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185 Chapter – V: R.K. Narayan’s Vision of Life R.K. Narayan emerged as the seco

185 Chapter – V: R.K. Narayan’s Vision of Life R.K. Narayan emerged as the second man in the illustrious trio (Mulk Raj Anand R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao) of Indian novelist writing in English. He managed to retain his sole identity as a professional writer till the end of his life. One cannot phrase his work as either plentiful of output or a reflection of the author's contentment. It is this feature that places Narayan among the greatest story tellers of modern Indian English. He has the most intimate knowledge of the life of Indian middle class family. His memorable characters are all middle class people. Upper class characters and characters belonging to the lowest sections of society being outside his ranges are seldom introduced, successfully his works. The most important feature of Narayan's writings is perhaps his commitment towards his imagined town Malugudi, he created for his series of novels. In his novels, Narayan has taken up social problems of day to day life. He has tried to solve the problem through the intellect of characters. Protagonists in the work of art, be it any genre are the A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 186 spokesman of the creative artist. It is through him that they are directed to move and act accordingly. It is the creative artist who creates situations and under the given situations they act. Thus the characters male and female becomes the brain children of the author. Their thoughts and actions determines the attitudes or outlook of author towards life. The main object of this chapter is to show to what extent the protagonists in the novels of R.K. Narayan embody his vision of life. K.R.S. Iyenger remarks: "He is the rare thing in India today, a man of letters prime and simple."1 Experience and expression are two very significant phenomena in the life of a creative artist. One is incomplete without the other. A work of art or literature is an expression of writer’s understanding of. life. Dispositions of a writer are best reflected in the characters created They become spokesman of the author’s view of life and embody his vision of life. In fact, the criticism of life and writer’s approach are co-related to each other. The writer has a certain mission or object of his writings. He is simply concerned about the basic problems of life and the universe. Then he starts formulating his own principles or system of thought which may be called the vision of life. R.K. Narayan is no 1 K.R.S. Iyenger, Srinivas, Indian writing in English (Sterling Publication Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1985), P. 358 A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 187 exception. He too embodies his own outlook through his protagonists in his works. He too has his own approach and attitude to life. In all the works of literature, we find that author makes an attempt to fight against the process of dehumanization and he attempts to assert humanness. It is, in fact, unending search for identity which is going on from time immemorial and still continues. Like everyone else ,a writer is interlinked with his world and he ought to have meaningful relationship with the world his writings belong to. R.K. Narayan successfully deals with women characters as he does with male protagonists. They are fully drawn and developing characters. The author has tried to probe into the mind of his characters. He has portrayed in them what he has felt about. He presents their feelings and emotions and thought and ideas. He is more interested in the inner conflicts of their life. It is in relationship with the male protagonists that female one can be better understood and this is what we find in his novels throughout. Although Narayan is not a teacher or preacher yet the central problem in his novels is the problem of living a meaningful life. The novelist presents the problems realistically in the background of a traditional patriarchal system of society. Like other writers, R.K. Narayan also has written on issues like love and marriage. As for love, A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 188 it is the very basis of life that sweetens the relationship between the two sexes and makes life happy and meaningful. It is a natural human passion that acts as a bond between man and woman. In the novels of R.K. Narayan we find marriage without love or love without marriage. There can be no love without personal emotions. Love always aspires for higher ideals which is different to obtain and more difficult to maintain. Love is different from sex. It is not necessary for survival but gives a distinct meaning to life. There are certain usual feminine tendencies in his women .He has recorded usual feminine vices and virtues. We find, the qualities of love, sacrifice and faithfulness, and courage. In the world of R.K. Narayan, there is a supremacy of man over women. They don’t rise above man leaving a few and ultimately they accept defeat under pressure despite they struggle hard till to the end. They love living through struggle and suffering but in the end admit defeat.They endure all the sufferings coming in their ways. They face life by accepting it and not by denying it. R.K.Narayan’s philosophy is based on acceptance of life and not on denial of life. He signifies positive and affirmative strength. He is not pessimistic in his vision. He hopes for a brighter future though, he does not necessarily provide solution to the problems. A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 189 The novelist is presented with consummate knowledge of human nature. His protagonists have a wide and varied experience of life both tragic and comic. They are ordinary real human being with their weaknesses and strength. They embody the author’s vision of life as this is a struggle and in this struggle defeat or victory does not matter. What matters most is the struggle that is faced. Life is neither a tragedy nor a comedy. It is a blend of tragic-comedy. It is this realistic perception of life that gets manifested in his novels through his characters. Through the panorama of Malgudi novels Narayan faithfully exhibits the vision of life, values, norms and rituals which have been in existence and still continue to play a major role in shaping the lives of Indian society. He has undergone a considerable change under the influence of western materialistic civilization, the changes have been vividly noticed amongst the people. According to O.P. Mathur: Narayan does assert the validity of traditional Indian values but the wind from the next has changed much of the panorama.”2 There are few doubts that R.K. Narayan was the most famous Indian writer in English of the pre-Rushdie era. Due to the extreme readability of his fiction, Western critics have had a kind of preference for his novels, Myth, social implications and political events do make 2 Mathu, O.P. The West Wind Blows through Malgudi. (Indian Journal of English Studies 19 1979), 125-34. A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 190 part of the pattern of his writing but they always remain confined to the sub-text of the literary work. The Sahitya Academi award-winning novel ‘The Guide’ forms an important basis for a study from this peculiar perspective in the fiction of the South Indian writer. Rightly considered as one of Narayan's masterpieces, the novel is characterised by a very complex and elaborate plot, a great experiment in the technique of writing. The whole story, in fact, is the account of a combining of two tales which cross each other, mix and blend leaving the reader with a feeling of harmonious completeness and coherence The former is the report of an impersonal omniscient narrator in the third person in the historical present, whereas the latter directly draws back from the protagonist's confessions to Velan, who automatically plays the role of the implied reader. The female protagonist incarnates the typical role of the alluring man; she communicates through an instinctive body-language and that, let alone her professional career, makes her irresistible to Raju's eyes, I was only conscious of her movements, the guide has to admit. On the other hand, Marco is an archaeologist as fond of his research projects as insensitive and detached from his pretty wife's graces. "If a man has to A Portrayal of Women Characters in R.K. Narayan’s Novels: A Critical Study 191 have peace of mind it is best that he forgets the fair sex,"3 he states to the very puzzled narrator. As a matter of fact, he is not a real negative character: He was a good man remembers Raju. Another possible explanation of the reader's poor consideration for Marco is that his refusal for dance is equivalent to a refusal for life, hence also his classification as 'dry' in uploads/Management/ enga-sem-ii-guide-article-1-srijita.pdf