Three Indian Novels

This study will examine three Indian novels in order to understand them as tragedies or comedies. The three novels are Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, and The Guide and The Financial Expert, by R.K. Narayan. The study will argue that Mukherjee's novel is far more the tragedy than either of Narayan's books, the latter qualifying as far more comic. This argument does not mean there are not comic elements in Mukherjee or tragic elements in Narayan, for there certainly are.

For the purposes of this study, tragedy will be understood as a serious story focusing on an individual who faces internal and/or external forces which work to defeat or destroy him or her. The tragic hero is not necessarily actually defeated or destroyed, but the suffering of his or her experience brings him or her to some significant awakening about himself or herself, or the world. This definition applies to Mukherjee's protagonist.

Comedy, on the other hand, deals with the same basic materials of life as tragedy, but the protagonist's attitudes toward and responses to those materials are entirely different, as is the impact on the reader. In comedy there is the sense that life is the way it is and there is not much one can do about it, after all, and not that much to learn, but at least one can relax now and again and have a good laugh at the absurdity of life. The only real tragedy in the comic realm is when the individual takes himself or life too seriously and expects life to be different than it

Related Essays

3 Indian novels This study will examine three Indian novels in order to understand them as tragedies or comedies. The three novels are Jasmine, by .... (1758 7 )

Novels Reflection of How Society Views Women .... women can be discerned in the novels The End .... culture that isolates this West Indian woman and .... All three novels take place in highly stratified societies that .... (1937 8 )

James Cooper .... the author of more than eighteen novels, including the .... After the Huron Indian fled, Hawkeye and his .... and Gamut were captured, but their three protectors escaped .... (1731 7 )

Indian Wars & Battle of Wounded Knee .... from the popular culture itself, particularly from the dime novels of the .... action at Wounded Knee, the bodies of an Indian woman and three children were .... (10951 44 )

The Last of the Mohicans .... In this and other novels in the series, Cooper .... Several different Indian tribes are included in the story of The .... 33 substantial works of fiction, three books of .... (1938 8 )

cern expressed in the final line of the novel when the protagonist says he wants to play with the child: "Life has been too dull without him in the house" (Narayan Financial 218). Whereas Jasmine is concerned with suffering and death---the stuff of tragedy---Margayya and Raju are concerned with boredom, with interest (financial interest), with disguises and pretense. Although it can be argued that Narayan's heroes do have some measure of awakening, it can also be argued that their awakening does not begin to approach that of Jasmine in its solemn tragedy. The roles of dharma and karma are important in all three Indian novels. The doctrine of karma is the moral law of cause and effect. This law makes the individual responsible for his condition and destiny, and makes the effect of every action inevitable. Dharma refers to the path the individual follows in accordance with his own character. In all three novels the significance and relationship of these two notions is clear. In all three novels the protagonists are both free and limited by kismet or fate. After all, for karma or dharma to mean anything in a moral sense, the individual cannot be entirely captive to either the law of cause and effect or the limitations of his char

Category: Literature - T