this ppt was made for the ppt presentation in class. The source mainly is The Guide by R.K. Narayan. and the photo is taken from an online website. no plagiarism to my knowledge.
1. THEMES IN “THE
GUIDE” BY R.K.
NARAYAN
Amarnath Udayasoman Nair, 1st YEAR M.A.
English
2. R.K.NARAYAN
BORN: 10 October 1906
PLACE: Rasipuram, Madras
MARRIAGE: Rajam
CHILDREN: 1 Daughter (Hema)
DEATH: 13 May 2001
3.
4. AWARDS
1. Sahitya Akademi Award (1958) – The Guide
2. Padma Bhushan (1964)
3. Filmfare Award for Best Story(1967) – The
Guide
4. Padma Vibhushan (2000)
5.
6. CHARACTERS
RAJU – a railway shopkeeper who becomes an unauthorised guide later
manager of a dancer, then a convict and later a holyman.
ROSIE – a dancer by passion, starts as a dependent wife later becomes a
independent woman.
MARCO – Rosie’s husband, a workaholic.
VELAN – a villager who proclaims Raju to be a holyman, a true believer
of Raju.
GAFFUR– a friend of Raju and a taxi driver.
MANI – an assistant of Raju when he was the manager of Rosie.
8. MATERIALISM
Materialism is a way of thinking according to which
everything in the world happens as a result of material
interaction, even our emotions and behaviours.
Materialism forms the crux of Raju’s life-story. Through out
his pre-prison life he strived to live a life of materialistic
happiness.
His career change from a shopkeeper to guide was mainly for
the monetary purpose through any means.
His materialistic views may have been formed by his
childhood experiences. Due to which he began to attribute
happiness with materials.
Even when he is at the Temple the main reason why he
decides to stay is because he is getting material benefits from
the people in the village.
9. Raju’s decision of finding opportunity for Rosie was initially
to give her artistic self exposure but as her fame rises he
begins to use her art for his benefit.
When he talks about Rosie and his progress in life he forgets
her artistic achievements and focus on the material pleasures
he could accumulate. He talks about how big the house is,
how much money he is making, how many servants they
employ etc.
His life always revolved around materialistic gains until he
starts the fast voluntarily after reluctance of initial days.
10. A quote which best indicates the materialism in the book
happens when Raju talks about ones happiness:
“Well, you have a big household, a big car and
what not –is that not enjoyment of life?”
11. POWER OF SPEECH
The novel is propelled by speech rather than action.
Speech or spoken words play a important part in the novel.
Through out the novel the action propels as a result of
someone’s spoken words.
Raju’s transformation into Railway Raju happens as a result of
his cunningness in choosing words spoken to the tourists and
descriptions of tourist sights.
Through out the story we see Raju making people around him
do what he wants through his power of speech. This mainly
happens in connection with Rosie.
Characters are defined through their speech.Marco is a
character who speaks less and he is the character who is less
defined.
12. Simplicity of philosophy is also shown through speech in the
book as Raju delivers philosophical sermon to the villagers.
The reason that lands Raju ultimately in the unwilling fast is
misconstrued speech, credit to Velan’s brother.
The entire narrative of past is in fact the words spoken by
Raju to Velan and it captivates both Velan and us just like all
other dialogues in the story.
The backbone of entire novel is the power of speech which
various characters possess, mainly Raju.
13. The suitable quote for showing power of speech is when
Velan’s brother talks about what the Swami told to him:
“ Tell your brother not to bring me any more food I won’t eat. If
I don’t eat, it’ll be all right ; and then everything will be all
right.”
14. FEMINISM
R.K.Narayan speaks feminism through the story of Rosie and
scales such heights which the then authors could only
imagine.
Rosie is a character who is introduced as a dependent wife but
by the end of the story she is a independent artist. who needs
no other person by her side to tread through her life.
The men in Rosie’s life always comes with new hope which
half way through proves to be a false one, whether its Marco
or Raju.
Through her Narayan portrays a new breed of women who are
ready to move along with their life whether there is a man
beside her or not. She is also a sexually and economically
independent woman.
15. By creating two female characters who belongs to different
generations Narayan shows how societies expectation from
women changes over time.
It was also a daring attempt by Narayan to make the character
of heroine a “Devadasi” and shaking the readers conscience.
Narayan’s feminist heroine never loses her feminine side as
most of the times Rosie is confused about whether toidentify
herself as a wife, woman or an artist.
Male perspective of independent women is made clear
through Raju’s initial comments about Rosie.
The message that a woman can only be free when she
becomes independent is driven in to the hearts of the readers
by making the character of Rosie be bossed around by Marco
without love and by Raju with love.
16. The entire strength which the character of Rosie attains in this
novel can be showed through following lines spoken by Raju:
“I knew looking at the way she was going about her business,
that she would manage whether I was inside the bars or
outside, whether her husband approved it or not. Neither
Marco nor I had any place in her life, which had its own
sustaining vitality and which she herself had underestimated
all along.”
17. SPIRITUALITY
The entire story can be considered as an allegory about the
journey of human soul from a worldly being to the ultimate
breaking of the ties with the world.
The story also shows how the soul becomes one with the
divine energy. Especially the scene in which Raju feels at
peace when he is praying knee deep in water.
All the characters comes into Raju’s life and leave him when
their purpose in his life is served.
The story is all about freeing ones spirit. Whether it is Rosie
freeing the artist within herself or Raju finding peace
ultimately or the villagers feeling at ease when they get a
spiritual advisor.
18. The characters of Rosie and Raju are taken on a spiritual
journey by Karma and it culminates for Rosie when she finds
her footing on her own and for Raju with him freeing his soul
from worldly pleasures.
The villagers get a chance to look into their own soul with the
help of Raju’s sermons all the while when Raju goes on
doubting his qualification to perform this task.
Through out the story Raju is a character who is not contend
with what he has got but by the end of the novel he attains
tranquility and comes to peace with his spirit.
19. A quote which shows the character attaining spiritual oneness
is:
“This enjoyment is something Velan cannot take away from me.”
20. PASSION
Passion is another theme which is highly visible in the story
and this passion while turns out to be good for the person who
feels it, proves to be fatal to the people around them.
The passion can be traced through three characters: Rosie,
Raju and Marco.
The passion in the story is mostly self consuming, whether its
for Marco, Rosie or Raju.
The most intense of the passion is faced by Marco, who
doesn’t care about anything else around him except for his
aim.
One characters passion is always an impediment for another
character.
21. Rosie’s passion for dancing cannot be tolerated by Marco,
Marco’s passion for caves cannot be understood by Rosie and
Raju’s passion for worldly pleasures makes him commit many
sins.
All the passionate characters get what they aspired for Raju
gets Rosie, Rosie gets to dance and Marco publishes a book
which changes the south Indian history like he aspired.
The passion consumes Rosie as at one point in the story she
gets tired of dancing but still loves it.
Raju’s passion proved to be fatal as he lost the very thing
which he tried to possess through some miscalculated actions.
