CHAPTER - 6

CONCLUSION
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CHAPTER – 6
CONCLUSION

The final chapter of the research work is an attempt to summarize socio-

cultural perspectives in the selected novels of R.K. Narayan in light of his
contribution to sensitizing the elite Indian society to the sufferings of the low caste
poor masses caused by inhuman but ingrained religious, and social institutes in our
tradition bound country which are presented with social reality. R.K. Narayan is the
novelist of the people and for the people, which is why his fiction deals with different
aspects of social concerns.

Narayan probes deep into the various facts and facets of human life through
his galaxy of characters- it is a specific study of his social ethos which has been
betrayed by the evil design of society. His novels summed up with so many facts as
this master of literature has dynamic command over language, which he has used in
minute observation of society and culture. His presentation of the realistic picture of
the society reveals the social background with the eye of social reformer.

The final fact derived from this study is the conclusion that these selected
novels of R.K. Narayan highlighted by the shade of different colours of life but
social-cultural perspective has kept at the central position. These fictions are the real
description of Indian masses. Narayan is the true representative of his age and had a
definite social purpose in writing his novels. His works reveal that he is not merely
great observer but penetrating commentator on life.

Thus, on the basis of the consideration of R.K. Narayan’s selected novels in

the preceding chapters, it has pointed out that Narayan is a pure artist, an unidentified
social reformer who is keenly aware of the absurdities and eccentricities of society.
Remaining a pure artist at the core of his heart and observing life as it is known to
him, he interprets Indian life aesthetically and with unprejudiced objectivity. Writing
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fiction over fifty years Narayan has earned a great reputation, if not a great deal of
critical attention outside his own country. Some of the well known foreign writers
recognize his worth and hold him in high esteem for his professional skill and perfect
sense of dedication. His distinctive individuality has been admired by E.M. Forster.
Graham Greene became his champion in England.

Narayan’s close friend and a curious reader of his novels, Greene himself is
an established British novelist. He has high praise for the Malgudi novels. He says,
“Whom next shall I meet in Malgudi? That is the thought that comes to me when I
closed a novel of Mr. Narayan’s.”1John Updike, a famous American novelist has
presented an elegant and incisive review of Narayan’s autobiography My Days. He
finds the extremely popular Indian novelist absolutely immersed in his material.
William Walsh a widely known Critic of commonwealth Literature weighs and
evaluates R.K. Narayan’s works and discusses his place in the Indian novel in
English.

Though R.K. Narayan is much appreciated by his contemporaries, the multi-

dimensional nature of his vision is not yet fully apprehended. This is, in fact, the test
of a great artist. The present study is a fresh attempt to comprehend the socio-cultural
outlook in his novels and also to assess Narayan’s achievement as a social realist
artist. Socio-cultural broadly means signifying the combination or interaction of
social and cultural elements. It also refers to the idea that language, rather than
existing in an isolation that is closely linked to the culture and society in which it is
used.

The study reveals that almost all the novels of Narayan explore various
customs, traditions that shape the life of the society. His novels throw light on the
Indian culture and tradition. Narayan’s strength lies in his depiction of basic human
themes, essentially in the context of the social situations. He aims to present not the
working class but concentrates on the middle class people in the contemporary Indian
society. His characters who are common human beings of middle class society reach
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perfection through the illumination of their inner being and here lies Narayan’s
greatness as a novelist choosing the ordinary material and making it a piece of
perfection. William Walsh favours him with a sympathetic evaluation, “… a writer of
character and maturity.”2 He has won a great acclaim in so many genres for a long
period. His writing spans the greatest period of change in modern Indian history.

In this way, he is traditional, seldom affected by Western modes and ideas in

fiction. That is why his novels can be read by the entire sundry, having no distinction
of age and outlook. They provide a flash of hope to those who are bewildered by the
pangs of sorrow in their lives and direct them to live without anxiety. But there is a
restriction regarding the balance of mind without which the predicament of life
cannot be eliminated.

Narayan has created a special place as a writer of Indian writing in English.

The genre–novel is quite new and undeveloped up to the time of Narayan but
Narayan has contributed a lot in the development and nourishment of Indian English
Literature. From the time of Indo-Anglian literature, Indian novel flourished in its
fullest at the time of Narayan and his contemporaries. The work has provided a brief
history of Indian writing in English. The brief history itself indicates that the Indian
creative writing flourished in the hands of Narayan and his contemporaries. In India,
the form of literature - novel was new but Indian writers in English as well as in
regional languages writers have accepted it very easily.

The purpose of this research has been obviously achieved with a noticeable
tendency that Narayan emphasizes in the portrayal of social life in India. A class
struggle is not the only reality; Narayan’s social novels transcend this ideological
boundary and present the real picture of society and culture encompassing the broader
humanity. Through his chapters he enlivens the contemporary Indian life. Narayan’s
continual exploration in regard to the relation between India’s classical past and his
contemporary society remains a dominant aspect of his form of fiction. He is a
perceptive interpreter of the contemporary Indian society which has repeatedly faced
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the onslaughts of Western culture making deep in cards in the life of the common
man. He does not step beyond a set of moral and cultural values which have remained
India’s legacy from time immemorial. He portrays man objectively in relation to
society without making him a mouth-piece of any preconceived ideology.

Narayan thus, deals with various aspects of social reality. He is sure of

himself while dealing with the innocent world of children and the youth as he is with
the complex world of adult experience, as expressed in the earlier chapters. In spite of
the generation gap, his characters are bound to one another with strong family ties.
Narayan is equally interested in human relations beyond family. In his expansive
world, village folk find place along with the city people. His tradition bound Malgudi
world also records his consciousness of the contemporary political tensions. Narayan,
thus, presents a panoramic view of the Indian life. V. Panduranga Rao also confers
well – deserved praise on Narayan as a writer of great commitment:

Narayan is a writer with full commitment to…

spiritual values and ideas, with which Indians
are normally familiar. Narayan’s vision is
essentially moral, for the problems he sets
himself to resolve in his novels is largely
ethical. This is not to underplay the comic
irony of an artist much admired in the West:
on the contrary, it is his comic vitality that
humanizes Narayan’s grand vision. The elusive
charm of his success is the direct result of a
rare combination of comic sense and religious
sensibility.3

Narayan reflects a mirror of Indian society and culture in his literary works.
He owes a great concern to Hindu philosophy of life. His novels and short stories
emulate almost all the elements of Indian culture in their contrary form on different
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issues - rituals and beliefs, belief in stars and fate, respect to godly men, religion,
Indian philosophy, myths and magic, superstitions, marital system, art and literature,
etc. The work depicts the different cultural aspects such as traditions, customs,
religious beliefs, conflict between Indian and foreign cultures, issues of caste, inter-
caste and inter-religion marriages, mythical structure etc.

This research study investigates the intense social awareness of the Indian
society not only of his age but also of the ancient India. The present work is an
attempt to examine the general characteristics of Narayan’s fiction, including his
realistic rendering of day today life, the importance of family relationships and the
role of caste system in India. The research also highlights the social elements in his
writings such as social status, roles, social networks, the symbols, values, material
artifacts and rules of behavior that a society or group collectively creates and uses.
His narratives provide a feel of his characters through everyday life.

The study probes the intricacies of society, clash of cultures, specifically the
clash of Indian and Western cultures. Details about everyday Indian life and his
warmth and sympathy towards his characters create stories that are universal. The
work delves into the social problem of poverty, greed, marriage and sex. In some of
his novels, Narayan highlights the problems with certain socially accepted practices.
His writings often bring out the anomalies in social structures and views. An effort
has been done to look with fresh perspectives at Indian traditions and mythology, post
colonial issues in India, industrialism, caste and deep rooted traditions depicted in his
novels.

The research displays a mirror of Indian society and culture from past to
present. The study presents the contemporary society and culture of Narayan’s India
and how it gives a universal appeal to his work. This is what keeps Narayan alive
even today and how a study of his novels finds relevance even in the present.

The study analyzes some of the classical principles which make classical
myths what they are: the inevitable triumph of good and the destruction of evil, the
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laws of Karma, the time scheme of gods and specific stylized role of gods, demons
and sages. The research also focuses on some of Narayan’s basic themes - family-
relationship and feminine sensibility, myth and reality, the theme of renunciation,
tradition and modernity etc. Narayan follows some social concerns which are also
highlighted in this study- the position of a Hindu wife, his understanding of middle
class people, beliefs and superstitions, the role of Hindu society, hypocrisy, man-
woman relationships, treatment of love and marriage etc. all are aimed to add a new
element by perceiving his novels with a socio-cultural angle.

The work also depicts how Narayan uses language and technique in his novels
to mirror the microcosmic India between tradition and change. Narayan exhibits his
interest in the different modes of the point of view to suit the stuff in his novels. He
uses some major fictional techniques like time-design, plot construction, and method
of characterization etc. in his novels.

The study would remain incomplete unless we compare Narayan to some

other writers. Narayan’s novels resemble the novels of character as written by
Dickens, Smollett, Thackeray and Henry Fielding. In the similar manner of their
works, Narayan’s characters too are not conceived as parts of the plot, they exist
independently and the action is subservient to them. The part of ‘structure’ is too
loose and rambling like that of picaresque novels of character. However, the
Narayan’s ‘Picaro’- Sampath, Vasu and Margayya hardly travel wide and breathe in
space of a single town.

Nevertheless the characters of Narayan are unchanging and static; they are the
creatures of flesh and blood. Like Thackeray’s characters, he can also say “I know the
people utterly… I know the sound of their voices.”4 He drew the characters both as
individuals and types. Strictly speaking, he portrayed the species in terms of the
individual. Natraj is a typical printer, Margayya is a typical financial wizard and
Daisy is an enthusiastic activist for the cause of family planning, still they are fully
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individualized characters with their own idiosyncrasies, entirely different from the
other persons of their class.

Like R.K. Narayan some of the contemporary Indian women writer’s

Nayantara Sahgal, Kamala Markandaya, Shobha De, and Sashi Despande who
express their feministic articulation bringing to the fore an extremely pertinent
question of women’s equality with their male counterpart. Some of the Western
writers like Dorris Lessing, Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison who have used and
interpreted different shades of feminism in his writings as Narayan has expressed in
his novels. The quintessential in a woman is her motherhood; this kind of essence has
been capsulated in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Kamala Markandaya. They
expose the inherent woes of womanhood in their distinct style and techniques. We
also find dutiful wives which have not been imparted formal education in the novels
of Virginia Woolf. A woman is exploited by man as though, it was their birth right.
Virginia Woolf and Kamala Markandaya have evocatively delineated women
simultaneously from the plan of orthodoxy to the changing Modern trends in
contemporary society as Narayan expressed Savitri in in The Dark Room and
Margayya in The Financial Expert.

Another outstanding woman novelist is Ruth Prawar Jhabvala whose six novel
deals with the middle class family as Narayan articulates his concern about the
middle class society in his novels. Jhabvala is mainly concerned with the family life,
the personal relationship and the social problems. She maintains a sympathetic but
ironic tone, seeing Indian social problems objectively and coolly. She observes the
metropolitan variegated life in Delhi in her novels, To Whom She Will and The
Nature of Passion, with objectivity as Narayan discussed in his novels.

Some other women writers are Nina Sibal, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, etc.
All of them have advocated feminism that Narayan pointed most in his novels and
have created space for their own articulation of the female angst intensified by their
femininity.
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R.K. Narayan is considered to be the most authentic ‘stylist’ of Indian writers

as he presents the people as they are without any personal bias. Thus he is often
compared to Anton Chekov and Jane Austen. Just like Chekov, he too addresses the
reader in his own person as a dispassionate observer. His prime motto is to present a
scene formed in his mind very convincingly. He takes utmost care in not touching the
issues such as social, economical and political. He does not uphold nor denounce any
cause. His writings are away from ideological prejudices. With his own temperament,
he holds himself aloof, not as an actor but as a spectator sympathizing but not sharing
in the interests of the world around him. He does hold mirror up to nature like
William Shakespeare and does not give distorted version. Moreover, the middle class
family life in a South Indian ambience has remained a common ingredient in all his
writings.

As Narayan depicted in his novels there is also a comprehensive portrayal of

man-woman relationship in Manohar Malgonkar’s novels. Malgonkar’s speaks of
what it was in the medieval period in India, and how it extended to the modem times
without much change. He describes how superstitions and infidelity affected conjugal
relationships. As a novelist with a keen observation of life, he analyses the reasons
for happy and unhappy marital lives. With the keen insight of a psychologist, he
portrays pre-marital and extra-marital relationships, and shows sex as the primary
instinct in man-woman relationships. Like Narayan he portrays the frivolous attitude
of man who casts away women like worn-out shoes in the presence of new ones. He
shows that man is not able to fathom the mysteries of the feminine mind. He wants
man not to consider woman merely as a means for the release of his sexual energy.

Finally the study concludes that socio-cultural element is the foremost and
chief essence in Narayan’s novels. Narayan’s work is a fascinating study of social &
cultural layers of human consciousness. He has shown his involvement for the
betterment of society, particularly the downtrodden, suppressed untouchables and all
the sufferers at the hand of the social design. For the exploration of such society,
Narayan has presented social concern in his novels.
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Thus, there is no doubt that social – cultural frame is the principal layer in the
major novels of Narayan. He is truly the social reformer as well as minute observer of
Indian culture, at the same time I cannot forget to mention his other aspects which I
have found in the process of my research work. These include Narayan as a great
visionary of life, novelist of human being, master of literary crafts, ideal in
philosophy, religiously humanist, performer as socialist, realist in narration and tried
to remove the tears of poor by presenting his passionate echo against existing evils in
society.
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REFERENCES:
1. Greene, Graham. Introduction to The Financial Expert. Mysore: Indian
Thought Publications, 1988. p. VIII.
2. Walsh, William. The Novels of R.K. Narayan: A Human Idiom, London:
Chatto And Windus, 1964. p. 128.
3. Rao, V. Panduranga. The Art of R.K. Narayan. The Journal of Common
Wealth Literature, July, 1968. No. 5. p. 29.
4. The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. New York and London:
Biographical Edition, 1899, X11. p. 370.