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Feminism in Indian Literature

Running Head: Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide

R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: An Emergence from Diffidence to Assertiveness

Ms.V.Jeya Santhi M.A., M.Phil., B.Ed.,

V.H.N.Senthikumara Nadar College (Autonomous)
Virudhunagar

Co-guide: Dr.R.Selvam
Associate Professor in English
V.H.N.Senthikumara Nadar College (Autonomous)
Virudhunagar

R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: An Emergence from Diffidence to Assertiveness

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Ms.V.Jeya Santhi Co-guide: Dr.R.Selvam

Assistant Professor in English Associate Professor in English
V.H.N.Senthikumara Nadar College V.H.N.S.N.College (Autonomous),
(Autonomous), Virudhunagar Virudhunagar

Abstract
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was the epitome of creative writing in
India. His novels have a bi-cultural outlook in which the conflict between the ancient Indian
traditions with its values on the one side and modern western values on the other side were
obvious. He had compassionate attitude towards women though he was conservative in outlook
and temperament. His first Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel The Guide is the spiritual
odyssey of a human world. The three major characters Marco, Rosie and Raju were concerned
with the revival of native Indian undying faith in God and integrity. Rosie epitomizes an Indian
woman oscillating between tradition and modernity but she is quite successful aesthetically,
personally and socially in her dancing. This paper deals with the emergence of a novel woman
from being a modest lady to a self-reliant woman, as exposed through the character Rosie. It is
also an attempt to assess how effectively the novel displays and treats the variance between the
East–West theme, a perennial one in Indo-Anglian fiction.
Key words: bi-cultural outlook, native undying faith, spiritual journey, emergence of novel
woman, East-west theme.

R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: An Emergence from Diffidence to Assertiveness

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R. K. Narayan, was an Indian author whose writings include a series of books about
ordinary people and their communications in an imagined town in India. He is a remarkable
Indian author writing in English who has contentment in his home country. He is credited with
bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the world, and is regarded as one of India's
greatest English language novelists. An analysis has been made in this paper with regard to R K
Narayan's female protagonists in the right perspective highlighting his feminist concern. From
Savitri in The Dark Room (1938) to Bala in Grandmother's Tale (1992), Narayan's women
characters have a strong base of Indianness. The concept of New Women is first invented by
Ibsen in his A Doll’s House. New Women is not one who revolt against the patriarchal system
through her protest but one who try to establish her identity in this world. And R. K. Narayan is
such a novelist who has dealt with such a new women who establishes herself in the society.

The Guide, one of the best novels in English language is also the best seller in the West as
well as in India. The success of the novel resulted in film version and Dev Anand produced it in
Hindi and Pearl S. Buck in English. But the writer is not at all satisfied with the film version
because he felt that they failed to bring out the liveliness of the spirit of the story. The English
version was unsuccessful but the Hindi version was a successful one. The Hindi film won him
the Film Fare Award for the best story. “Years later, in his tribute to Narayan after the author’s
death in 2001, Dev Anand said, “If only we had managed to ignore the commercial aspects,
Guide could have made a milestone in the history of cinema…… And the author would have
been a happier man” (qtd. in Sen7).
The setting for most of Narayan's stories is the fictional town of Malgudi. The novel is
told through a series of flashbacks. Raju, the vital character, has his earlier life near a railway
station, and turns out to be a shopkeeper, and then a creative tourist guide. He happens to meet
Rosie, a youthful dancer, and her husband, whom Raju nicknames Marco, because of his
dressing as if he were undertaking an expedition, like Marco Polo. Marco is a scholar and
anthropologist, who is more interested in his research than in his young wife Rosie. They engage
Raju’s services as a tourist guide, and he takes them to the places that interest them. She wants to
enjoy nature; but Marco wants to study cave paintings. Rosie and Marco differ in their opinion
Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide
and quarrel constantly, and Marco remains cold and aloof towards Rosie. As Marco detaches
himself from Rosie, Raju falls in love with Rosie. But their love totally destroys the marital bond
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of Rosie and Marco deserts her and returns back to Madras. Raju is so obsessed with Rosie that
he forgets his business, falls into debt, and loses his shop at the railway station. He also loses his
mother’s respect because he is living with a married woman. Raju’s mother moves out of their
house, and the house is claimed to pay off his debts. But Raju encourages Rosie to continue her
career as a dancer, and becomes her manager, and thereby begins her career as an interpreter
of Bharat Natya, the classical dance of India. But he spends money extravagantly, and is tricked
by Marco into forging Rosie’s signature for a package of her jewels, a mistake that earns him a
two-year prison sentence. This event completely transforms his life and after his release from
prison he was mistaken for a holy man by Velan. Raju also reluctantly decides to play the part of
a holy man. He is happy to accept the daily offering of food which the villagers bring him.
Gradually he accepts the role which has been thrust upon him, and he acts as spiritual advisor to
the village community. For the first time in his life, to save his honour, he prepares himself ready
to take up a 12-day fast. As a great crowd gathers to watch him during his ordeal, he begins to
believe in the role he has created. Despite grave danger to his health, he continues to fast. When
he collapses, he feels rain falling in the hills. The ending of the novel leaves unanswered the
question of whether he dies, or whether the drought has really ended.

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 traditional elements of the
story. Narayan has also come in for criticism for being too simple in his prose and diction. 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 humour and energy of ordinary life, and displayed compassionate humanism in
his writing. He differs from the other Indian writers who attribute the reason for the sufferings
and the fall in the protagonist life to colonial rule and western culture. But his writings centre on
the elite group or the middle class women who show their resistance against the patriarchic
hierarchy and not the females who belong to the lower section of the society. Narayan had
Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide
progressive ideas about women and this thinking reflects unambiguously in his fiction. Marco
illuminates older culture by devoting his life to the study of cave paintings; Rosie epitomizes an
Indian woman oscillating between tradition and modernity but she is quite successful
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aesthetically, personally and socially in her dancing; and Raju’s sacrifice achieves self-realization
in his performance of fasting to death to bring villagers’ desperately needed rains.
This novel illustrates the pattern of post-colonial hybridity where the traditional wins
over the modern but only after being influenced by the impact of the western world. The action
of the novel proceeded in two distinct streams, presenting two different aspects of Indian culture.
Malgudi, a miniature of India, presented the rich traditions of classical dances by Rosie-Nalini
and the breath-taking pains that embellish Marco’s The Cultural History of South India. Mangal,
the neighbour town village presented the spiritual dimension of Indian culture, presented through
Raju’s growth into a celebrated Swami. “Thus Raju, Rosie and Marco become temporal symbols
of India’s cultural ethos” (Goyal, 143).
Rosie, though a post-graduate is never corrupted with modern and materialistic values.
She is seen as a traditional Indian wife who longs for the affection and care from her husband.
When her husband abandons her, she goes to Raju’s home seeking shelter. But Raju’s mother
gets shocked and she asks her “Who has come with you, Rosie?” She also says,
‘Girls today! How courageous you are! In our day we wouldn’t go to the street
corner without an escort. And I have been to the market only once in my life,
when Raju’s father was alive’ (Narayan 141).
Raju’s mother is a traditional Hindu woman who is denied public exposure. But Rosie is a
modern woman who has the courage to do her day-to-day needs alone. The fiction presents
Indian society with its customs, tradition, belief, superstition and religious faith. The conflict
between the traditional and modern values are symbolized by Raju’s mother and his maternal
uncle on one side (traditional) and Raju and Rosie on the other. Such conflict makes the old lady
takes the decision to leave her home giving place for new values.
“The novel also presents a conflict between the Eastern and Western culture and
synthesizes the two through their assimilation which has been symbolized by Rosie’s

Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide

transformation to Nalini. Like Anand, Narayan points out that one has to go to the West
in order to come back to the East” (Yadav, 28).
Raju dissociates himself from society and goes after Rosie but it ends in his degradation and
unpleasant situations. But he returns back to the society and achieves redemption. Even though
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the introduction of western culture has brought many changes in the life of the villagers, the
caste system and traditional occupation continued to exist. Raju’s fasting to please the rain gods
and bring rain to save the people is the most significant ritual in this novel. Here, the writer
doesn’t glorify the superstitious rituals but he accepts the existence of a strong faith of the
villagers in the native rituals.
Narayan presented the East_West theme in terms of ethical dimensions. ”Narayan gives
us the feel of life itself which is neither all white nor all black but the grey, twilight world
of contemporary life quivering hesitatingly between tradition and modernity, East and
West, inextricably mixed up in the minds of individuals” (O.P.Mathur,90).
The phrase East-West conflict stands for the conflict between religion and rationality, tradition
and modernity, spirituality and materialism, superstitions and scientific outlook, tyranny and
democracy. It also implies the conflict between Innovation and Tradition. Rosie belongs to
“feminist phase” as mentioned by Elaine Showalter, indicating the clash between the male and
female class and yet she never leaves the traditional norms and never does she breaks free of it.
Rosie is a multi-faceted personality, who moves from being a Debdasi to a highly
educated girl, then to a housewife rejected by her husband and finally establishes herself as a
professional dancer (Tanmoy Kundu,55). Her attraction to a snake and her performance of the
snake dance are richly symbolic. As she belongs to a socially stigmatized class of Debdasi, she
refines herself with a new life. The spiritual transformation is extremely evident and thereby
giving her new identity and it is significant in the changing of the name from ‘Rosie’ to ‘Nalini’.
Raju compares this change to reincarnation. Through this change she symbolically seeks entry
into the orthodox society that rejects her creativity which is expressed in her dance. The same
Rosie who was shunned by the society as a debdasi, was reborn Nalini, the respected classical
dancer, because of the emergence of the affluent class of people in Malgudi. Her success doesn’t
gets to her head as she remains down-to-earth person even after becoming very successful in her
Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide
dancing career. She doesn’t discriminate people on financial basis. Being an artist, she respects
art and likes to be in the company of artists and other music lovers.
It is her love for dance that brings trouble into her life. She feels much for her failed
marriage though she is independent. She is conservative but at the same time she is self-assertive
who challenges the orthodox Hindu conception of what women should be and yet she is partly
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orthodox by nature. Though Rosie comes to know about every treacherous and fraud activity of
Raju, she compromises with the situation. Like a true beloved, she is determined and wants to
spend her earning to defend Raju. She signs fresh dancing contracts to raise more money for this
purpose. She embodies the “Feminine Principle” of ideal womanhood.
The Guide was cheered by many readers for the heroine’s strong resistance against the
deeply-rooted patriarchic culture of India. First she has the courage to get out of unhappy
marriage and married herself to a tourist guide she loves deeply. Second, when she found that her
new love was just using her as a moneymaking machine, she left this mean guy without slightest
hesitation. This broke the stereotype of Indian women, who were imagined as cowardly,
dependent and fragile. After the independence we can see that the Indian women are consciously
against the oppressive elements of Indian traditional culture and also actively take advantage of
the western culture, including their lifestyle to resist the oppression of their husbands under the
masks of defending Indian tradition.
“The book won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958 and I think his contribution lies
in his boldness and courage when facing Indian nationalists who are always blindly
against outside civilized elements, labeled colonial and defend everything traditional,
even oppressive elements, as Indian civilization essence” (qtd. in Chen Yihua).
As a social portraiture, Rosie’s character stands unique. A new woman has certainly
emerged, and she has left an indelible mark on the Indian psyche. However, this new woman is
not imported from the West. Rather, she has emerged from the rich treasure of Indian culture.
She has a strong base of Indianness and is deeply entrenched in values, traditions and ethos that
are exclusively Indian in form and content. Narayan's new woman is bold, self-reliant and
assertive. She struggles for freedom, asserts equality and searches for identity. In the process, she
empowers not only herself but also her man. Narayan's new woman might not have brought
Feminist Perspective in R.K.Narayan’s The Guide
earth-shaking changes, yet she has certainly showed that she is assertive, bold and strong, and is
involved in bringing positive changes not only in her man but also in the society.

Works cited

Narayan, R.K. (2006). The Guide. Chennai: Indian Thought Publications.

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Elaine Showalter’s “Feminist in the Wilderness”.

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/32507498/r-k-narayans-new-woman-feminist-
perspective

http://www.literary-articles.com/2010/02/study-of-character-rosie-in-novel-guide.html

Goyal, bhagwat S. (1981). “From Picaro to Pilgrim: A Perspective on R.K.Narayan’s “The

Guide”” Indo-English Literature. (Ed. K.K. Sharma). Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 127-
135.

Mathur,O.P. (1993). “The Guide: A Study in Cultural Ambivalence.” The Modern Indian
English Fiction. Ed. O.P.Mathur. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 89-97.

Sen, Krishna.(2004). Critical Essays on R.K.Narayan’s The Guide: With an Introduction to

Narayan’s Novels. Kolkata: Orient Longman Pvt. Ltd.

Yadav, S. (1999). “The Guide-A Psycho-Philosophic and Socio-Ethical Study.” Indian Writings
in English. Vol.4. Ed. Manohar K.Bhatnagar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 24-28.

Yihua, Chen. The Subalterns in the Modern Transition of India: Starting the Discussion from
R.K. Narayan’s Fictions. School of Humanities, Jinan University, Guangzhou City,
Guangdong Province, P. R. China.