NAME : Mahida Bhumika Prakashbhai
M A Sem - 3
ROLL NUMBER : 4
ENROLLMENT NUMBER :3069206420200021
SUBJECT : Paper 201 Indian English Literature (Pre-Independence)
ASSIGNMENT TOPIC : An astrologer's day as a descriptive story
About the author, R. K. Narayan
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan (1906 - 2002) is one of the
best - known of Indian English writers. He was born and brought up in
Madras. He began by contributing items to a city newspaper. When
Punch accepted one of his pieces, he embarked in earnest on his
career as a novelist and a short story writer. His writings portray the
Indian ethos with remarkable simplicity and humor. He created the
fictional world of Malgudi. A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award
(1960) and the Padma Vibhushan (2000), he was nominated for a
term in the Rajya Sabha. His novel, The Guide (1958), has been made
into a popular film. Narayan also wrote essays, both personal and
general, an autobiography, a travelogue and retold Indian epics and myths .
In addition to his fifteen novels, Narayan has written more than two
hundred short stories. He is a prolific writer whose works usually
culminate in an ironic twist. He declared, "Only the story matters that
are all … if a story is in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I
perceive it, then it will be automatically significant."
An Astrologer's Day" is a story about a man who runs away from
his home and pretends to be an astrologer after imagining that he has
committed a murder. In a strange situation, an ironic twist of fate, he
runs into the very man he thought he had killed.
Objectives
Friends, in this chapter we are going to study Short Story as a
form of Indian English Literature through the short story, 'An
Astrologer's Day' by R. K. Narayan,. The study of this chapter will
enable you to :
· Discuss short story as a form of literature.
· Narrate R. K. Narayan as a short story writer.
· Explain the style and various techniques used in the story under
discussion.
Introduction
Friends, in the last chapter, we have studied one of the great
classic novels of Indian English Literature, i.e. Kanthapura written by
one of the big three early novelists of Indian English Literature, i.e.,
Raja Rao. The novel describes the simple rustic life of a South Indian
village, Kanthapura which undergoes a sea change when the
whirlwind of Gandhian freedom struggle reaches Kanthapura and the
village enthusiastically participates in the movement.
In the present chapter, we are moving from the novel to a short story,
'An Astrologer's Day' by R. K. Narayan. The story deals with a day's
events in the life of a good for nothing fellow turned into an astrologer
to earn his bread and butter. A single day brings in his drastic past
back before him but being a smart fellow, he finely deals with it.
Short Story as a form
The traditional notions associated with the short story such as
design, continuity, effect, change etc are essential ingredients of a
short story. Even without the formal narrative parameters, a story can
be exciting and evocative. Due to new fissures and new frictions, new
expectations and new equations at every level, personal, family, state,
national, international, the modern short story has traversed new
grounds both in content and form. A short story is a voyage of
discovery, of self - discovery, of self - realization for the character but
more than the character, for the reader.
A short story has to have a formal plot or structure and the skill of
the author lies in making it appear as natural, as lifelike, and as
spontaneous as possible. The artist wants to make incidents or
situations appear natural rather than contrived. A well thought out plot is one in which nothing is superfluous or superficial. A story has to
have a beginning and should convey a constant sense of movement.
Therefore, an ideal structure would make the story interesting and true
to life as also build up suspense and arouse the reader's curiosity to
know what happens next or how the situation gets resolved at the end.
It should also give meaning to the narrative. A good short story should strive for a unity of effect - a "single
effect". That is, a story should be compressed and economical the way
a poem is, free from digressions and irrelevancies and marked by its
intensity. It should be complete in itself and must have unity and
wholeness. A story is meant to be read at one sitting; a novel may take
days to read. So the story's effect must be sudden, powerful and
revealing whereas a novel can involve readers at a more leisurely
pace, slowly illuminating complexities and nuances.
Stories also convey psychological reality. Much of what happens
in the modern story happens in the character's minds and in the
interior world. Therefore, in attempting to reveal the drama of human
consciousness, many modern writers have stopped stressing the
orderly progression of plots, have played down external action, and
have often abandoned photographic realism in favor of a more
complex psychological realism.
In a short story, there is nothing to follow, nothing to look forward
to. The end of the short story is the end. It is marked by a sense of
finality, of definiteness, of tautness from beginning to end. It is self -
contained. Its compression induces a feeling of expanding into life, an
awareness of life expanding into our consciousness, enlarging our
consciousness. In this sense a short story imparts the sense of a
discovery.
R. K. Narayan as a short story writer
R. K. Narayan is one of the three leading figures of early Indian
literature in English, along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. He is
credited with bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the
world and is regarded as one of the India's greatest Indian English
novelists. The setting for most of Narayan's stories is the fictional town
of Malgudi, first introduced in Swami and Friends. His narratives
highlight social context and provide a feel for his characters through everyday life. He has been compared to William Faulkner, who also
created a fictional town that stood for reality, brought out the humor
and energy of ordinary life and displayed compassionate humanism in
his writing. Narayan's short story writing style has been compared to
that of Guy de Maupassant as they both have an ability to compress
the narrative without losing out on elements of the story. With this
book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that creatively reproduced the
social sphere of the country; while it ignored the limits imposed by
colonial rule. Malgudi also grew with the various socio-political
changes of British and post-independence India.
He also published two collections of short stories: Malgudi Days
(1982), a revised edition including the original book and some other
stories and Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories, a new
collection. Narayan's writing style was simple and unpretentious with
a natural element of humor about it. It focused on ordinary people,
reminding the reader of next-door neighbors, cousins and thereby
providing a greater ability to relate to the topic. Unlike his national
contemporaries, he was able to write about the intricacies of Indian
society without having to modify his characteristic simplicity to
conform to trends and fashions in fiction writing. He also employed the
use of nuanced dialogic prose with gentle Tamil overtones based on
the nature of his characters. Critics have considered Narayan to be
the Indian Chekhov, due to the similarities in their writings, the
simplicity and the gentle beauty and humor in tragic situations. Greene
considered Narayan to be more similar to Chekhov than any Indian
writer.
According to Pulitzer Prize winner, Jhumpa Lahiri, Narayan's short
stories have the same captivating feeling as his novels, with most of
them less than ten pages long, and taking about as many minutes to
read. She adds that between the title sentence and the end, Narayan
provides the reader something novelists struggle to achieve in
hundreds more pages: a complete insight to the lives of his
characters. These characteristics and abilities led Lahiri to classify him
as belonging to the pantheon of short-story geniuses that include O.
Henry, Frank O'Connor and Flannery O'Connor. Lahiri also compares
him to Guy de Maupassant for their ability to compress the narrative
without losing the story and the common themes of middle-class life
written with an unyielding and unpitying vision.
Narayan's writing style was often compared to that of William
Faulkner since both their works brought out the humor and energy of
ordinary life while displaying compassionate humanism. The
similarities also extended to their juxtaposing of the demands of
society against the confusions of individuality. Although their approach
to subjects was similar, their methods were different; Faulkner was
rhetorical and illustrated his points with immense prose while Narayan
was very simple and realistic, capturing the elements all the same.
There are some critics who find fault with Narayan for the ending of his
stories in an unconvincing way. Just like O'Henry, he ends some of his
stories with a 'sudden reversal of situation.'
Narayan's greatest achievement was making India accessible to
the outside world through his literature. He is regarded as one of the
three leading Indian English language fiction writers, along with Raja
Rao and Mulk Raj Anand. He gave his readers something to look
forward with Malgudi and its residents and is considered to be one of
the best novelists India has ever produced. He brought small-town
India to his audience in a manner that was both believable and
experiential. Malgudi was not just a fictional town in India but one
teeming with characters, each with their own idiosyncrasies and
attitudes, making the situation as familiar to the reader as if it were
their own backyard.
Theme of "An Astrologer's Day"
The theme of the story focuses on a single day in the life of an
ordinary astrologer who suddenly faces past life in the present drastic
situation. The story has a twist in the tale. The otherwise adventure
less life of the astrologer suddenly poses a grave problem from his
past life and demands alertness to tackle the situation. The story describes of a single day in the lives of the sleepy town of Malgudi.
The story also deals with the darker side of human nature with its
hypocrisies, shrewdness, revengeful nature and selfishness. The
characters in the story are no exception to these qualities of human
nature. Finally all is well that ends well with the astrologer coming out
with flying colors in his examination of befooling his opponent, saving
his life and also saw to it that he does not face the man again in future.
Summary of "An Astrologer's Day"
"The Astrologer's Day" is a short story which deals with a day in
the life of an ordinary but fake astrologer. The setting of the story is a
town, Malgudi which is located in South India, near to Madras. It is not
a story of contemporary times but pre - independence times.
The story opens at the midday. This is the time when the
astrologer opens his business. The writer describes how he begins his
business. He removes all his professional equipment like cowries
shells, charts, Palmyra writing etc. He is also dressed typically like an
astrologer to attract customers. His forehead is bright with sacred ash
and vermilion. His eyes are assumed to have a prophetic light by his
customers. He wears a saffron turban. Thus the astrologer presented
himself so perfectly that he was consequently a point of attraction for
all the people.
The astrologer was a shrewd person who hardly had any
knowledge of astrology. He just made a guess work when people
approached him. He had to work hard to earn his wages. He had
absconded from his native village since he didn't want to continue the
traditional occupation of his forefathers i.e. farming. He never had any
plans to return to his native village.
He closed his shop for the day when his neighbor, groundnut
vendor blew out his light. On the day under description in the story, the
groundnut vendor left and the astrologer was packing up his wares
when he located a man standing before him. He perceived him to be
his prospective customer. When the astrologer invited him, he posed
a challenge before him and his astrological science. They have a deal
between them. The man gave him an anna and asked the astrologer
to answer his questions and if he doesn't answer satisfactorily he will
have to return the anna with interest. At the same time if the astrologer
is able to answer the questions satisfactorily he would give him eight
annas. But if the astrologer fails, he would pay double amount i.e.,
sixteen annas to the man. Thus the deal was finalized between them.
The astrologer prayed to the heaven. Then suddenly the astrologer
denied the challenge and requested the man to let him go. The man
said that he will not let him give in. He holds him in his grip thereby
making the astrologer shiver. Finally, the astrologer realized that he is
trapped and has no chance of moving out. The man turned out to be
a criminal by profession.
The astrologer shivered and unwillingly accepted the challenge.
He started telling about some woman but the man was not satisfied
and stopped him. He had a single question that whether he would get
what he was searching for. The man promised the astrologer that if he
is satisfied with his answers, he would pay him a rupee. The astrologer
prayed a few incantations before replying. The astrologer began with
his prophecies by saying to the man that you were left for dead in the
past and a knife has passed once on your chest. The man was excited
at this information since he had really faced it. After he got wounded,
he was thrown into a well nearby to die. A passerby saw him and
rescued him and that is how he was saved from dying. The man was
waiting to revenge the culprit who had attacked him and was in search
of the culprit who had tried to kill him. The only thing which the man
wanted to know from the astrologer was if he can find his killer.
The astrologer's wife was waiting for him worriedly since he was
unusually late that day. The astrologer flung the coins at his wife to
count. They were twelve and a half annas in all. She was extremely
happy to encounter that big amount. She planned to buy jaggery and
coconut for their child, who was demanding for sweets from a long
time. However, the astrologer looked worried and was not happy like
his wife. He was angry at Guru Nayak as he had cheated him. He
promised to give a rupee and actually gave only twelve and a half
annas. After dinner, he shared the secret of his life with his wife. He
said that a great burden of his life was gone that day. He always felt
that he had killed Guru Nayak. So the astrologer had run away from
his native village due to the fear of being accused as a murderer. He
settled in Malgudi and married and decided that he would never return
back to his native village. Actually the man who tried to kill Guru Nayak
was the astrologer himself. So he was able to make accurate
predictions about him though he hardly knew astrology. The astrologer
confessed to his wife that in his youth he was into bad company with
Guru Nayak. He drank, gambled and quarreled badly one day and had
a fight and had almost killed Guru Nayak.
Words
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Characters
15766
Sentences
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Paragraphs
243
Refferences
Fallon, Erin; Feddersen, R.C.; Kurtzleben, James; Lee, Maurice A.; Rochette-Crawley, Susan. A Reader's Companion to the Short Story in English. New York, NY: Routledge. p. 304.
Malgudi Days on DD1". The Hindu. May 12, 2006. Archived from the original on January 12, 2010. Retrieved 2009-08-28.
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