Understanding The Background Of Teaching Other Than Class Room: How to get the most from the Distance Learning?


"Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know."

Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977)


In distance learning the study Selected Topic Text divisions replace the lecturer. This is one of the advantages of distance learning; the student can read and work through specially designed study materials at the student’s own pace, and at time and place that suits the student best. Think of it as reading the lecturer instead of listening to a lecturer. In the same way that a lecturer might give the student some reading to do, the study Selected Topic Text divisions tell the student when to read the student’s set books or other materials.

A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 93


A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK

A. ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ in Chaucer’s The Prologue means Love conquers all:
“It was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe;
For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
Ful fetis was hir cloke, as I was war;
Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar
A paire of bedes, gauded al with greene,
And theron heeng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
On which ther was first writen a crowned A,
And after, Amor vincit omnia.”
B. The renaissance started in Italy and later came into England via France. (European history from 1440- 1540)

How to Know and Understand our Students in Digital India Initiative while Teaching English?


"Digital India is an initiative by the Government of India to ensure that Government services are made available to citizens electronically by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity. –Wikipedia

A critical limitation of teacher’s ability to use technology in Digital India Initiative is too little understanding of technology of teachers while teaching English.  In a sense, this is another example of the productivity costs of a lack of ubiquitous computing literacy.  We should spend a lot on technology in Educational Institutes.  If teachers learned more about computing, they could use it more effectively.

A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 92




A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK
                                                                
A.  Match the items in the List – I with items in List – II according to the code given below:
List – I
(years)

List – II
(incidents)

i  1066
1. Henry’s son Edward defeated the rebel factions and restored his father to power.

ii 1215
2. William Duke of Normandy invaded in 1066 and defeated Harold in the famous battle of Hastings.
Iii 1264
3. The Magna Carta agreement signed.
Iv. 1267

4. The outbreak of the second Barons war.

Codes:
i
ii
iii
iv

(A)
2
1
3
4
(B)
2
3
4
1
(C)
2
 3
1
4
(D)
1
2
4
3

B. This is told about The Hundred Years War:

I.   the interference of France in England’s attempt to control Scotland was the only reason for the conflict.
II. Following the Norman Conquest, the connection of England to the continent has been broken. This was succeeded by conflict of interests and hostilities with France between 1337 to 1453.
III. The time that was spent fighting in the battlefield was too long, and this provoked a feeling of animosity in the minds of the English, French, the language of the enemy country was in use in England. The hundred year’s war was partly responsible for the downward trend experienced in the use of the French language in England.
IV. Canons were first used in 1346 by the English at the battle of Crecy.

Find out the correct combination according to the code:
(A) I, II and III are correct, as IV is true explanation of it
(B) I, II and IV are correct, but III is false
(C) I, III and IV are correct, as II is true explanation of it
(D) II, III and IV are correct, but as I is false

Attending Spenser’s Sonnet 57 and Sonnet 67 (Amoretti) Can Be Interesting If We Remember Popular Theme of Indifference and Chastity

"So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought,
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught."
Edmund Spenser 1552? - 1599
English poet.
Amoretti

The tradition of writing a sequence of many sonnets, based also on the Petrarchan model, was initiated in English by Sir Philip Sidney in Astrophel and Stella 1580, a prolonged argument by the speaker, Astrophel, aimed at overcoming his mistress's indifference and chastity. Other important sequence of the period, Amoretti 1595 by English writer Edmund Spenser, employs similar arguments, though it ends with the possibility that the lovers will unite and eventually marry. Spenser’s Sonnet 57 and Sonnet 67 is an argument by the speaker aimed at overcoming his mistress's indifference and chastity. But both the sonnets are differently modeled. While Sonnet No. 57 uses war metaphor, Sonnet No. 67 uses the hunting one.

Spenser’s Sonnet 57 continues the ongoing struggle the speaker suffers in dealing with an unresponsive beloved. The lover addresses his beloved as a “Sweet warrior” and asks a question “when shall I have peace with you?” The question is self evident of the frustration and desperation in his tone.  Like that of many Shakespearean sonnets, this sonnet continues with the torment the speaker is going through while dealing with an indifferent beloved. Read More Elizabethan Literature

The lover asks her to end the war she has waged against him as he cannot tolerate any more. His powers have weakened and his wounds have deteriorated. He says that the arrows shot from her eyes pierced through his heart and make him unable to survive without her. In the final two lines he requests her to “Make peace” “and graunt” him “timely grace”, “so That” all his “wounds will heale in little space.” Her attacks are the constant refusals that make him suffer.

Spenser’s sonnet 57 is reflective of the sufferings the poet is going through. The intense emotional frustration that arises in him when his beloved is in continuous refusal of his proposal can be seen in the “Yet shoot ye sharpely still, and spare me not”.

The parabolic poet-lover moans in pain when she shoots him with her arrows that directly touch his heart. In the sonnet, poet describes himself as a mere slave pleading her in order to make her accept his proposal. He wants to end all the conflicts and wars in between them and want to live in complete peace with her:
"Make peace therefore, and graunt me timely grace,
    that al my wounds will heale in little space."

Spenser wants the war to be over. He asks her what glory she can gain “in slaying him that would liue gladly yours”  and ends by suing for peace and grace, “That al my wounds will heale in little space”  . Here, again, is irony in that the poet turns his repeated efforts to woo the woman into a defensive stance against her “attacks,” which are in fact merely her refusal to accept his proposal. Read More Elizabethan Literature

 Spenser’s sonnet 67  which is a Spenser's English rendering of Petrarch's Canzoniere 190, “Una candida cerva sopra l'erba,” mixed with Tasso’s Rime 388 (‘Al Signor C. Pavesi’) aims at winning the ladylove en route a game. Through a typical hunting metaphor the lover and beloved are the hunter and the haunted. Loving or trapping in love is itself a game with devise and articulation. The sonnet is beautifully designed a game plan where there is three character- the lover, the second lover (false lover) and the ladylove. 

The lover has chased the lady for the game of love and it failed him drastically panting. He has become a vaine man in vaine essay like that of Sonnet no. 75.  Dejected lover cum hunter is contemplative at the first chase resulted:
"Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace,
    Seeing the game from him escapt away:
    sits downe to rest him in some shady place,
    with panting hounds beguiled of their pray,
So after long pursuit and vaine assay,"

Like that of Nissim Ezekiel's Poet, Lover and Birdwatcher, patience and integrate planning goes upper-hand in ultimate winning the game of love. As the speaker aims at overcoming his mistress's indifference and chastity, he suddenly sees that working:    
 "when I all weary had the chace forsooke,
    the gentle deare returnd the selfe-same way,
    thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke."

The next brook is the only exit to the love-deer which she is forced to embark on but her outlook changed and submissive:
"There she beholding me with mylder looke,
    sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide:
    till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,
    and with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde."

But why there is a change? Is it a result of the chase where there is no escape? Or is it a change of the game? Or the entire game is devised by the ladylove to hunt the hunter in ultimate planning? Is chastity is a falsified game?
"Strange thing me seemed to see a beast so wyld,
    so goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld."

Ref:http://genius.com/Edmund-spenser-amoretti-sonnet-67-annotated

Critical Estimate of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Sonnet, ‘Thou art indeed Just, Lord, if I contend’


‘Thou art indeed Just, Lord’ is one of the most widely known sonnets of Gerard Manley Hopkins. It shows, on the one hand, the deep faith of the poet, and holds, on the other, some of his pleadings and complaints. It is also rich in autobiographical elements. It further shows the technical skill of Hopkins.

Plot Structure of Thomas Hardy’s Epic Novel, "Tess of the D’Urbervilles": How does it Differ from a Dramatic Novel?


 Critics (i.e. Prof. L Abercrombie) have divided the novels of Thomas Hardy into two forms: the dramatic and the epic. In a dramatic novel there are a number important characters and the action arises out of the conflict of these actions.  Epic Novel is the story of a single person. There is no sub-plot as in dramatic novel. The main interest centres round- the career of the hero or heroines. However, the entire action of the epic revolves round the life and fortune of the single heroic individual. It is the story of his rise and fall, of the vicissitudes that he faces in the course of his or her life. Conflict there is, but it does not arise out of the characters. It is rather an impersonal conflict between the dominant individual the one hand, Fate or environment, on the other. Thus the Epic Novels in Hardy always create the impression of vast colossal forces ranged automated individual and pounding him to atoms. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman and Jute the Obscure are the two important Epic Novels  of Thomas Hardy.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is an Epic Novel in structure. It is a story of single individual- a milkmaid. The story begins with Tess, ends with Tess and is concerned with Tess throughout. There are -no details, no digressions, no divert our attention- from the heroine even for a single moment. As the story proceeds and Tess’s misfortunes and hardships increase the vast nature background changes in harmony with the human situation. There is no such change of background in the dramatic novels in which the nature background remains more or less fixed.

In Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy considers both the “Rights of Man” and, with equal sympathy, the rights of women. The thought that Hardy subtitled his novel “A Pure Woman” infuriated some Victorian critics, because it flew in the face of all they held sacred. Hardy had questioned on a strict code of morality, unequally applied to men and women. In such a sense Tess is epical.

Another difference between the two is that while in a dramatic narration is objective, the writer remaining mostly in the background, in Epic Novel he enjoys great freedom and comes out into -the open with his views and comments. In his dramatic novels, therefore, Thomas Hardy introduces a group of rustic characters. They perform the function of the chorus in a Greek tragedy; they maintain a running commentary on character, action and situation. We do not find any such ‘rustic chorus’ in the Epic Novels, for there the novelist directly airs his views and he comments on character and action. Thus in Tess there is no set of rustic characters and we frequently find Hardy intruding upon the scene and aiding the onward march of the plot by his comments. As the rustics are the chief source of humour in the Wessex novels, Tess suffers a great deal by the absence the minor characters. Dairyman, Dick is the solitary person who enlivens the story by his humorous anecdotes.

Thomas Hardy 
The action of the Epic moves with a “magnificent surge and sweep’, with an admirable unity of tone and singleness of purpose, and at every step we are conscious of cruel. Destiny is attacking the poor girl and sending her to her doom. Every event that happens seems to have a cause. The plot is superbly, even architrirally constructed in scenes. As a building rises brick by brick, so the plot is built by scenes. The resonance of the tale makes itself over and over again: the superb opening, the death of Prince, the horse, the lovely elegiac scene of the sleep-walking, the episodes of agricultural life at Flint Comb Ash, the climax at Stonchenge, is powerful and original imaginative inventions.

Admirable as the structure of this magnificent Epic is, still it suffers from a number of serious defects. “In the first place there is Hardy’s flouting of normal probability in his instance on a number of unlucky chances.”“No doubt in life the unexpected often happens, but sometimes this unexpected is undesirable and sometimes it is desirable. But in the novel it is always the undesired, unexpected that happens. A number of such unlucky chances readily come to mind. Tess’s written confession slips beneath the carpet and never reaches Clare, during her visit to Emminster she happens to meet the brothers and then does not have the heart to fact the parents; she goes to Tallbothays and Clare also happens to come to this very dairy as “student of kine” etc. Similarly, unconvincing is the character of Tess, she is mighty, sensitive for a farm hand, as Alec puts it. Her sensitivity of conscience is amazing when we take into account her birth and upbringing and remember that conscience is a matter of early training. Her character has been shrewd and worldly wise than a peasant girl of her age, might naturally be assumed to be.

Another grave short-coming of the novel is the sudden conversion of Alec. It fails to carry conviction. “The great psychological surprise in the book is Alec’s Conversion from a preacher into a teacher ‘His conversion comes as a surprise to us for he is by nature not capable of any profound development. Moreover, the whole episode is entirely unnecessary. His rediscovery by Tess could easily have been contrived, in some other more natural and probable manner.

The plot of the novel suffers from other improbabilities as well: We fail to understand why Tess should degrade herself by becoming the mistress of Alec whom she hates: No doubt her brothers and sisters were starving, but she could easily have got help from the parents of Clare. He had clearly directed her to them? It was a matter of self-respect with her. But could she save her self-respect by becoming the mistress of Alec?

Then again why should she, and how could she, commit the murder of Alec. She was a born humanitarian and could not harm even a worm or a fly. Her heart melts with pity at the sight of poor suffering peasants who had been wounded by some hunters. But still she stabs Alec. Whatever might have been the provocation hers was not a nature capable of murder? Hardy has tried to gloss over the improbability be referring to a possible murderous strain in the D’Urbervilles blood. But still it does not carry much weight. Moreover, the murder seems unnecessary. She should easily have gone away with Angel and the shadow of Alec would not have fallen across their lives. They could have easily obliterated the past by migrating to some foreign land.

Victorian society preferred to avoid talking about sex, but Hardy believed the elimination of sex from popular writing produced “a literature of quackery.” In Tess of the D’Urbervilles sex is often associated with nature; it is presented as a natural part of life. The scene of Tess's seduction by Alec takes place in The Chase, an ancient stand of woods that dates from before the time of established societal morality. The valley of the Froom, where Talbothays is located, is described as so lush and fertile that “it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate.” Tess and Angel fall in love there. Tess's three milkmaid friends toss and turn in their beds, tortured by sexual desire. “Each was but a portion of the organism called sex,” Hardy asserts. Later, when Tess forgives Angel his “eight-and-forty hour’s dissipation with a stranger,” Angel cannot forgive her similar fault. Hardy condemns such unequal treatment.

Besides the glad acceptance of a murderess on the part of Clare, seems rather forced and unnatural. No doubt his outlook had been widened during his stay in Brazil, but still there are limits to the development of a character. That the Angel Clare who could cast off his loving wife, knowing full well that she was more sinned against than sinning should now accept her o very easily even though now she is a fallen woman and murderess, is a pill that the readers find hard to swallow. But despite such faults, it remains a great Novel.

Key Discussions Here

  • 👉Hardy's "Tess" follows a traditional plot structure, with exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. 
  • 👉The story centers around Tess, a poor country girl who discovers her noble heritage but suffers great tragedy and injustice. 
  • 👉The novel differs from a dramatic novel in that it is less focused on dramatic dialogue and action and more on the internal struggles and emotional depth of the characters.
  • 👉 The story is also heavily influenced by naturalism and realism, with a focus on the harsh realities of life and society's injustices.

References

1. The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. (n.d.). The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tess of the D&Rsquo;Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/110/110-h/110-h.htm
2. A Short Bibliographical Survey of Thomas Hardy Studies. (2013, July 29). A Short Bibliographical Survey of Thomas Hardy Studies. https://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/bibl3.html
3. Abercrombie. (1912). Thomas Hardy: A Critical Study  (1st ed.).

Harlem Renaissance: Burst of Creativity among African American Writers and Artists in the 1920s




If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, 0 let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honour us though dead!
0 kinsmen1 We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!  ”-
 Claude McKay’s militant sonnet If We Must Die (1919)

Harlem Renaissance, the burst of creativity among African American writers and artists in the 1920s and early 1930s that was centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Variously known as the New Negro movement, the New Negro Renaissance, and the Negro Renaissance, the movement emerged toward the end of World War I in 1918, blossomed in the mid- to late 1920s, and then faded in the mid-1930s. The term ‘Renaissance’ which literally means rebirth is loosely applied to this creativity (efflorescence, for it was really a birth) for this was the first opportunity African Americans had to create and celebrate the uniqueness of their culture. The Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that mainstream publishers and critics took African American literature seriously and that African American literature and arts attracted significant attention from the nation at large. Read More Literary Terms Although it was primarily a literary movement, it was closely related to developments in African American music, theater, art, and politics.

Analysis of Mulk Raj Anand’s Story, "The Lost Child": Accepted Part of Our Multicultural Neighborhood in the World



Mulk Raj Anand’s story, The Lost Child narrates how a little boy was lost in the crowd of a village fair. It tells us how on his way to the fair he was attracted by various things such as toys, sweetmeat, balloons and birds, butterflies and flowers. But what attracted him most was the roundabout. It made him forget his parents and everything else in the world. Thus he lagged far behind his parents and got lost in the crowd of the fair. Here, Anand deals with the child psychology in a sensitive way without shying away from its reality. We too have grown up as an accepted part of our multicultural neighborhood in the world.  Anand’s at his strongest when writing about the Child’s classic confrontational relationship with his world without parents. Young adult readers will be able to identify with the lost child’s struggle to live within his family’s ambit while trying to discover his own world outside.

On the day of the spring festival a large crowd of brightly dressed people came out of the lanes of a city and proceeded towards the village fair. Among them was a little boy following his parents. The little boy lagged behind his parents as he was attracted by a toy-shop. He wanted a toy but received only an angry look from his father and his kind-hearted mother only asked him to see what was before him. The child began to sob but when he saw what lay before him; his eyes were filled with delight. It was a mustard field in flower, which stretched for miles like a rippling yellow river.

The child’s joy knew no bounds. He left the footpath and entered into the mustard-field and began to chase some dragon-flies and a black bee or a butterfly. He tried to catch one of them but he was called by his mother to come back to the foot-path. He joined his parents and for some time walked side by side, but again left them being ‘attracted by a number of little worms and insects. He was again called back by his parents who were now sitting on the edge of a well. They were seated under an old banyan tree which spread its branches over smaller trees such as the champak and gulmohur.

The Lost Child does treat some very important issues. Central to it is humankind's responsibility to world outside. The episodes dealing with the stranded crowds en route to gala are exciting. They are handled realistically: Anand does not underplay the surging of the Indian crowd, and he definitely shows that trying to rescue them in order is a largely futile activity. Still, most of the characters in the story, including the narrator, are convinced that it is one's duty to try to fun and frolic them anyway.

Some may find hidden humour in the story. Its central humor is maturity, and its ideas about maturity are open to serious questions. Anand’s idea that maturity can be measured in terms of things like losing the child by the parents or the child loses his parents?

When they had almost reached the fair, the child was attracted by the cries of a sweetmeat-seller. His mouth watered for the burfi which was his favourite sweet He knew that his desire would not be fulfilled , yet he spoke of it in a whisper then moved on without waiting for an answer The next attraction was the rainbow - coloured balloons but he was sure that he would be refused. Then they came to a snake-charmer who was playing on a flute before a snake. But the child had to pass on. The greatest attraction for the child came next. It was a roundabout in full swing. He watched it going round and round with a merry band of men, women, and children on it. As soon as it stopped he boldly asked his parents for the pleasure of a ride on the roundabout. But when he turned round he could not find them anywhere. With a heart-rending cry of fear and grief, the weeping child ran about madly in search of his parents, but there was no sign of them. His turban came off and his clothes became wet with sweat and mud. Tired from running the little boy stood sobbing for some time and then started running again. This time he ran to a crowded temple. Desperately he ran through People’s legs, crying ‘mother, father’. At the door of the temple the crowd was so thick that he was knocked down and was about to be trampled when he was picked up by a man in the crowd. The man came out of the thick crowd with the boy and asked him whose baby he was, but the child only cried bitterly, saying that he wanted his father and mother. The kindhearted man tried to console the child by offering him a ride on the roundabout, but the child repeated his cry for his parents. The man next took him to the snake-charmer but he refused to listen to his flute; then he offered to buy him the bright-coloured balloons. Finally, the man tried to console him with some sweets, but all his efforts failed; the child only sobbed ‘I want my mother, I want my father.’

The Lost Child contains as usual Indian settings, characters, and actions. Like other Anand’s story of good humane fantasies, it serves as a metaphor for human life. It tells the story of a physical and psychological quest of a child, of our growth in creativity, compassion, and confidence. In the The Lost Child, it raises investigations about parenting, the function of imagination, the preambles of growing up, and the relationship of wishes and reality. Many people have recognized these deeper levels of the story.

(Life and works of the Author Mulk Raj Anand: famous Indian writer and art critic was born in Peshawar in the Punjnb on December 12, 1905. He spent his early life in military camps. He was educated first at the Punjab University from where he graduated Then he went to England and studied Philosophy in London and Cambridge Universities. He was awarded the Ph. D. Degree by the London University for his original researches in Philosophy. While in England he was for sometime lecturer in Philosophy and literature to the London County Council. He was, also on the staff of the B.B.C. and a film-script writer under the British Ministry of Information. He returned to India in 1929. He edited several magazines. Later, he became the editor of Marg, a famous art journal. He breathed his last on September 28, 2004.)

Brief Analysis of R.K Narayan’s ‘Engine Trouble’: Greater Simplicity of Plot and Language, even as it Develops a Greater Complexity of Meaning to Exhibit the Domain of India


Malgudi Days fits neatly into R.K Narayan's literary evolution. According to the author himself, each of his stories displays a greater simplicity of plot and language, even as they develop a greater complexity of meaning to exhibit the domain of India. By the time Narayan wrote Malgudi Days the crowded action of his early fantasies was replaced by introspections of Indianness   stripped to its essence and resonant with meaning.

Engine Trouble by R.K Narayan is truly an Indian story of unlucky draw. The meaning is developed through the characters, especially the narrator, who may be Narayan's own unflattering self-portrait. Like Narayan, the narrator is a middle class man struggling to rise above his origins. Although the narrator wants to adapt to the dominant middle class culture, he remains profoundly attached to his own family sentiment.

Narayan has a love for describing carnivals, fairs, and the expo. Story after story we find in his Malgudi Days being set in such an environment if not then we at least has a market scene. Engine Trouble starts at a fair with the protagonist winning an engine; Emden goes through the hustle and bustle of a market place for his evening walk. An Astrologer’s Day is set in a bazaar and so is the Trail of the Green Blazer which is set in a bazaar. It seems Narayan situated most of the Malgudi stories on Malgudi’s public landmarks. 

Engine Trouble is beautifully written, but in a way that rarely calls attention to itself. Engine Trouble starts with a line of breezy description of past Malgudi which continues to carry the story forward. Narayan never dresses up the narrative of his characters. While perfectly natural, the narrative manages to convey the character's attitudes with remarkable authenticity, such as the narrator's cheeky insecurity or   pettiness.

This subtle precision is a major concern of Narayan, who likens it to the craftsmanship valued by his workingman ancestors. Just as the carpenter notices a wall that is a fraction of an inch out of plumb, the literary craftsman is sensitive to the slightest misuse of language, although in either case no one else might realize there is anything wrong.

This is a story by Narayan which begins on an ironic note of how a prize won by a man proves to be an expensive headache. A showman comes to Malgudi and brings with him his Gaiety land. The Gymkhana grounds are used for the festivities and the whole town pours in to see the show. Our protagonist wins a road engine at a show, people gather around him looking at him as if he is some curious animal. Now the problem that rises is how to take the prize back home. The driver of the engine is an expensive one and the suggestion of bringing in the municipality is not a good idea. Its decided that the engine can stay on the Gymkhana grounds till the end of the season but the cost of maintaining it on those grounds prove to be expensive for our protagonist.

A cattle show comes to town and he is given 24 hours’ time to remove it, so a temple elephant and 50 coolies are hired to take it to a nearby field owned by a friend. Joseph, a dismissed bus driver comes in to help steer the engine. Hell breaks loose resulting in undue expenditures.


Narayan introduces a Swamiji who performs various impossible feats and insists on having a road engine run over his chest. The municipality does not know how to arrange for one. Our protagonist becomes the hero of the hour by lending his engine for the feat. And in return it would be driven wherever he wanted it to. It is Narayan’s ability to bring forth the comic elements present in the most grave situations which is commendable the figure of Swamiji who wants to spread his master’s word through his feat is brought under the light of humour to show how such things are still rampant in our country and how people’s psyche is taken advantage of by such people.

Unfortunately in the story, the law comes in between and the feat cannot be performed, through the figure of a police inspector, the legality of doing such acts has been brought forward by Narayan where the inspector says that Swamiji can do anything except have potassium cyanide or have a rail engine run over him.

It is a natural calamity that comes as a stroke of luck for our protagonist and solves all his problems. Again Narayan shows the irony of how a calamity that claimed several towns bears good tidings for the owner of the engine. Read this story to find out how that calamity proves fortunate for the protagonist. An interesting comparison can be drawn with another story Lawley Road where the protagonist comes to own a British general’s statue and the troubles he has to go through to move the statue. In both the stories one sees Narayan commentary on the plight of his heroes is neither comic nor tragic when his heroes sink to despair. It is probably Narayan’s answer to how to go about with your life when you live in India.

Malgudi Days shows Narayan learning one of an author's most valuable and difficult lessons: what he can get by without saying. By every measure, the story is a giant step beyond the relative expanse to Indian atmosphere. The best example of Narayan's success is his ability to combine simple language and a few neutral things—feathers and dust, a noise in the attic—to generate the tense, fairyland atmosphere that dominates Engine Trouble.


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