Indian English lLiterature-(Pre-Independence)

1. Indian English Literature-(Pre-
Independence)
Comparative Study of
R.K. Narayan’s ‘Malgudi’
And
Thomas Hardy’s
‘Wessex’
Prepared by
Daya Vaghani(Sem-III)
Department of English
(M.K.Bhavnagar University)

2. ● Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer
Narayanaswami (10 October
1906 – 13 May 2001)
● Commonly known as R. K.
Narayan,
● An Indian writer known for his
work set in the fictional South
Indian town of Malgudi.
● He was a leading author of early
Indian literature in English along
with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja
Rao.
● Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11
January 1928) was an English
novelist and poet.
● A Victorian realist in the
tradition of George Eliot
● Many of his novels concern
tragic characters struggling
against their passions and
social circumstances,
● Novels set in the semi-fictional
region of Wessex; initially based
on the medieval Anglo-Saxon
kingdom
R.K.Narayan Thomas Hardy

3. Malgudi
❖ Malgudi -a fictional town
❖ Location-South India in
Ramanathapuram
❖ It forms the setting for most of
Narayan's works.
❖ Starting with his first novel, Swami
and Friends (1935), all but one of his
fifteen novels and most of his short
stories take place here.
❖ Malgudi was a portmanteau of two
Bangalore localities - Malleshwaram
and Basavanagudi.

4. Wessex
★ Thomas Hardy chose to set most of
his work in an area he called 'Wessex',
the name of one of the ancient Saxon
kingdoms of England.
★ The area covers mainly the South and
West of the country.
★ By Wessex Hardy meant the old Saxon
kingdom of Alfred the Great. Wessex
transcends topographical limits
combining the imaginative experience of
the individual with a sense of man’s place
in the universe.

5. It is better for a writer to
know a little bit of the world
remarkably well than to
know a great part of the
world little.(Thomas Hardy
in his Note Book)
● Wessex is an important name associated with
Hardy’s novels.It is the place where all the actions
in his novels take place.

6. ❏ R.K.Narayan’s fiction is also an illustration of Hardy’s belief.
❏ Narayan explains the genesis of this fictional world in his interview:
On a certain day in September, selected by my
grandmother for its auspicious day, I bought an exercise
book and wrote the first line of a novel as I sat in a room
nibbling my pen and wondering what to write. Malgudi
with its little railway station swam into view, all ready -
made, with a character called Swaminathan running
down the platform peering into the faces of the
passengers, and grimacing at a bearded face.

7. Importance of Place in Literature
● Life of people in different shades and forms
● New dimension of life
● 'place' had now become an indispensable aspect of fiction as theme, plot,
character, and language or narrative technique. For the first time
● D.H. Lawrence recognized the importance of 'place' in literature theoretically:
Every people are polarized in some particular locality. Which is
home, the homeland. Different places on the face of the earth
have diriment vital effluence, different vibration, different
chemical exhalation, and different polarity with different stars:
call it what you like. But the spirit of 'place' is a great reality.
The Nile Valley produced not only the corn, but also the terrific
religions of Egypt. Chinese in San Francisco will in time cease to
be Chinese, for America is a great melting pot. (Ref.3)

8. Country
District
Urban or
Rural
Location
Climate
Customes
Place Religion
Occupation
s
Moral
Values
Economics
Level
Education
Family
Patterns

9. Is Malgudi traced on map?
➔ Hardy conjures up the spirit of Wessex by vividly presenting to us its heaths
and pasture.
➔ The place which Hardy depicts is quite definite and can easily be traced on
the map.
➔ But R.K. Narayan's Malgudi can not be traced on any map.
➔ It's totally his imaginary creation.
➔ Narayan has presented in such a way that it looks a 'real place'.
➔ It represents not only a small town in south India but a part of country.
➔ Whatever happens is Malgudi happens in whole India i.e. happens
everywhere.
➔ It lives in the imagination more distinctly than any other region described
by any Indian writer.
➔ Hardy's Wessex is a district more real than the present districts of England.
➔ In the same way, Narayan's Malgudi is a reality changed with all that is
intimate and poignant, in human life:

10. According to Rosenthal
“All ten novels and most of the short stories are set in
Malgudi. Various critics have attempted to identify
the original of this mythical town. Srinivas Lyenger
speculates that "it might be Lalgudi on the Kaveri or
Yadavagri in Mysore. To these speculation I might
add my own, that Narayan's Malgudi is Coimbatore
which has many of the landmarks a river on one side,
forest on the others, the mission school and college
and all the extension mentioned in the novel."(Ref.4)

11. ● Malgudi is a town, which is not static in its shape, but it is changing
continuously.
● The rapid industrialization brings about drastic changes in Malgudi.
● Four buses go up and down the Mempi village everyday and a railway station
has already come into existence in the town.
● The novelist has depicted the graphic description of the whole of the Malgudi
town, The thinking of people has been changing due to the passage of the
time.
● They are becoming more and conscious as becoming self-centered due to the
rapid industrialization

14. References
● Farrell, John P. (Autumn 2010). "Hardy versus Wessex". The Hardy
Review. 12 (2): 126–147.
● Hardy, Thomas. Note Books. Ed. Evelyn Hardy. Londaon: Hogarth,
1955, p.95
● Lawrence, D.H. The spirit of place: selected literacy criticism
(Londaon: William Heinemann, 1967),p.301
● Narayan, R.K. 'My Days" A Memoir', Mysore: Indian Thought,
1974,p.74-78
● Rosenthal, New York Times Book Review, March 23,1958.
● Williams, Harold (January 1914). "The Wessex Novels of Thomas
Hardy". The North American Review. 199 (698): 120–134. JSTOR
25120154