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www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 women in society. It symbolically suggests that true marriage is not based on illusions and phantasies. It does not work like the mechanical manipulation of the dolls. True marriage will depend upon the perfect understanding between the couple by each respecting the individuality of the other. Emancipation of Nora is a trumpet call for the women of the day to raise banner of revolt to press for their lost rights. Works Cited: Ibesn, Henrik: A Doll’s House, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1961. Hudson, W.H: An Introduction to the Study of Literature India; Ajit Printers, 1998. Gassner, John: Ed. Ideas in the Drama New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1964. Shaw,G.B: Major Critical Essays London: Constable & Company, 1932. Chandler, Frank: Aspects of Modern Drama Delhi: The Macmillan Company, 1939. Vol. II. Issue. III 104 September 2011
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 R.K. Narayan’s The Guide : A Socio-Economic Discourse Leena Sarkar The article examines the socio-economic problem of the novel The Guide by R.K.Narayan. The characters are situated against the backdrop of Post-Independence economic theories of India and analysed in the light of those theories. There is also a discussion of the impact of westernization and modernization and how the new culture, new ideologies, new trends, gradually transform the idyllic mindset of the protagonist, Raju. The article tries to extol human relationship, one of the essential characteristics of the novels of R.K.Narayan. Since the article deals with socio-economic discourse, it, therefore, critically analyses the text and the characters against the background of societal changes. The Guide which won for Narayan huge accolades shows the novelist’s skill in placing the orient into focus for occidental eyes. In this novel Narayan depicts a comprehensive picture of human activities, the comic and the tragic, the silly and the serious, the ridiculous and the sublime. Here we witness the spectacular representations of an ordinary man who eventually becomes a Mahatma as he begins to identify himself with the world and takes the terrible decision of sacrificing his life for a noble cause. K.R.S. Iyengar rightly holds the view: Speaking generally, Narayan’s is the art of resolved limitation and conscientious exploration; he is content, like Jane Austen, with a ‘little bit of ivory’, just so many inches wide: he would like to be a detached observer, to concentrate on a narrow scene, to sense the atmosphere of the place, to snap a small group of characters in their oddities and angularities: he would, if he could, explore the inner countries of the mind, heart and soul, catch the uniqueness in the ordinary, the tragic in the prosaic.(360) So a critical study of this novel gives a complete vision of free India with all its varied economic, social and spiritual problems. Narayan’s novels represent a section of Indian society where life is steeped in middleclass consciousness. His characters portray certain characteristic features - either they are docile, timid, adhering to traditional values and pacifist by nature or they appreciate vulnerability, violence and excessive greed for money. In this context we can expound the fact that Narayan studies economic problem minutely and exquisitely and thereby frames several economic groups. While Marco and Rosie represent the well-to-do class, Gaffur and Joseph denote the low wage earner. In the character of Sait, the money-lender, we find a wealthy person one who amasses and hoards wealth thriving upon the troubles of other persons. Then there are the rich lawyers, who make huge amount of money at the expense of the clients. This class is shown through the character of the star lawyer of Raju in the case instituted by Marco against him. Further, the whole episode in which Raju is taken to be the saint is set on the axis of economic life. In the words of Prof. Krishna Sen, At first sight, the world of The Guide seems to be structured along simple binaries- Malgudi and Mangal, the town and the village, urban sophistication versus rural simplicity, modernity versus tradition, and cynicism versus faith. On closer inspection, each of these components reveals itself to be highly problematic, full of hybridities, fissures and contradictions. As with the binary that Shakespeare created in As You Like It, settings off the court against the Forest of Arden, but with positive and negative elements existing within each ideological space so here too Malgudi and Mangal stand for cultural locations that appear to be simple only from a distant view. (17) At the beginning of the novel we observe a clash between the ideologies of the father and son. Raju wants to study in a fashionable school whereas his father thrusts him to a pyol Vol. II. Issue. III 105 September 2011
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