Krishnan, the central character of R. K. Narayan's 'The English Teacher', undertakes an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey for the duration of the course of the novel. At the begin of the novel he is an English teacher, living and teaching at the exact same college exactly where he was as soon as a pupil, and at the finish we see him resigning his post, starting function at a nursery college, and studying to communicate psychically with his dead wife.
Krishnan's alter comes about not as a outcome of any grand strategy or ambition, but as a outcome of a series of difficult situations which arise when he starts to take actions away from the cloistered and protective atmosphere of his college.
But even though Krishnan's journey is unpredictable, a quantity of themes are becoming worked out during the novel. These themes may be mentioned to be Krishnan's progress from predictability to unpredictability, from the academic planet to the actual planet of life and death, from adulthood to childhood, and from a western mentality to an eastern mentality.
From predictability to unpredictability.
Krishnan repeatedly finds himself becoming drawn out of circumstances which ought to have been predictable and ordered by events which are spontaneous and unpredictable, and it is clear that he finds spontaneity and unpredictability to be stimulating and life-enhancing, although predictability and order, though delivering a cushion of comfort and safety, is eventually stifling and deadening
Susila, his wife, brings unpredictability into his life at every single turn. For instance as soon as they go to appear at a residence she desires to make a extended diversion to stroll by the river and bathe her feet, exactly where the rational orderly Krishnan would have naturally taken the most direct route, and it is clear that he finds her unpredictable behaviour a supply of delight and inspiration.
The turning point of the story arises from Susila's unpredictability. Once they go to appear at the property we might not possibly predict that she would go for a stroll on her personal, get stuck in a contaminated lavatory, and then develop into ill.
The futility of clinging to the belief that life can be orderly, predictable, and knowable is shown in two central, and symmetrical, predictions which occupy a prominent spot in the novel. The 1st is the physician's assertion that typhoid, which Susila has contracted, 'is the one fever which goes strictly by its personal guidelines. It follows a time-table' and that Susila will be nicely in a couple of weeks. But in spite of his additional assurances that her attack is 'Absolutely regular course. No complications. A ideal typhoid run' Susila dies.
The other prominent demonstration of the futility of believing that life can be knowable and predictable is noticed in the headmaster's belief in a prediction produced by an astrologer, 'who can see previous provide and future as one, and provide every thing its genuine value' that he will die on a offered date. But even though (just as the physician had asserted that Susila's typhoid was 'A ideal typhoid run') the headmaster has discovered that his 'life has gone precisely as he predicted', the headmaster lives.
Each of these episodes show the limitations of man's ability to know and predict the globe. The truth is that we can't know, and can't predict, and any view of life, whether or not deriving from contemporary western science, or ancient eastern mysticism, which disregards the unknowable and sees only what is supposedly recognized, and supposedly predictable, is hopelessly inadequate.
From the academic globe to the 'law of life'
Even though these episodes fail to offer Krishnan with everything rational to think in, they do bring him face to face with the reality of life and death, and confronting the realities of life with out retreating into the safe cerebral planet of literature and philosophy is an significant element of his journey.
In coming to terms with the death of his wife literature, philosophy, and rationalism, are no use to him. They are all illusions, and the journey he is on requires leaving illusions behind. The truth Krishnan desires to discover can not be discovered in Shakespeare, Carlyle, or Plato, it is located only amongst true persons major genuine lives, it is 'the law of life'.
From adulthood to childhood
Youngsters are very substantially in proof during 'The English Teacher', and are crucial guides for Krishnan on his journey. The Youngsters who enable to show him the way are the younger Kids, his personal daughter, Leela, and the Youngsters at the nursery college she attends.
The most prominent character in the novel, once Krishnan and his loved ones, is the headmaster of Leela's college. He is a champion of childhood, getting devoted his life to Youngsters because getting the prediction that he would die, and believes they are 'angels', 'the genuine gods on earth', and employs what he calls 'The Leave Alone Program' in his college.
In the second half of the novel Krishnan's discovery of Young children as an efficient countermeasure against 'the curse of adulthood', and the opening of his thoughts that he is experiencing during meditation, pave the way for his resignation from his old job and the adoption of a much more real way of life.
From west to east
An additional element of Krishnan's journey is that he encounters the coexistence of western and native cultural attitudes, which also represent the attitudes of Indians of a newer and older generation. For instance once Susila is ill she is treated Each by a medical professional who practises western scientific medicine, and by a Swamiji who utilizes mystical steps of healing. The Swamiji is summoned by Susila's mother, representing an older generation than Krishnan himself, who believes the 'Evil Eye' has fallen on her daughter, and it is notable that Krishnan feels 'ashamed' that the physician finds the Swamiji in the home, displaying that he is alienated from, and embarrassed by, the native culture of the older generation of his personal nation.
The final stage of Krishnan's journey takes him additional from the from the western intellectual frame of thoughts, inherited from the British, in which he was embedded at the opening of the novel, and additional towards native Indian spiritual practices. To attain his objective of 'a harmonious existence' he takes up his deceased wife's psychically-communicated challenge, which he receives very first throughout a medium, to create his thoughts sufficiently to communicate with her psychically himself, and bridge the gap in between life and life-as soon as-death. Even though 1st he had been bemused by his wife's devotional practices, mocking her with 'Oh! Being a yogi!' he now relies on her to guide him, from beyond the grave, in his 'self-development'.
In the final chapter the troubles of the novel come to a head with Krishnan's resignation from his post as English teacher and his psychic reunion with his wife. In his attack on the method he is rebelling against he criticises not English Literature itself 'for who may be insensible to Shakespeare's sonnets, or Ode to the West Wind' but India's adherence to an educational technique which stifles the spirit of its students and alienates them from their native culture:
Study the complete version of this essay at:
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Ian Mackean runs the internet site http://www.literature-study-on-line.com, which characteristics a substantial collection of English Literature Sources and Essays, and exactly where his internet sites on Books Produced Into Motion pictures, and Quick Story Writing can also be discovered. He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in English post-1914, published by Hodder Arnold. As soon as not writing about literature or Brief story writing he is a keen amateur photographer, and has created a website of his photography at http://www.photo-zen.com
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