience to the leading female character of the Ramayana – Sita. Irony operates the use of myth. Savitri, like Sita is submissive and dedicated but unlike Sita, her exile is not an act of obedience to her husband, but it is a revolt against male domination. It is chiefly the reason why Narayan himself take Savitri to be 'an early testament of Woman's Lib. Movement'. Mari and Ponni reconstitute the identity of the sage, Valmiki which in the context acquires completeness in the temple. It is ironical that unlike Valmiki, Mari and Ponni are untouchables and cannot offer food to Savitri from their kitchen: Only fruits and coconut. I knew that you wouldn't like anything else cooked by me, so I have brought only fruits and coconut. Savitri’s exile in the temple is metaphorical to her quest for identity as a woman. She refuses the food offered by Ponni not because of her social status but because of consciousness for identity. Mari tells the vendor of fruit about her consciousness for identity: There is a mad woman in there who won't touch food unless she is given work. Hard enough for men to get work these days. The temple under the old man, makes the last station of 45 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Savitri's exile. The character of Valmiki has been split into Mari and old man. Mari as a thief is Valmiki's past whereas the old man of the temple is the present. Mathur observes that Savitri has more points of similarity with Sita, the heroine of the Ramayana. Savitri's stay at the temple accounts for the realization, which has been ratified through the recreation of the image of the dark room. The symbol of the river, Sarayu makes us identify Savitri with Sita, but the symbol of the temple and the dark room with stink of burning oil and smoke obliges realization on her part. There is cyclic recreation of the image of the dark room, which, in the first part of the novel is applied with much simpler meaning but now in the last phrase of the narrative it is used with deeper layers of irony. Savitri refuses mercy when Mari and his wife offers him food. She denies fear when she agrees to stay in the dark lonely shade:Charity! Charity! Savitri was appalled by the amount of it which threatened one. 'All right I will live in this', she said choosing the lesser charitySavitri's stay in the dark room, now excites nostalgia and home sickness. The rebel dies. The woman is reborn. Fear returned. 'A nostalgia for children, home and accustomed comforts seized her'. It is a master stroke of irony that all the emotions that she forcefully denies are fused into one: When she shut the door and put out the lights, how comforting the bed felt and how well one could sleep! Not this terrible state. And then the children, what a void they cheated! ‘I must see them: I must see Babu. I must see Sumati, and I must see Kamala. Oh...’ But what about the fiery views, and the coming out at midnight?The realization of Savitri makes D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu infer that the novel 'has, after all been kept ajar to the influx of undeceived self-vision'. Savitri returns Narayan celebrates the festivity of her return by recreating the symbols of dialogues between Ramani who doesn't question anything about his wife's absence in the house. The novel ends with a pathetic note on the Savitri's part which culminates the realization. It was 'one afternoon when she was lying on her carpet in the hall' and heard the loved call from a distance ‘Lock repaired sirs, umbrellas repaired’. Savitri's excitement draws a sharp contrast with her realization. She felt excited that she 'could give him food, water and a magnificent gift and inquire about her great friend Poony'. She almost called him, but she suddenly checked herself and let him pass. She felt 'unhappy' and felt that it was 'eman and unjust'30. K.V. Suryanarayana Murti opines that 'at once she realizes her helplessness and dependency in the house though she remains haunted by his cry'. Savitri's realization confirms the cyclic reversal of the situation that Savitri in the beginning of the novel is same as Savitri in the last page. The Dark Room, thus, is an important novel of R.K. Narayan from the point of view of the study of man–woman relation. Narayan explore the wide range of human relations through a love triangle, and a contrast offered by the rustic couple, Mori and Ponni. The novel begins with echoing reverberation of mate domination and ends with silent realization of it. 1.7SUMMARY 46 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

 The Dark Room (1938) presents a picture of domestic disharmony. Ramani, the office secretary of Engladia Insurance Company in Malgudi is very domineering and cynical in his ways. He governs his house according to his own sweet will. As he is always irritable, the atmosphere in his house is generally gloomy and his wife, Savitri, his children and servants are always remaining in a state of terror.  Savitri is a true symbol of traditional Indian womanhood. Savitri, whose place is in the dark room (kitchen), is a timid, silent suffering and sacrificing Indian wife. She is very beautiful and deeply devoted to her husband. Ramani, however, does not respond to her sentiments even with ordinary warmth. Through they have been married for fifteen years; his wife has received nothing from her husband but rebukes and abuses. Even his children get more rebukes from him than expressions of his fatherly love.  Soon there arrives at the scene a beautiful lady, Shanta Bai, who has deserted her husband and joined Engladia Insurance Company. Ramani succumbs to her beauty and coquettish ways. Ramani spends nights in Shanta Bai’s company. Savitri feels disturbed but she ‘decided that it would be better to suffer in silence than to venture question.’ When Gangu, the talkative forward wife a teacher tells her about Ramani’s infidelity, she sulks only in self-pity. ‘Perhaps I am old and ugly. How can I help it? I have borne children and slaved for the house.’ She pathetically prepares herself to win him back by reviving her charm. How pathetically she longs that he may come and ‘love her as boisterously as he loved her in the first week of their marriage.’  All her dreams are shattered. Her fury is implacable; ‘Don’t touch me! You are dirty, you are impure.’ Her anguish born of self-pity and impotent anger is heart rending: ‘I don’t possess anything in the world. What possession can a woman call her own except her body? Everything else that she has is her father’s, her husband’s or her son’s.’ Seeing no way of correcting her erring husband, Savitri revolts against him and in utter frustration and disgust, she leaves her husband’s house with an intention of committing suicide.  Savitri goes to the river and throws herself into it. The timely arrival of Mari, the blacksmith and burglar, who while crossing the river on his way to his village, sees her body floating on the river and at once rescues her, and saves her life. Mari’s wife Ponni on knowing her plight persuades her to come to their village. There Savitri embarks upon an independent living of her own by work in the temple.  As she cannot bear the querulous priest of the temple and as her own homesickness and tormenting anxiety for her children nag her, she becomes restless. She realizes the futility of her attempt to escape from her bonds with the temporal world and returns to her husband’s hateful home to sulk in the dark without much effect on Ramani.  In this respect, she may be contrasted with Gauri, the heroine in Anand’s The Old Woman and the Cow. Savitri has neither the courage nor the independence of spirit 47 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

that Gauri shows. Gauri leaves her husband’s house once and for all, adopts the profession of a nurse and never returns home. Ramani stands in sharp contrast to Krishna (the protagonist of Narayan’s The English Teacher) who is a self-sacrificing husband.  One of his least successful novels is The Dark Room (1938), which takes up, in schematic ways, the condition of women in the changing circumstances of modern India. In Narayan’s first two novels, women had been exempting from demanding citizenship in a harsh, discouraging world; they existed on the margins, in the kitchens and bedrooms and inner courtyards, where they were often a source of tenderness. In 1933, Narayan’s own marriage to a girl he saw drawing water from a roadside tap the horoscopes didn’t match, but Narayan overrode his parents’ objections gave him access to the lives of women, a whole new range of human experiences previously denied him by strict segregation. 1.8KEYWORDS  Existence: Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with physical or mental reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.  Anxiety: Intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations. Fast heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating and feeling tired may occur.  Alienation: The separation or estrangement of human beings from some essential aspect of their nature or from society, often resulting in feelings of powerlessness or helplessness.  Existential struggle: Most people experience anxiety, depression, and stress at some point in their lives. For many, these emotions are short-term and don’t interfere too much with their quality of life. But for others, negative emotions can lead to deep despair, causing them to question their place in life. This is known as an existential struggle.  Choice of freedom: Freedom of choice describes an individual's opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties.  Frustration:Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's will or goal and is likely to increase when a will or goal is denied or blocked. 1.9LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. What is the current day relevance of The Dark Room? 48 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

__________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ 2. What is shown as the major issue in The Dark Room? __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ 1.10UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. Justify the tittle The dark room. 2. How did Savitri react on learning about her husband's affair with a woman? 3. How did Savitri react? 4. What was the mistake of the husband? 5. What made the husband cheat on his wife? Long Questions 1. Analyses the theme of the novel the dark room by RK Narayan. 2. Discuss the role of fluorescence & phosphorescence in radiodiagnosis department. 3. Essay on recovery of Silver from used hyposolution. 4. Write character sketch of Savitri. 5. Discuss the life of R K Narayan. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Who is the author of The Dark Room? a. R K Narayan b. Swaminathan c. John Milton d. Ruskin Bond 2. What is the storyabout: The Dark Room’ (1938) was the first of Narayan's novels that I read and remains my favourite? a. A man experiencing the last joys of vision as he is rapidly going blind b. A woman sitting in a darkened room because her husband is having an affair 49 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

c. A young man undergoing a spiritual awakening while in jail d. A young woman locked in her room by her parents as she wants to attend university 3. What are the main themes of Narayan's fiction? a. Simple people with simple lives living in a changing world b. The main character's search for identity c. All of these d. Everyday village life in India 4. Which of the following books by R.K. Narayan is NOT a collection of short stories? a. Malgudi Days b. The Grandmother's Tale c. The World of Nagaraj d. Lawley Road 5. What is the name of Narayan's first novel? a. The Far Pavilions b. Swami and Friends c. The Dark Room d. The Bachelor of Arts Answers 1-c, 2-b, 3-c,4-c, 5-c. 1.11REFERENCES Reference Books  Biswall Jayant 1987 K. A Critical Study of the Novels of R. K. Narayan: The Malgudi Comedy, New Delhi: Nirmal Publishers and Distributers.  Naik MK. 2010 A History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademy.  Sharan Nagendra Nath. 1993. A Critical Study of the Novelsof R. K. Narayan. New Delhi: Classical Publishing Company. 50 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)