Literature in English Novel

H I
Yashwantrao Chavan
Maharashtra Open University
M. A. (English)
ENG 522 (Semester - I)
ENG 542 (Semester - II)
Literature in English: Novel
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SHIVAJI UNIVERSITY, KOLHAPUR
K J
CENTRE FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION
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n ADVISORY COMMITTEE n
Prof. (Dr.) N. J. Pawar Dr. D. V. Muley
Vice-Chancellor, Registrar,
Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Shivaji University, Kolhapur.
Dr. A. B. Rajge Shri. B. S. Patil
Director BCUD, Finance and Accounts Officer,
Dr. B. M. Hirdekar Prof. (Dr.) U. B. Bhoite
Controller of Examination Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg,
Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Bharati Vidyapeeth, Pune.
Dr. (Smt.) Vasanti Rasam Prof. (Dr.) A. N. Joshi
Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Director, School of Education,
Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Y. C. M. O. U. Nashik.
Prof. (Dr.) B. S. Sawant Shri. J. R. Jadhav
Dean, Faculty of Commerce, Dean, Faculty of Arts & Fine Arts,
Prof. (Dr.) S. A. Bari
Dr. T. B. Jagtap
Director, Distance Education,
Dean, Faculty of Science,
Kuvempu University, Karnataka.
Shivaji University, Kolhapur.
Prof. Dr. (Smt.) Cima Yeole
Dr. K. N. Sangale (Member Secretary)
Dean, Faculty of Education, Director, Centre for Distance Education,
n B. O. S. MEMBERS OF ENGLISH n
Chairman- Shri. J. A. Mhetre
Lal Bahadur Shastri College of Arts, Science and Commerce, 17, Malhar Peth, Satara
l Prof. (Dr.) P. A. Attar l Shri. G. M. Shikalgar,

Professor and Head, Dept. of English, Bhogawati Mahavidyalaya, Kurukali,
Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Tal. Karveer, Dist. Kolhapur.
l Shri. B. M. Ladgaonkar, l Dr. Ashok Thorat
Yashwantrao Chavan Warna 10, Usha Manor, Body Gate Bus Stop,
Mahavidyalaya, Warananagar, Ganeshkhind Road, Aundh, Pune.
Dist. Kolhapur.
l Dr. Shreedhar Gokhale
l Shri. S. V. Shelake Professor, Dept. of English,
Raje Ramrao Mahavidyalaya, Jath, Poona University, Poona, Aundh Pune.
Dist. Sangli.
l Dr. Rajagopal G.
l Shri. Pandurang Rangrao Shewale English and Foreign Languages
Shri. Shahaji Chh. College, 296, 'C', University, Hyderabad.
Dasara Chowk, Kolhapur.
l Shri. S. D. Thorat
Kai. Sou. Malati V. Patil Kanya
Mahavidyalaya, Urun-Islampur, Tal. Walwa,
Dist. Sangli.
(iii)
Centre for Distance Education Literature in English: Novel
Shivaji University, M. A. Part-I English Paper-II
Kolhapur.
Writing Team
Author’s Name Unit No
Dr. S. R. Sawant 1
Kisan Veer Mahavidyalaya, Wai
Dr. B. M. Ladgoankar 2, 3
Yashwantrao Chavan Warana Mahavidyalaya,
Warananagar, Tal. Panhala, Dist. Kolhapur.
Dr. H. B. Patil 4
Arts, Commerce & Science College, Palus, Dist. Sangli
Dr. R. G. Barvekar 5, 9
Deptt. of English,
Prof. D. M. Sanadi 6, 8
Balwant College, Vita, Dist. Sangli
Dr. M. L. Jadhav 7
Deptt. of English,
n Editors n
Dr. S. R. Sawant
Kisan Veer Mahavidyalaya, Wai.
Dr. R. G. Barvekar Shri. J. A. Mhetre

Deptt. of English, Chairman, B.O.S. in English
Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Shivaji University, Kolhapur
Lal Bahadur Shastri College, Satara.
(iv)
Preface
Dear Student,
This book contains Self Instructional Material prepared by a

team of teachers for Core Paper II Literature in English: Novel.
The University has already made available the syllabus of this
paper online and in print form. This paper introduces general
topics on the novel as a significant form of literature as well as
eight novels, original and translated.
Unit 1, besides the discussion of the rise and development

of the novel, studies the novel in terms of its important aspects,
types and narrative techniques. Units 2 to 9 deal with the eight
novels prescribed for the detailed study. Each unit on the
prescribed novel introduces the life and works of the novelist, the
summary of the plot, the notes on major and minor characters
and the analysis of the themes and narrative techniques used in
the respective novel.
Other important features of this book are: Objectives,

Introduction and Summary, Check Your Progress with Possible
Answers, Exercises and Further Readings. All units are simply
points of departures. Readers should not depend entirely on this
material. They are advised to read original texts and refer to
critical books available online and in the libraries.
All the best for your final examination!
Dr. Sunil Sawant

Editor
(v)
Literature in English: Novel
M. A. Part-I English Paper-II
CONTENTS
Unit No. Topic Page No.
1. The Novel : General Topics 1
2. Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum 39
3. Emile Zola's Germinal 79
4. J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians 121
5. Patrick White's The Tree of Man 161
6. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger 186
7. Maxim Gorky's Mother 207
8. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath 227
9. V. S. Naipaul's A House For Mr. Biswas 251
(vii)
Each Unit begins with the section Objectives -
Objectives are directive and indicative of :

1. What has been presented in the Unit and
2. What is expected from you
3. What you are expected to know pertaining to the specific Unit

once you have completed working on the Unit.
The self check exercises with possible answers will help you to
understand the Unit in the right perspective. Go through the possible
answers only after you write your answers. These exercises are not to
be submitted to us for evaluation. They have been provided to you as
Study Tools to help keep you on the right track as you study the Unit.
(viii)
Unit-1
The Novel: General Topics
Contents
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Rise and Development of the Novel as a Genre
1.2.1 Check Your Progress
1.2.2 Terms to Remember
1.3 Aspects of the Novel
1.4 Types of the Novel
1.5 Narrative Techniques
1.6 Summary
1.7 Answers to Check Your Progress
1.8 Exercises
1.9 Further Readings
1
M.A. I : Literature in English Novel…1
1.0 Objectives:
After completing the study of this unit, you will
 know about the novel as a distinct form of literature
 know about the rise and development of the novel as a genre
 learn the aspects, types and narrative techniques of the novel
 be able to answer the questions on the novel
1.1 Introduction:
This unit begins with the discussion of the rise and development of the novel. It
also studies the novel in terms of its important aspects, types and narrative
techniques.
The “Novel” is an extended work of fiction written in prose. The novel differs
from the short story on the one hand and from the work of middle length called the
novella or novelette on the other. Unlike the short story, the novel has a vast canvas
and hence it is able to present a broad, comprehensive picture of life, or at least a
multi-level impression of a fragment of life. The “novella” or novelette is a prose
narrative of middle length, such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness or Thomas
Mann’s Death in Venice.
E.M. Forster in his book Aspects of the Novel defines the novel as “fiction in
prose of a certain extent.” He adds that the extent should be not less than 50,000
words. The novel has characters, plot (or plots), and a setting. It aims at exploring
motives of different characters. Examples of the novel are as follows: Gunter Grass’s
The Tin Drum and Emile Zola’s Germinal; J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for Barbarians
and Patrick White’s Tree of Man; Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger and M. Gorky’s
Mother; John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and V. S. Naipaul’s A House of Mr.
Biswas.
1.2 Rise and Development of the Novel

A novel is one of the important genres of literature. It is a long narrative in
literary prose. The present English word ‘novel’ derives from the Italian novella for
"new", "news", or "short story of something new". The introduction of the printing
2
press created a special demand for books during the sixteenth century. People started
demanding prose fiction as it remained close to everyday language. Verse, rhetoric
and science were by contrast highly restricted areas. The availability of paper as a
carrier medium changed the situation for prose fiction. The modern novel developed
with the new carrier medium in Europe in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries.
The modern novel emerged in Europe. The early European novelists were influenced
by verse epics such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey (9th or 8th century BC), Virgil's
Aeneid (29–19 BC) and The Bible .
The novel has historical roots both in the tradition of medieval "romances" and
in the tradition of the novella. The "romances" had been verse epics in the Romance
language of southern France. Even today, most European languages make that clear
by using the word roman roughly the way that English uses the word novel. The
word novel claims roots in the European novella. Yet, epic length or the focus on a
central hero giving the work its name (as in Robinson Crusoe or Oliver Twist) are
features derived from the tradition of "romances".
The term novel refers back to the production of Fairy tales, jokes, little funny
stories designed to make a point in a conversation. Written collections of such stories
circulated in a wide range of products such as Boccaccio's Decameron (1354) and
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1386–1400).
The invention of printing brought in commercialization. Romances had
circulated in lavishly ornamented manuscripts to be read out to audiences. The
printed book allowed a comparatively inexpensive alternative for the special purpose
of silent reading. These books consisted of abridgements of ancient historians,
popular medieval histories of knights, stories of comical heroes, religious legends
and collections of jests and fables. The new books offered stories the audience could
accept as allegedly true, even if they were fantastic and unlikely. They reached the
households of urban citizens and of country merchants who visited the cities as
traders.
Literacy spread among the urban populations of Europe due to a number of
factors. Women of wealthier households had learned to read in the 14th and 15th
centuries and had become customers of religious devotion. The Protestant
Reformation enkindled propaganda and press wars. Broadsheets and newspapers
became the new media of public information. Even writing skills spread among
3
apprentices and women of the middle classes. Business owners were forced to adopt
methods of written book-keeping and accounting. The personal letter became a
favourite medium of communication among 17th-century men and women. Cheap
histories were especially popular among apprentices and younger urban readers of
both sexes.
By the 1550s there existed a section of literature (scientific books) addressing
the academic audience and a second market of books for the wider audience. The
popular second market developed its own differentiation of class and style. The
lowest strata of chapbooks created an extremely conservative market. The new
market segment comprised poetry, memoirs, modern politics, books of fashion,
journals, and such. Autobiographical memoirs, personal journals and prose fiction set
the trend in the modern field as the genres that authors could most freely use for
experiments of style and personal expression.
The Spanish Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) represented a transition from a
collection of episodes towards the story of the life of a central character, the hero of
the work. The tradition that developed with these titles focused on a hero and his life.
The adventures led to satirical encounters with the real world with the hero either
becoming the pitiable victim or the rogue who exploited the vices of those he met. A
second tradition of satirical romances was designed to parody and satirize heroic
romances. Cervantes' Don Quixote (1606/1615) modified the satire of romances: its
hero lost contact with reality by reading too many romances. Both branches of
satirical production seem to have addressed a predominantly male audience.
The "novel" became the standard term in the 1650s. William Painter's Palace of
Pleasure well furnished with pleasaunt Histories and excellent Novelles (1566) was
the first English title to use it. Compared with "romances", "novelles", "novellas" or
"novels" had to be short. They had to give up all aspirations on grandeur, heroism
and the style romantic heroes and their actions required. "Romances" focused on
lonely heroes and their adventures, "novels" on revealing incidents that could serve
as examples for moral maxims. The titles of "romances" put their respective heroes'
and heroines' names front and centre: "Artamene", "Clelie" were the heroes of
"heroic romances". "Satirical romances" did the same with their lower class
protagonists. The additional "Adventures of" would later emphasize the focus on acts
of heroism. The protagonists of "novels" were actors in a plot, in an intrigue, and it
was the plot that gave the example and taught the vital lessons. These protagonists
4
could be average human beings without any special signs of grandeur, neither
comical nor imitable but of the same nature as their readers; they would by and large
show problematic character traits. Unlike romances, the protagonists were not role
models: instead, the surprising results of their actions taught the lessons.
The word "novel" began to replace the word "romance" on title pages in the
1680s. The advantages of the new genre were: brevity, a lack of ambition to produce
epic poetry in prose. The style was fresh and plain; the focus was on modern life and
on heroes who were neither good nor bad. One learned through their actions, not by
imitating them. The novel's potential to become the medium of urban gossip and
scandal fuelled the rise of the novel/novella. The authors of modern journalistic
gossip spiced their works with short anonymous histories. The stories were offered as
allegedly true recent histories, not for the sake of scandal but strictly for the moral
lessons they gave. Collections of letters and memoirs appeared, and were filled with
the intriguing new subject matter. The epistolary novel grew on this market and
found its first full blown example of scandalous fiction with Aphra Behn's Love-
Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister (1684/1685/1687).
The amenities of the new "novels" were: wit, a fast narration evolving around a
group of young fashionable urban heroes and their intrigues, a scandalous moral,
gallant talk to be imitated and brevity and conciseness of the plot. The development
led to Eliza Haywood's epic length "novel" Love in Excess (1719/20) and to Samuel
Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1741), essentially still a novel with its
typical two part title: naming the story and promising its value as an example. It led
to a production of classics of the intriguing production and to a reform movement in
the 1740s.
The 18th-century rise of the novel is a compound of several factors.
First, there was a sudden rise in the titles during the 18th century. A change in
the public appreciation supported that growth and was reflected by the growing
media coverage of new works. Fiction was no longer a predominantly aristocratic
entertainment around 1700. Printed books had gained the power to reach readers of
almost all classes.
The reform that had first been promoted in journals such as The Spectator (No.
10 of The Spectator had stated the aim "to enliven morality with wit, and to temper
wit with morality… to bring philosophy out of the closets and libraries, schools and
5
colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffeehouses") became
the main goal of the second generation of 18th-century novelists. A distinct
secondary discourse developed with a wave of entertaining new journals like The
Spectator and The Tatler at the beginning of the century. By the 1780s, critical
public reception constituted a new marketing platform for fiction, and authors and
publishers recognized it as such. The term "literary realism" is regularly applied to
19th-century fiction. The novels Defoe, Richardson and Fielding wrote between
1719 and the 1750s can be read as precursors.
The short "novel" supplanted the longer "romance" in the 1680s. It found a
second peak on title pages in 1720s when it received its body of classics. The change
of words, the rise of the word "novel" at the cost of the rivaling "romance", remained
a Spanish and English phenomenon. Readers all over western Europe had welcomed
the novel(la) or short history as an alternative to romances in the second half of the
17th century.
The late 18th-century brought an answer with the "romantic" movement's
readiness to reclaim the word "romance" as a term for explicitly grotesque and
distant fictional settings. Robinson Crusoe became a "novel" in that period appearing
now as a work of the new realism of fiction the 18th century had brought forth. The
term "romance" was eventually restricted to love stories in the course of the 19th
century.
New classics added to the market: The English Select Collection of Novels in six
volumes (1720–22) is a milestone in this development. Aphra Behn's prose fictions
had appeared as "novels" in the 1680s and were reprinted in collections of her works
which turned the scandalous authoress into a modern classic. Fénelon's Telemachus
(1699/1700) became a classic within three years after its publication. New authors
entered the market ready to use their personal names as producers of fiction: Eliza
Haywood thus followed the footsteps of Aphra Behn in 1719 using her name with
unprecedented pride.
The production of classics allowed the novel to gain a past, prestige and a
canon. It called at the same moment for a present production of equal merits. A wave
of mid-18th-century works that proclaimed their intent to propagate improved moral
values gave critics modern novels they could discuss publicly. Instead of banning
6
novels, the efforts at reformation of manners that had begun in the 1690s now led to
their reform.
Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), composed "to
cultivate the Principles of Virtue and Religion in the Minds of the Youth of Both
Sexes" focused on the potential victim, a heroine of all the modern virtues vulnerable
through her social status and her occupation as servant of the libertine who falls in
love with her. Eventually, she shows the power to reform her antagonist.
Male heroes adopted the new sentimental character traits in the 1760s. Laurence
Sterne's Yorick, the hero of the Sentimental Journey (1768) did so with an enormous
amount of humour. Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and Henry
Mackenzie's Man of Feeling (1771) produced the far more serious role models.
Openly uncontrollable conflicts arrived in the 1770s with Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). The titular hero realised how
impossible it had become for him to integrate into the new conformist society.
The concept of character development began to fascinate novelists in the 1760s.
Jean Jacques Rousseau's novels focused on such developments in philosophical
experiments. The German Bildungsroman offered quasi-biographical explorations
and autobiographical self examinations of the individual and its personal
development by the 1790s. A subcategory of the genre focused on the creation of an
artist. It led to the 19th-century production of novels exploring how modern times
form the modern individual.
Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–
1767) rejected continuous narration. It expanded the author-reader communication
from the preface into the plot itself – Tristram Shandy develops as a conversation
between the narrative voice and his audience.
Walter Scott's historical novel Waverley (1814) introduced a new tradition. Scott
did not write to satisfy the audience with temporal escapism, nor did he threaten the
boundaries between fact and fiction with his works. He used the art of imagination to
re-evaluate history by rendering things, incidents and protagonists. His work
remained historical fiction, yet it questioned existing historical perceptions. The
special power was partly gained through research: Scott the novelist, resorted to
documentary sources as any historian would have done, but as an artist, he gave
things a deeper significance. Attracting a far wider market than any historian could
7
address, and rendering the past vividly, his work destabilized public perceptions of
that past.
Émile Zola's novels depicted the world of which Marx and Engels wrote in a
non-fictional mode. Slavery in the United States, abolitionism and racism became
topics of far broader public debate thanks to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's
Cabin (1852). Charles Dickens led the audience into contemporary British
workhouses: his novels imitated firsthand accounts of child labour. War changed
with Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1868/69) from historical fact to a world of
personal fate. Crime became a personal reality with Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime
and Punishment (1866). Women authors had dominated the production of fiction
from the 1640s into the early 1700s, but few before George Eliot so openly
questioned the position of women, the precepts of their education, and their social
position.
With the new appreciation of history, the future also became a topic for fiction.
Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826) culminated in the catastrophic last days of a
mankind extinguished by the plague. Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1887)
and H. G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) were, by contrast, marked by the idea of
long term technological and biological developments. Industrialization, Darwin's
theory of evolution and Marx's theory of class divisions shaped these works and
turned historical processes into a subject matter of wide debate: Bellamy's Looking
Backward became the second best selling book of the 19th century after Harriet
Beecher-Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Such works of scientific reflection inspired a
whole genre of popular science fiction as the 20th century approached.
The individual, the potentially isolated hero, had stood at the centre of romantic
fictions since the Middle Ages. The early novel(la) had placed the story itself at the
centre: it was driven by plot, by incident and accident, rather than being the story of a
single larger-than-life figure. And yet, the individual had returned with a wave of
satirical romances and historical pseudo romances. Individuals such as Robinson
Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Pamela, and Clarissa reintroduced the old romantic focus on
the individual as the centre of what was to become the modern novel.
Jane Austen's Emma (1815), Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856), Leo
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1873–77), and George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871–72)
brought female protagonists into the role of an outstanding observer. Charles
8
Dickens's Oliver Twist (1839) and Gottfried Keller's Green Henry (1855) focused on
the perspectives of children. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866)
added a drop-out student who became a murderer to the spectrum of special
observers whose views would promise reinterpretations of modern life.
The exploration of the individual's perception eventually revolutionized the very
modes of writing fiction. Given the number of new editions and the place of the
modern novel among the genres sold in bookshops today, the novel is far from the
crisis predicted by John Barth. Literature has not ended in "exhaustion" or in a silent
"death"; nor have bound paper books been superseded by such new media as cinema,
television or such new channels of distribution as the Internet or e-books. Novels
such as the Harry Potter (1997–2007) books have created public sensation among an
audience critics had seen as lost.
The novel remains both public and private. It is a public product of modern print
culture. It remains difficult to target. Totalitarian regimes can close down Internet
service providers, and control theatres, cinemas, radio and television stations, whilst
individual paper copies of a novel can be smuggled into countries, defying strict
censorship, and read there in cafés and parks almost as safely as at home. Its covers
can be as inconspicuous as those of Iranian editions of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic
Verses (1988). An Orwellian regime would have to search households and to burn
every retrievable copy: an engagement of utopian dimensions that only a novel, Ray
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1953), would envisage.
The artefact that constituted one of the earliest flashpoints in the current cultural
confrontation between the secular West and the Islamic East, Rushdie's Satanic
Verses (1988), exemplifies almost all the advantages the modern novel has over its
rivals. It is a work of epic dimensions no film maker could achieve, a work of
privacy and individuality of perspective wherever it leads into the dream worlds of
its protagonists, a work that uniquely anticipated ensuing political debates, and a
work many Western critics classified as one of the greatest novels ever written. It is
postmodernist in its ability to play with the entire field of literary traditions without
ever sacrificing its topicality.
To look back, around 1700 fiction had been a small but virulent market of
fashionable books in the sphere of public history. By contrast, in 19th century Europe
the novel had become the center of a new literary debate. The 20th century began
9
with the Western export of new global conflicts, new technologies of
telecommunication and new industries. The new arrangement of the academic
disciplines became a world standard. Within this system the humanities are the
ensemble of subjects that evaluate and organise public debate, from art and literature
to history. Former colonies and modern third world nations adopted this arrangement
in their educational systems in order to pursue equal footing with the "leading"
industrial nations. Literature entered their public spheres almost automatically as the
arena of free personal expression and as a field of national pride in which one had to
search for one's historical identity, as the Western nations had done before.
The major 20th-century social processes can be traced through the modern
novel: the history of the sexual revolution can be traced through the reception of
sexually frank novels: D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover had to be published
in Italy in 1928; British censorship lifted its ban as late as 1960. Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer (1934) created the comparable US scandal.
Crime became a major subject of 20th- and 21st-century novelists. Patricia
Highsmith's thrillers became a medium of new psychological explorations. Paul
Auster's New York Trilogy (1985–1986) crossed the borders into the field of
experimental postmodernist literature.
The major political and military confrontations of the 20th and 21st centuries
have inspired novelists. The events of World War II found their reflections in novels
from Günter Grass' The Tin Drum (1959) to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961). The
ensuing cold war lives on in a bulk of spy novels that reach out into the realm of
popular fiction. Latin American self awareness in the wake of the (failing) left
revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a "Latin American Boom", connected
today with the names of Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel García
Márquez and the invention of a special brand of postmodern magic realism. The
unstable status of Israel and the Middle East have become the subject of Israeli and
Arab perceptions. Contemporary fiction has explored the realities of the post-Soviet
nations and those of post-Tiananmen China. Arguably, though, international
perceptions of these events have been shaped more by images than words. The wave
of modern media images has, in turn, merged with the novel in the form of graphic
novels that both exploit and question the status of circulating visual materials. Art
Spiegelman's two-volume Maus and, perhaps more important in its new theoretical
10
approach, his In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) – a graphic novel questioning the
reality of the images the 9/11 attacks have produced – are interesting artefacts here.
The extreme options for writing alternative histories have created genres of their
own. Fantasy has become a field of commercial fiction branching into the worlds of
computer-animated role play and esoteric myth. Its center today is J. R. R. Tolkien's
The Lord of the Rings (1954/55), a work that mutated from a book written for young
readers in search of openly fictionalised role models into a cultural artefact of epic
dimensions. Tolkien successfully revived northern European epic literature from
Beowulf and the North Germanic Edda to the Arthurian Cycles and turned their
incompatible worlds into an epic of global confrontations that magically preceded all
known confrontations.
Science fiction has developed a broad variety of genres from the technological
adventure Jules Verne had made fashionable in the 1860s to new political and
personal compositions. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) has become a
touchpoint for debate of Western consumerist societies and their use of modern
technologies. George Orwell's 1984 (1949) focuses on the options of resistance under
the eyes of public surveillance. Stanisław Lem, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke
became modern classical authors of experimental thought with a focus on the
interaction between men and machines. A new wave of authors has added post-
apocalyptic fantasies and explorations of virtual realities in crossovers into the
commercial production of quickly mutating sci-fi genres. William Gibson's
Neuromancer (1984) became a cult classic here and founded a new brand of
cyberpunk science fiction.
The 20th-century love romance is a successor of the novels Madeleine de
Scudéry, Marie de La Fayette, Aphra Behn, and Eliza Haywood wrote from the
1640s into the 1740s. The modern adventure novel goes back to Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe (1719) and its immediate successors.
The emerging field of popular fiction immediately created its own stratifications
with a production of bestselling authors such as Raymond Chandler, Barbara
Cartland, Ian Fleming, Johannes Mario Simmel, Rosamunde Pilcher, Stephen King,
Ken Follett, Patricia Cornwell, and Dan Brown who enjoy the potential to attract fans
and who appear as role models in author-fan relationships. The lowest market
segment does not develop any mythologies of authorship. It hardly differentiates
11
between hero and author: one buys the new Perry Rhodan, Captain Future, or Jerry
Cotton.
Trivial literature has been accused of promoting escapism and reactionary
politics. It is supposedly designed to reinforce present divisions of class, power and
gender. Nonetheless, popular fiction has dealt with almost any topic the modern
public sphere has provided. Class and gender divisions are omnipresent in love
stories: the majority of them harp on tragic confrontations that arise wherever a
heroine of lower social status falls in love with a doctor, the wealthy heir of an estate
or company, or just the Alpine farmer whose maid she happens to be. It is not said
that these aspirations lead to happy endings. They can be read as escapist dreams of
how one could change ones social status by marriage; they are at the same time
constant indicators of existing or imaginary social barriers. All major political
confrontations of the past one hundred years have become the scenery of trivial
exploits, whether they focused on soldiers, spies or on civilians fighting between the
lines. Conspiracy theories have mushroomed under the covers of trivial fictions from
Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity (1980) to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code
(2003): they mirror a widespread feeling that the electorate of the Western
democracies receive at best an illusion of freedom, an omnipresent picture presented
in the media, whilst those who pull the strings hide in the dark.
A) Choose the correct alternative:
1. The term ‘novel’ derives from the Italian----------------.
a) novelle b) romance c) novella d) new
2. The Spanish novel--------------------presents the story of the life of a central
character.
a) Lazarillo de Tormes b) Don Quixote
c) Telemachus d) Moll Flanders
3. Edward Bellamy is famous for his novel----------------.
a) Uncle Tom’s Cabin b) The Time Machine
c) Middlemarch d) Looking Backward
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4. Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses is-------------.
a) modernist b) postmodernist c) realist d) naturalist
5. Isaac Asimov is famous for writing----------------.
a) fantasies b) fairy tales
c) science fiction d) popular fiction
B) Fill in the blanks:
1. A novel is a long--------------in literary prose.
2. Aphra Behn’s Love-Letters between a Nobleman and His Sister is an--------
------novel.
3. Charles Dickens’s ----------------focused on the perspective of a child.
4. Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum reflects the events of -------------.
5. --------------------predicted the crisis of the novel.
C) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence.
1. Mention the term for verse epics in the Romance language of southern
France.
2. Mention the title of Baccaccio’s famous collection of short stories.
3. Which woman novelist questioned the position of women during the
nineteenth century?
4. Mention the novel of the eighteenth century which rejected continuous
narration.
5. Who started the practice of writing historical novels?
1.2.2 Terms to Remember:
 manuscript: a handwritten or typed document
 Protestant Reformation: religious changes introduced by the Protestant
branch of Christianity
 titular: a titular job or position has a name that makes it seem important,
although the person who has it, is not really important or powerful
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1.3 Aspects of the Novel:
Plot:
The term ‘plot’ refers to the artistic arrangement of the actions in the novel. The
actions in the novel are rendered and ordered artistically in order to achieve
particular emotional and artistic effects. The actions include both verbal discourse as
well as physical actions. They are performed by particular characters in a work. They
are the means by which they exhibit their moral and dispositional qualities. Plot and
character are therefore interdependent critical concepts. According to Henry James,
“What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the
illustration of character?” A “story” is a bare synopsis of the temporal order of what
happens in a work of literature. The story of a novel can be told by saying that first
this happens, then that, then that…. The story starts becoming the plot only when
different matters are rendered, ordered, and organized so as to achieve particular
effects.
There are a great variety of plot forms. Some plots are designed to achieve tragic
effects. There are others which achieve the effects of comedy, romance, satire, etc.
Each of these types in turn exhibits diverse plot-patterns.
Many plots deal with a conflict. The novel may deal with
a) the conflict between individual and individual;
b) the conflict between individual and society;
c) the conflict between against fate, or against the circumstances; and
d) the conflict opposing desires or values in the individual’s own
temperament.
As a plot progresses, it arouses expectations in the reader about the future course
of events and actions and how characters will respond to them. A lack of certainty,
on the part of a concerned reader, about what is going to happen to characters is
known as suspense. If what in fact happens violates any expectations we have
formed, it is known as surprise. Many realistic novels have this type of interplay of
suspense and surprise.
A plot is said to be “an artistic whole” if it is a complete and ordered structure of
actions, directed toward the intended effect. In such a plot none of the important
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component parts, or incidents, is nonfunctional. Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749)
is a classic example of a novel having a tightly integrated plot. Many picaresque
narratives, nevertheless, such as Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722), have an
episodic plot structure.
Since the 1920s, a number of novelists have deliberately tried to frustrate the
expectations that the reader has formed by habituation to traditional plots. The
modernist novel, the postmodernist novel, the antinovel, the new novel, etc. dispense
altogether with a recognizable plot. Also, various recent types of critical theory have
altered radically many traditional concepts in the classification and analysis of plots.
Structuralist critics, who conceive diverse plots as sets of alternative conventions and
codes for constructing a fictional narrative, analyze and classify these conventional
plot forms on the model of linguistic theory. And some of the most recent critical
theorists challenge any notion of the “unity” of a plot and of its “teleological”
progress toward a resolution. For them, the resolution itself is only a façade to mask
the irreconcilable conflicts and contradictions (whether psychological or social) that
are the true components of any literary text.
Character:
A Character is a person presented in a novel. There may be one or many
characters. Characters have moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities. Such
qualities are expressed in what they say (the dialogue) and by what they do (the
action). Their speech and actions depend upon their motivation. A Character may
remain essentially “stable” from beginning to end of work (Micawber in Charles
Dickens’ David Copperfield). It may undergo a radical change through a gradual
process of motivation and development (the title character in Jane Austen’s Emma).
Similarly, it may undergo a radical change as the result of a crisis (Pip in Dickens’
Great Expectations). The reader expects that the character should not suddenly break
off. He expects that it should act by his or her temperament.
E. M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel (1927), talks about ‘flat’ and ‘round’
characters. A flat character is built around “a single idea or quality”. It lacks
individuality. Sometimes, it is described in a single phrase or sentence. A round
character, on the contrary, is complex in temperament and motivation. It is
represented with subtle particularity. Such a character is very difficult to describe
with any adequacy. It is capable of surprising us. Almost all novels have some flat
15
characters. In the detective story or adventure novel, even the protagonist usually is
two dimensional. For example, Sherlock Holmes. Artistically successful characters
are three-dimensional. They perform excellent literary roles. For example, Jay
Gatsby in the American novel The Great Gatsby. A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S.
Naipaul is the story of Mohan Biswas, a Trinidad native of Indian ancestry. Despite
being buffeted by economic, social and cultural forces beyond his control, and
frequently making mistakes, Mr. Biswas is ultimately portrayed as a man of quiet
dignity, who meets the challenges of his times with grace.
There are two different methods for characterizing the persons in a novel:
showing and telling. In showing (also called “the dramatic method”), the author
presents the characters talking and acting. The reader has to infer what motives and
dispositions lie behind what they say and do. In telling, the author intervenes
authoritatively in order to describe, and often to evaluate, the motives and
dispositional qualities of the characters. For example, in the opening chapter of Pride
and Prejudice, Jane Austen first shows us Mr. and Mrs. Bennet as they talk to one
another about the young man who has just rented Netherfield Park, and then tells us
about them:
Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve,
and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been
insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less
difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little
information, and uncertain temper.
All the greatest novelists have employed “telling” to produce masterpieces.
Flaubert and Henry James recommended only the technique of “showing”
characters. They asked the authors to totally efface themselves in order to write
“objectively”, “impersonally,” or “dramatically.” Modern novelists from James
Joyce to French writers of the new novel often present the persons in their works
only dramatically.
Setting:
As compared to short story, the magnitude of the novel permits not only a
greater variety of characters and a greater complication of plot (or plots), but also an
ampler development of milieu (place). The action of the novel takes place in some
16
actual or imaginary place. A change in place necessarily changes the meaning of the
novel.
Setting simply means a background. However, it may broadly be used in the
context of the social setting, the historical period or the natural or physical location
against which the novelist sets his novel. It may further be divided into two types: a)
the concrete setting and b) the abstract setting. The concrete setting refers to the
actual locale, whereas the abstract setting, to the ethos of community (its beliefs and
mode of thinking). The novelist may choose either of these two or both
simultaneously. John Steinbeck, in the Grapes of Wrath, presents Oklahoma,
California as a setting and describes the ethos of the migrating farmers during the
disastrous drought of the 1930s.
A good historical novel requires a good ‘match’ between characters and setting:
in terms of time as well as place. In the picaresque narrative, the setting changes
frequently as the main character travels from one place to another, whereas in the
stream of consciousness novel, the setting may not change at all. There are novels in
which there is less importance given to sociological or naturalistic background, but
nevertheless its existence is felt. On the contrary, the setting has a major role to play
in the social or domestic novels.
The setting of the novel can be a city, a village or a street, or it can be the sea,
the forest, the desert, or the planet. It gradually builds up a certain mood. It may play
the role of a character or may represent a social attitude or may perform an agency
for destruction. Whatever its role, the setting of the novel does contribute to the plot
of the novel—to the development of the story and characters in it.
The sea in Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea assumes the status of a
character because the old man looks upon the sea as a woman you are in love with.
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764) has the setting of a
gloomy castle furnished with dungeons, subterranean passages, and sliding panels in
the Middle Ages. The action of Patrick White’s novel The Tree of Man takes place
on the outskirts of Sydney (Australia).
Point of View
The characters, actions, setting and incidents constitute the narrative in the
novel. Point of view is the mode (or modes) by means of which they are presented to
the reader. It was Henry James, critic and novelist, who gave some attention to point
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of view in novels. Percy Lubbock, in his book The Craft of Fiction, took up the
concept from Henry James and elaborated on it. Norman Friedman’s essay called
“Point of View: the Development of a Critical Concept” and Wayne Booth’s book
The Rhetoric of Fiction further make use of the concept of point of view for analysis
of novels. Gerard Genette’s book Narrative Discourse and Franz Stanzel’s book
Theory of Narrative also deal with this concept.
The concept of point of view is further divided into three categories:
a) First person point of view;
b) Second person point of view; and
c) Third person point of view.
The first person point of view in the novel gives us a personal view of the story.
Hence this point of view is characterized by bias and subjectivity. At the same time,
the first person point of view allows us a more intense view of the story. Daniel
Defoe’s Moll Flanders, R. K. Narayan’s Guide etc. make use of the first person point
of view. In James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, the first
person point of view is used to give us nothing but what goes in the mind of the
narrator.
The second person point of view is not much used in novels. When used, this
point of view creates a very complex effect because the reader is told, as it were what
he/she does. James McInnemy’s novel Bright Lights, Big City makes a very
interesting use of the second person point of view.
The third person point of view has been used quite often in novels. As it creates
a certain distance between the reader and the narrated events, it makes the events
sound more objective. This point of view is very useful to tell of events separated in
time and place. Majority of eighteenth and nineteenth century novels made use of the
third point of view. Examples are: Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, etc. Maxim Gorky narrates the
story of Mother from the point of view of Pelagea Nilovna, the mother who is barely
literate and immensely oppressed, rather than that of her son Pavel Mikhailovich, a
well-read, young factory worker who, besides being an intellectual, is also a man of
action. He does so perhaps because the views and emotions of the mother certainly
have a better appeal to the collective working class of the world which is generally
18
kept out of the bourgeois educational system and is, by rule, poverty-ridden,
oppressed and politically helpless everywhere.
The section on ‘Narrative Techniques’ in this unit includes additional
information on the concept of ‘point of view’.
1. A---------is a bare synopsis of the temporal order of what happens in the
novel.
a) plot b) character c) story d) setting
2. Many realistic novels have the interplay of---------------------.
a) plot and character b) tragedy and comedy
c) illusion and reality d) suspense and surprise
3. E. M. Forster introduced the distinction between--------------characters.
a) right and wrong b) flat and round
c) good and bad d) tragic and comic
4. Ernest Hemingway presents----------as a woman in Old Man and the Sea.
a) mountain b) moon c) sea d) forest
5. Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders makes use of the-------------point of view.
a) first-person b) second-person
c) third-person d) omniscient
1. The----------in the novel include both verbal discourse and physical actions.
2. Many plots deal with a--------------------.
3. ----------------is the protagonist of The Great Gatsby.
4. Setting means a------------------.
5. Majority of novels have used the----------------person point of view.
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1. Which group of critics does conceive plots as ‘sets of conventions and
codes’?
2. What are the two different methods of characterization?
3. Where does the action of the novel take place?
4. What is the setting of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto?
5. Mention the name of the author of The Craft of Fiction.
 dispositional: related to person’s natural qualities of mind and character
 irreconcilable: lacking harmony
 bias: a tendency to prefer one person or thing to another, and to favour that
person or thing
1.4 Types of the Novel

There are many types of the novel. This section introduces some of these types.
The Picaresque Novel:
The picaresque narrative emerged in sixteenth-century Spain. The term
‘picaresque’ is derived from the word “Picaro” which is Spanish for “rogue”. A
typical picaresque narrative presents the account of the adventures of a rascal. It is a
long narrative full of varied incidents and events related to the main character.
Picaresque fiction is realistic in manner, episodic in structure and often satiric in aim.
Some early examples are: Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), Guzmán de Alfarache (1599)
and Don Quixote (1605). The first English example was Thomas Nashe’s The
Unfortunate Traveller (1594). Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) is also
considered picaresque. Novel in the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque"
has referred to a literary technique or model. It can simply refer to an episodic
recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road. For example, Henry
Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742), The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great (1743) and
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Some American novels that use the
picaresque technique are: Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Henry
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Miller's Tropic of Cancer, E. E. Cummings' The Enormous Room and Saul Bellow's
The Adventures of Augie March. Recent examples of the picaresque novel are:
Camilo José Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942), Günter Grass's The Tin
Drum (1959), Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle (1973), Isabel Allende's Eva Luna
(1987), Helen Zahavi's Dirty Weekend (1991), Christian Kracht's Faserland (1995)
and Robert Clark Young's One of the Guys (1999).
The Gothic Novel
This utopian kind of form of novel is often set in the past and perhaps in some
far away land of the trees, like Transylvania! The place of dilemma is not the
location but in the mind, however. The point about the fantastical world is not to seek
perfection but to show the fallacy of seeking perfection (e.g. everlasting life) or the
evil involved in seeking it immorally. These often use Christian iconography to
actually support the general Christian viewpoint. Some examples are: Horace
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The Historical Novel:
The historical novel began in the nineteenth century with Sir Walter Scott. The
historical novel takes its setting and some characters and events from history. It
makes the historical events and issues crucial for the central characters and narrative.
Some of the greatest historical novels also use the protagonists and actions to reveal
what the author regards as the deep forces that impel the historical process. The
central characters in Sir Walter Scott’s historical novels are essentially from history
and the events depicted in them appear to be real though the writer of these novels
enjoys freedom from facts and examples of anachronism are found frequently.
Examples of historical novels are Scott’s Ivanhoe (1819), set in the period of
Norman domination of the Saxons at the time of Richard I; Dickens’ A Tale of Two
Cities (1859), in Paris and London during the French Revolution; Tolstoy’s War and
Peace (1869), during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia; Sigrid Undset's Kristin
Lavransdatter (1920–22), about life in medieval Norway; Margaret Mitchell’s Gone
with the Wind (1936), in Georgia during the Civil War and Reconstruction and Mary
Renault's Mask of Apollo (1966), set in ancient Greece.
The Epistolary Novel
The word epistolary comes from the Latin word epistola, meaning a letter. An
epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. Sometimes diary entries,
21
newspaper clippings and other documents are also used. Recently, electronic
"documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into
use. The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the
workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without
using the device of an omniscient narrator. An epistolary novel tells its story through
correspondence, letters, telegrams, and the like. Alice Walker’s The Colour Purple
(1983) makes use of letters and diary entries. Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
(2008) is in the form of letters. It is written as a series of letters to "His Excellency
Wen Jiabao, The Premier's Office, Beijing".
The Regional Novel:
The regional novel delineates the life of people in a particular place—focusing
on customs and speech—to demonstrate how environment influences its inhabitants.
The regional novel emphasizes the setting, speech, and social structure and customs
of a particular locality, not merely as local color, but as important conditions
affecting the temperament of the characters and their ways of thinking, feeling, and
interacting. Instances of such localities are “Wessex” in Thomas Hardy’s novels like
Mayer of Casterbridge (1885) or Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), “Yoknapatawpha
County,” Mississippi, in Faulkner’s Sartoris (1929), The Sound and the Fury (1929),
As I Lay Dying (1931) etc, “Malgudi” in R. K. Narayan’s The Guide (1958), The
Man Eater of Malgudi (1962), The Tiger of Malgudi (1983), etc.
The Stream of Consciousness Novel:
The term ‘stream of consciousness’ refers to a special mode of narration that
undertakes to reproduce, without a narrator’s intervention, the full spectrum and the
continuous flow of a character’s mental process. In such a novel sense perceptions
mingle with conscious and half-conscious thoughts, memories, expectations,
feelings, and random associations. James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), which describes a
day in the lives of a group of ordinary people in Dublin, breaks the coherence, the
sequence of moments in life. Dorothy Richardson sustains a stream-of-consciousness
mode of narrative, focused exclusively on the mind and perceptions of her heroine,
throughout the twelve volumes of her novel Pilgrimage (1915-38). Virginia Woolf
employs the procedure as a primary narrative mode in several novels, including Mrs.
Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1929). William Faulkner exploits it
brilliantly in the first three of the four parts of The Sound and the Fury (1929). These
22
experimentalists, coming away from the realistic approach of the earlier novelists,
entered the undercurrents of human consciousness and made sincere efforts to catch
them in words.
The Postmodern Novel
In general, postmodern novels are those novels which deny realism, which are
poststructural in language, whose devices draw attention to the novel as a novel.
These novels are writerly and reflexive. They can show both the creativity and
repetitive nature of life. Time and space is distorted, and characters can inhabit more
than one world. Somewhere rules are broken and ordinary narration is disturbed. The
example is: The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles. Waiting for the
Barbarians (1980) is a postcolonial and postmodern novel by the South African-born
author J. M. Coetzee. The town's magistrate, the story's protagonist and narrator, is a
figure searching for meaning in a small frontier town of a nameless empire. Coetzee
utilizes the nameless empire as an allegory.
The Campus Novel
A campus novel, also known as an academic novel, is a novel whose main
action is set in and around the campus of a university. Campus novels exploit the
closed world of the university setting, with characters inhabiting unambiguous
hierarchies. They may describe the reaction of a fixed socio-cultural perspective (the
academic staff) to new social attitudes (the new student intake). Kingsley Amis's
well-known campus novel Lucky Jim counterpoints intellectual pretensions and
human weaknesses. Some, however, attempt a serious treatment of university life;
examples include C.P. Snow's The Masters, J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and Philip
Roth's The Human Stain. Novels such as Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited that
focus on students rather than faculty are often considered to belong to a distinct
genre, sometimes termed varsity novels. A subgenre is the campus murder
mystery, where the closed university setting substitutes for the country house of
Golden Age detective novels; examples include Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night,
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun's Kate Fansler mysteries and Colin Dexter's The Silent World
of Nicholas Quinn.
The Realistic Novel
Realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life. A novel does not
simply rely on what it presents but how it presents it. In this way, a realistic narrative
23
acts as a framework by which the reader constructs a world using the raw materials
of life. Realistic novels are like looking glasses through which the reader sees how an
ordinary world operates. This produces a story to get lost into, because the only
interest is in the characters as they work through the plot. Examples are: Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, etc. Maxim Gorky’s
Mother is based on two actual events — the May Day demonstration of workers in
Sormovo (Russia) in 1902 and the subsequent trial of its members. John Steinbeck’s
Grapes of Wrath is an example of realistic fiction as the novel depicts the hardship of
the farmers who migrate westward to California during the disastrous drought of the
1930s.
The Naturalistic Novel
Naturalism is the outgrowth of Realism, a prominent literary movement in mid-
19th-century France and elsewhere. Naturalistic writers were influenced by the
evolution theory of Charles Darwin. They believed that one's heredity and social
environment determine one's character. Whereas realism seeks only to describe
subjects as they really are, naturalism attempts to determine "scientifically" the
underlying forces (e.g. the environment or heredity) influencing the actions of its
subjects. During 1880s-1940s, Naturalism used detailed realism to suggest that social
conditions, heredity, and environment are an inescapable force in shaping human
character. It opposed such movements as Romanticism or Surrealism, in which
subjects may receive highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment.
Naturalistic works often include uncouth or sordid subject matter; for example,
Émile Zola's works had frankness about sexuality along with a pervasive pessimism.
Naturalistic works expose the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, sex,
prejudice, disease, prostitution, and filth. Émile Zola's Germinal (1885) is an
uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France
in the 1860s. The novel's central character is Étienne Lantier. Étienne is portrayed as
a hard-working idealist but a naïve youth. Zola's genetic theories come into play as
Étienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded
impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the
influence of drink or strong passions. The naturalistic novel often makes use of a lot
research. Zola was always keen to defend the accuracy of Germinal against
accusations of hyperbole and exaggeration (from the conservatives) or of slander
against the working classes (from the socialists). His research had been typically
24
thorough, especially the parts involving lengthy observational visits to northern
French mining towns in 1884, such as witnessing the after-effects of a crippling
miners' strike first-hand at Anzin or actually going down a working coal pit at
Denain.
Fantasy
Fantasy has been defined as a piece of narrative in which there is a constant
faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event. In
fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something
to which special attention is drawn. In fantasy, authorial reticence creates a
disturbing effect on the reader. In fantasy, such as Kafka's short story
"Metamorphosis", there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied author
or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an
unsettling event, or in accepting rational or irrational explanations. In fantasy, the
writer creates new imaginary worlds. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science
fiction in that it does not provide a logical (or pseudo logical) explanation for the
scientifically impossible events that occur, though there is a great deal of overlapping
between the two. The most popular example of the genre of fantasy is The Lord of
the Rings books by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Magic Realism
Magic realism is one of the types of the novel in which magical elements are
blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to have an access to a deeper
understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal
occurrences and they are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the
"real" and the "fantastic" to be accepted in the same stream of thought. Matthew
Strecher has defined magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic
setting is invaded by something 'too strange to believe'". Magical realist texts create a
reality "'in which the relation between incidents, characters, and setting could not be
based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or their normal
acceptance by bourgeois mentality.'" Magical realism in literature has been defined
as “a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in
a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of objective realistic report,
designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism
and draw upon the energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong
25
contemporary social relevance. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such
novels — levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis — are among the means that magic
realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of
the 20th century.” The famous example of Magic Realism is the Latin American
"boom" novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. In Magic
realism, the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the natural.
There is no hierarchy expressed between the two codes. The ghost of Melquíades in
Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni Morrison's
Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous residence are both
presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the
marvelous as normal and common.
Horror fiction
Horror Fiction is the literature of the unnatural and supernatural, with the aim of
unsettling or frightening the reader, sometimes with graphic violence. Historically it
has also been known as weird fiction. Many works of horror literature incorporate
science fictional elements. In Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, the manufacture of
the monster is given a rigorous science-fictional grounding. The works of Edgar
Allan Poe also helped define both the science fiction and the horror genres. Today
horror is one of the most popular categories of films.
Science Fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined
innovations in science or technology. Its imaginary elements are largely possible
within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature. Science
fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possibilities. The
settings for science fiction are:
 A setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in an historical past that
contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record
 A setting in outer space, on other worlds, or involving aliens
 Stories that involve technology or scientific principles that contradict known
laws of nature
 Stories that involve discovery or application of new scientific principles, such as
time travel or new technology, such as nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel
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or robots, or of new and different political or social systems (e.g., a dystopia, or
a situation where organized society has collapsed)
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age comprehensively explores such themes as
environmental issues, the implications of the global Internet and the expanding
information universe, questions about biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as
a post-Cold War interest in post-scarcity societies.
1. The----------------novel recounts the adventures of an anti-hero on the road.
a) historical b) regional c) realistic d) picaresque
2. Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim is an example of--------------.
a) a campus novel b) magic realism
c) science fiction d) fantasy
3. Margaret Mitchell’s-----------presents Georgia during the Civil War and
Reconstruction.
a) Ivanhoe b) War and Peace
c) Gone with the Wind d) Mayor of Casterbridge
4. In-------------, the writer creates new imaginary worlds.
a) fantasy b) science fiction c) magic realism d) detective fiction
5. Tony Morrison uses magic realism in--------------.
a) Beloved b) Gone with the Wind
c) Emma d) Pride and Prejudice
1. The----------novel often makes use of Christian iconography.
2. The famous example of magic realism is the novel-------------by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez.
3. Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum is an example of the-----------------novel.
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4. Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night is an example of the----------murder
mystery.
5. Another name for horror fiction is----------------fiction.
1. Mention the title of the first English picaresque novel.
2. What is the name of the locality used by Thomas Hardy in his novels?
3. What is the type of John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman?
4. Mention C.P. Snow’s novel that attempts serious treatment of university
life.
5. Who defined magic realism as “what happens when a highly detailed,
realistic setting is invaded by something ‘too strange to believe’”?
 iconography: the symbols, pictures, and objects which represent the ideas
and way of life of a group of people
 poststructural: plurality of meaning
 authorial reticence: lack of comments by the author
 levitation: the process of rising or being raised in the air
 flight: the act of passing through the air
 telepathy: communication through means other than senses, as by the
exercise of an Occult power
 telekinesis: moving material objects without contact, presumably by
psychic force
 phantasmagorical: relating to a shifting series of illusions presented in the
novel
 nanotechnology: the science of making or working with things that are so
small that they can only be seen using a powerful microscope
 dystopia: a novel describing an imaginary place or state in which the
condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror
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1.5 Narrative Techniques:
Literally speaking, Narrative is a story and it can be conveyed through pictures,
songs, poetry, speech, fiction and non-fiction as well. When in the writing mode, its
telling is relegated to a special person; it becomes a technique used by that person.
This person who is consigned the duty of narration is the narrator and his perspective
serves as a prism through which ideas are transmitted to the readers. Narrative
technique is vastly an aesthetic enterprise. It is binding vine of the narrative. A
narrator detains the past, holds present and prepares the reader for future.
There are different types of narration, i.e. different ways of presenting a story.
Traditionally, a broad division is made between third-person and first-person
narratives. The third-person narrative is further divided into subclasses according to
the degree and kind of freedom or limitation which the author assumes in getting the
story across to the reader. In a third-person narrative, the narrator is someone outside
the story proper who refers to all the characters in the story by name, or as “he,”
“she,” “they.” Thus Henry Fielding’s narrator begins Tom Jones (1749): “In that part
of the western division of this kingdom which is commonly called Somersetshire,
there lately lived, and perhaps still lives, a gentleman whose name was
Allworthy….” In a first-person narrative, the narrator speaks as “I,” and is himself to
a greater or lesser degree a participant in the story. J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in
the Rye (1951) begins: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll really
want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how
my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield
kind of crap….”
I) The Third-person Point of View:
1. The Omniscient Point of View:
The narrator knows everything about the agents, actions, and events. He also
knows the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and motives. He is free to move at will in
time and place, to shift from character to character, and to report (or conceal) their
speech, doings, and states of consciousness.
The intrusive narrator not only reports, but also comments on and evaluates
the actions and motives of the characters. He sometimes expresses personal views
about human life in general. The omniscient narrator’s reports and judgments serve
29
to establish the facts and values within the fictional world. Many of the greatest
novelists including Fielding, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace
Thackeray, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy have
written in this fashion. On the other hand, the omniscient narrator may choose to be
unintrusive. Flaubert in Madame Bovary (1857), for example, describes, reports, or
“shows” the action in dramatic scenes without introducing his own comments or
judgments. The unintrusive narrator in a number of Ernest Hemingway’s short
stories (for example, “The Killers,” and “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”) gives up
even the privilege of access to inner feelings and motives.
2. The Limited Point of View:
The narrator tells the story in the third person, but tells only what is experienced,
thought, and felt by a single character within the story. Henry James described such a
selected character as his “focus,” or “mirror,” or “center of consciouness.” In a
number of James’s later works all the events and actions are represented as they
unfold through the particular perceptions and awareness of one of his characters; for
example, Strether in The Ambassadors (1903) or Maisie in What Maisie Knew
(1897). A short and artfully sustained example of this limited narration is Katherine
Mansfield’s story “Bliss” (1920).
In stream-of-consciousness narration, we are presented with outer observations
only as they impinge on the continuous current of thought, memory, feelings, and
associations. This type of “objective narration” is widely used by Henry James,
James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and others.
II) The First-person Point of View:
This mode limits the matter of the narrative to what the first-person narrator
knows, experiences, infers, or can find out by talking to other characters. The first-
person narrator can be a fortuitous witness and auditor of the matters he relates
(Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness). He can be a minor participant in the
story (Ishmael in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Nick in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The
Great Gatsby). Or he can be the central character in the story (Daniel Defoe’s Moll
Flanders, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye).
The narrative in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for example, shifts
dramatically between different points of view. The chapters focusing on the Joad
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family are narrated primarily from an objective point of view, representing
conversations and interactions without focusing on any particular character. At
certain points, however, the narrator shifts and presents the Joads from an omniscient
point of view, explaining their psychologies, characters, and motivations in intimate
detail.
Many of the techniques the novel developed over the past 100 years can be
understood as the result of competition with the new mass media: film, comics and
the World Wide Web. Shot and sequence, focus and perspective have moved from
film editing to literary composition. Experimental 20th-century fiction is, at the same
time, influenced by literary theory. Literary theory, arising in the 20th century,
questioned key factors that had been matters of agreement in 19th-century literary
criticism: the author wrote the text, he was influenced by his period, by an
intellectual climate the nation provided and by his personality. The work of art
eventually reflected all these aspects, and literary critics recreated them. The ensuing
debate identified a canon of the truly great works brought forth by each nation. 20th-
century literary theory challenged all these notions. It moved along with what
philosophers called the linguistic turn: the artifact to be read was primarily a text.
The text unfolded a meaning in the reading process. The question was: what made
the literary text so special? Its complexity: a simple answer that immediately called
for a complex science to describe and to understand these complexities. The literary
theorists argued that the literary criticism of the 19th century had not truly seen the
text. It had concentrated on the author, his or her period, the culture that surrounded
him or her, his or her psyche – factors outside the text, that had allegedly shaped it.
Strict theorists argued that even the author, hitherto considered the central figure,
whose message one wanted to understand, did not even have privileged access to the
meaning and significance of his or her own work. Once the text was written, it began
to unfold associations, no matter, whether one was its author or another reader. The
theory debate stepped forth in redefinitions of its project: Formalism (1900–1920),
New Criticism (1920–1965), Structuralism (1950–1980) and Poststructuralism (late
1960s through 1990s) became the major schools. The modes of analysis changed
with each of these schools. All assumed that the text had its own meaning,
independent of all authorial intentions and period backgrounds.
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) became the central text that explored the potential
of the new theoretical options. The 19th-century narrator left the stage; what
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remained was a text one could read as a reflex of thoughts. The "stream of
consciousness" replaced the authorial voice. The characters endowed with these new
voices had no firm ground from which to narrate. Their audiences had to re-create
what was purposefully broken. One of the aims was to represent the reality of
thoughts, sensations and conflicting perspectives. William Faulkner was particularly
concerned with recreating real life. Once the classical authorial voice was gone, the
classical composition of the text could be questioned: Ulysses did that. The
argumentative structure with which a narration used to make its points lost its
importance. Each sentence connected to the other sentences readers recalled. Words
reverberated in a worldwide circulation of texts and language. Critics would
understand more of the possible allusions and supply them in footnotes.
Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Samuel Beckett's trilogy Molloy
(1951), Malone Dies (1951) and The Unnamable (1953), Julio Cortázar's Rayuela
(1963) and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973) all explore this new
narrative technique. Alfred Döblin went in a slightly different direction with his
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929), where interspersed non-fictional text fragments enter
the fictional sphere to create a new form of realism. Authors of the 1960s–Robert
Coover is an example–fragmented their stories and challenged time and sequentiality
as fundamental structuring concepts.
Postmodern authors subverted the serious debate with playfulness. The new
theorists' claim that art could never be original, that it always played with existing
materials, that language basically recalled itself had been an accepted truth in the
world of trivial literature. A postmodernist could reread trivial literature as the
essential cultural production. The creative avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s
"closed the gap" and recycled popular knowledge, conspiracy theories, comics and
films to recombine these materials in what was to become art of entirely new
qualities. Roland Barthes' 1950s analysis of popular culture, his late 1960s claim that
the author was dead whilst the text continued to live, became standard of postmodern
theory. Novels from Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), to Umberto
Eco's The Name of the Rose (1980) and Foucault's Pendulum (1989) opened
themselves to a universe of intertextual references while they thematized their own
constructedness in a new postmodern metafictional awareness.
What separated these authors from 18th- and 19th-century predecessors who had
invited other textual worlds into their own compositions, was the interaction the new
32
authors sought with the field of literary criticism. 20th-century metafictional works
expect literary historians to deal with them. Literary critics and theorists become the
privileged first readers that the new texts need in order to unfold. James Joyce is said
to have said this about the reception he designed for his Ulysses (1922): "I've put in
so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries
arguing over what I meant, and that's the only way of insuring one's immortality." – a
statement to which Salman Rushdie referred in 1999, according to Paul Brians's
Notes for Satanic Verses:
Asked about the possibility of "Cliff's Notes" to his writings, Rushdie answered
that although he didn't expect readers to get all the allusions in his works, he didn't
think such notes would detract from the reading of them: "James Joyce once said
after he had published Ulysses that he had given the professors work for many years
to come; and I'm always looking for ways of employing professors, so I hope to have
given them some work too."
Novelists such as John Barth, Raymond Federman and Umberto Eco crossed the
borders into criticism. Mixed forms of criticism and fiction appeared: "critifiction", a
term Raymond Federman attempted to coin in 1993.
Whilst the postmodern movement has been criticized at times as theoretical if
not escapist, it successfully unfolded itself in several films of the 1990s and 2000s:
Pulp Fiction (1994), Memento (2000), and The Matrix (1999–2003) can be read as
new textual constructs designed to prove that we are surrounded by virtual realities
and by realities alone we construct out of circulating fragments, of images, concepts,
a language of cultural materials the new filmmakers explore.
1. Henry Fielding makes use of a-----------narrative in Tom Jones.
a) first-person b) third-person c) second-person d) picaresque
2. In Madame Bovary, Flaubert makes use of the omniscient narrator who
chooses to be---------
a) intrusive b) detached c) unintrusive d) omniscient
33
3. Ishmael, the first-person narrator, in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is a-----
---------participant.
a) minor b) major c) central d) negligible
4. The linguistic turn in literary theory viewed the artifact primarily as a-------.
a) whole b) work c) design d) text
5. ----------------questioned the classical composition of the text.
a) Ulysses b) Joseph Andrews c) Tom Jones d) Oliver Twist
1. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is a----------------narrative.
2. The----------------narrator reports as well as evaluates the actions and
motives of the characters.
3. --------------in The Ambassadors is an example of ‘focus’, or ‘mirror’, or
‘centre of consciousness’.
4. Authors of the 1960s-------------their stories.
5. We as human beings are surrounded by--------------realities today.
1. Whose perspective serves as a prism through which ideas are transmitted to
the readers?
2. What is the source of shot and sequence, focus and perspective in literary
composition?
3. What does replace the authorial voice in James Joyce’s Ulysses?
4. Who subverted the serious theory with playfulness?
5. Mention the term that is used for the mixture of criticism and fiction.
 perspective: faculty of seeing all the actions in the novel in a meaningful
relationship
 avant-garde: the advance group whose literary works are characterized
chiefly by experimental methods
34
 intertextual: between many texts
 metafictional: relating to any discourse used to discuss, describe, or
analyze fiction
1.6 Summary:
The four main sections in this unit enable students to understand the novel as a
distinct form of literature and also know about the aspects, types and narrative
techniques of the novel. This analysis will further enable them to understand the
novels prescribed for their study. The following units, therefore, provide very
systematic introductions to all the prescribed novels.
1.7 Answers to Check Your Progress:

1.2.1
A) 1. c. novella
2. a. Lazarillo de Tormes
3. d. Looking Backward
4. b. postmodernist
5. c. science fiction
B) 1. narrative
2. epistolary
3. Oliver Twist
4. World War II
5. John Barth
C) 1. romances
2. Decameron
3. George Eliot
4. Tristram Shandy
5. Walter Scott
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1.3.1
A) 1. c. story
2. d. suspense and surprise
3. b. flat and round
4. c. sea
5. a. first-person
B) 1. actions
2. conflict
3. Jay Gatsby
4. background
5. first
C) 1. structuralist
2. showing and telling
3. in some actual or imaginary place
4. a gloomy castle
5. Percy Lubbock
1.4.1
A) 1. d. picaresque
2. a. a campus novel
3. c. Gone with the Wind
4. a. fantasy
5. a. Beloved
B) 1. Gothic
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. picaresque
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4. campus
5. weird
C) 1. The Unfortunate Traveller
2. Wessex
3. postmodern
4. The Masters
5. Matthew Strecher
1.5.1
A) 1. b. third-person
2. c. unintrusive
3. a. minor
4. d. text
5. a. Ulysses
B) 1. first-person
2. intrusive
3. Strether
4. fragmented
5. virtual
C) 1. the narrator’s
2. film editing
3. stream of consciousness
4. postmodern authors
5. critifiction
1.8 Exercises:
1. Describe the rise and development of the novel.
37
2. Write short notes on the following aspects of the novel:
a) Plot
b) Characterization
c) Setting
d) Point of View
3. Write short notes on the following types of the novel:
a) science fiction
b) magic realism
c) the regional novel
d) the stream of consciousness novel
4. Write a detailed note on the different narrative techniques used in the novel.
1.9 Further Readings:

Forster, E. M. (1949) Aspects of the Novel. London.
Watt, Ian. (1957) Rise of the Novel. London: Penguin.
Edel, Leon. (1997) The Psychological Novel: 1900-1950. Ludhiana: Kalyani.
Bradbury, Malcolm (1982) The Novel Today. Glasgow: F. C. Paperbacks.
Brooks and Warren (1959) Understanding Fiction. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Lubbock, Percy (1965) The Craft of Fiction. London: Jonathan Cape.
Kirpal, Vinay (Ed.) (1990) The New Indian Novel in English. New Delhi: Allied
Publishers.
Matz, Jesse (2004) The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Unit-2
Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum
Contents
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Life and Works of Gunter Grass
2.2.2 Glossary and Notes
2.3 Plot Summary of the Novel The Tin Drum
2.4 Major and Minor Characters in The Tin Drum
2.5 Themes and Other Aspects in The Tin Drum
2.6 Summary
2.7 Answer to Check Your Progress
2.8 Exercises
39
2.0 Objectives
 Know about the life and works of Gunter Grass
 Know about the plot of the novel The Tin Drum
 Learn the character/s in the novel The Tin Drum
 Learn the theme/s and narrative technique/s used in the novel The Tin Drum
 Be able to answer the questions on the novel The Tin Drum
2.1. Introduction
This unit begins with the discussion of the life and works of Gunter Grass. It
also studies his Tin Drum in terms of its plot, character/s theme/s and narrative
technique/s.
2.2 Life and Works of Gunter Grass

Günter Grass was born on October 16, 1927 in Danzig, a northern port city in
Poland. His parents owned a small retail grocery store. He had both his elementary
and high school education in Danzig, and later became an anti-aircraft gunner. He
served as a soldier in World War II and was wounded by the Russians during an
advance in 1944. In 1945, he was kept as a military prisoner by the American forces
in Bavaria for several months. He became a farm and mine worker in the Rhineland
after his release, then an apprentice stone carver in Düsseldorf. Once the Düsseldorf
Art Academy was opened in 1948, he studied sculpture and painting there for two
years. After that, he began to travel in Italy and France and then resumed his art
study in Berlin in 1953. The next year he married a Swiss ballet dancer named Anna
Schwarz. The same year, he won third prize in a poetry competition. In 1956, he
moved to Paris and held his first art exhibition in Stuttgart. In 1956 and 1957, he
finished his first plays and then in 1958, he received prizes of stipends to proceed
with his writing career. In 1959, he became famous with the publication of Die
Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum), winning several international awards, including the
Nobel Prize in Literature. He is mostly known for his fiction, which includes Katz
und Maus (1961; Cat and Mouse,1963), Hundejahre (1963; Dog Years,1965), Der
Butt (1977; The Flounder,1978), Kopfgeburten: oder die Deutschen sterben aus
(1980; Headbirths: or, the Germans Are Dying Out,1982), and Unkenrufe (1992;
40
The Call of the Toad,1992). The Tin Drum was later made into a motion picture
(1979). Grass has been deeply/actively involved in politics throughout his life, and
his political essays have been influential in strengthening the Social Democratic
Party in Germany.
 Katz und Maus (1961; Cat and Mouse,1963),
 Hundejahre (1963; Dog Years,1965),
 Der Butt (1977; The Flounder,1978),
 Kopfgeburten: oder die Deutschen sterben aus (1980; Headbirths: or, the
Germans Are Dying Out,1982), and
 Unkenrufe (1992; The Call of the Toad,1992).
Grass' fiction borrows much of its influence from Twentieth century movements
such as Expressionism and Theater of the Absurd. He is known for his use of objects
and objective correlatives to propel his story line, instead of strict narrative. Grass
sees a separation between the man-made categories of morality and logic and the
actual thread of events. His chosen objects take on a certain ambiguity of meaning
and lack straightforward morality. His objects take an individual personality in his
novels, becoming extended metaphors and motifs that hold throughout the text. In
the same vein, Grass plays with time in his work, both extending and foreshortening
traditional narrative distance and flow. This holds for point-of-view as well. Oskar in
The Tin Drum uses several points of view, sometimes layered simultaneously. Grass'
work also represents success as a parody; The Tin Drum's style is a parody of
Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister, which follows a young man through his education
to maturity.
1) Gunter Grass belongs to -------
a) France c) Germany
b) America d) Poland
2) He had both his elementary and high school education in -------
a) New York c) Danzig
b) Paris d) London
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3) In 1945, he was kept as a military prisoner by the ------- forces in Bovaria
for several months.
a) Russian c) German
b) America d) None of the above.
4) In 1954, he won ----- prize in a poetry competition.
a) First c) Third
b) Second d) Fourth
5) Gunter Grass’ ----- have been influential in strengthening Social
Democratic Party in Germany.
a) Dramas c) Periodical Essays
b) Political Essays d) Short Stories
B) Fill in the blanks
1) Gunter Grass’ parents owned a small retail_____.
2) Grass served as a ______in World War II and was wounded by the
Russians during an advance in 1944.
3) In______, Grass moved to Paris and held his first art exhibition in Stuttgart.
4) Grass' fiction borrows much of its influence from Twentieth century
movements such as ____and_____.
5) Grass sees a separation between the man-made categories of___ and ____
and the actual thread of events.
C) Answer in a word / phrase / sentence:
1. Where was Gunter Grass born at ?
2. When was Grass kept as a military prisoner by American forces in Bavaria
for several months?
3. For what Grass is known?
4. When did Gunter Grass marry ?
5. When did Gunter Grass receive the Nobel Prize ?
42
 anti-aircraft(aj) - a gun (for shooting down a hostile aircraft.)
 wounded(v) - injured
 apprentice (n) - learner of a craft bound to employer for specified period.
 resume(v) - take again or back, put on again
 ballet(n) - combined performance of professional dancers.
 stipend(n) - a salary, remuneration
 propel (n) - drive forward, give forward motion to
 ambiguity (n) - of double or doubtful meaning
 motif(n) - a distinct element or outstanding feature in an artistic or literary
musical composition.
 parody(n) - composition in which an author's characteristics are ridiculed
by imitation.
2.3 Plot Summary of the Novel The Tin Drum

The Tin Drum is the fictional autobiography of Oskar Matzerath, who at the
time of his writing is thirty years old. He is writing from inside a mental institution in
Düsseldorf, Germany, the reasons for which remain unknown to the reader until the
end of the book. Oskar is, for all intents and purposes, a gnome. When he was a three
year-old, he received a toy tin drum from his mother Agnes and decided voluntarily
to stop growing and to never become a grown-up. At the same time, he developed a
high-pitched singing voice that he could use to break glass - he nurtures this talent
and uses it to many ends - defending his drum (which he is never without), breaking
and entering, inscribing, and for the effect on an audience. As Oskar gets older, the
events in his life impel him to grow - at the time of his writing, he measures four feet
one inch and in the middle of writing his book, he grows to four feet two inches.
Oskar's autobiography is also the biography of his family and its history, starting
around the turn of the 20th century and extending until after World War II. He begins
with his grandparents' generation and relates his story to the present day. His grand
parents were Kashubes, a group of people who are neither ethnic Poles nor Germans,
43
but hail from Kashubia, a province in northwest Poland. From them, Oskar inherits
an "incendiary spirit." His grandfather Joseph was wanted by the police for setting
fire to several sawmills. Oskar's grandmother, Anna, hid Joseph and then married
him.
His grandparents moved to Danzig, a Polish port city, where Agnes, went along
with her husband and Oskar were born. Anna started a family tradition of owning
grocery stores and food delivery business. The first part of the story revolves around
the clique of storeowners in a section of Danzig.
Although Oskar's mother marries a man named Alfred Matzerath, she has a
lifelong adulterous love affair with her first cousin, Jan Bronski. Oskar calls both of
these men his "presumptive father." Alfred is a card-carrying Nazi and Jan is a sickly
Polish National too weak to pass his army physicals.
Oskar does not go to school and is self-educated, although he claims to have
been with all of his intellectual capacities intact. He has two great intellectual
influences Rasputin and Goethe. His mother dies before World War II breast out.
Oskar weathers the war years in Danzig, which is the first city invaded by Germany
in the war. He is present at the invasion of the Polish Post Office, where Jan works.
Jan is later executed for his grudging role in the defense of the post office.
With both Agnes and Jan dead, Alfred marries Maria Truczinski, who is Oskar's
first love. Alfred marries her because he thinks he got her pregnant, but not known to
either Maria or Alfred, it was Oskar who had impregnated Maria. She gives birth to
Oskar's son, Kurt, who spurns Oskar from the day of his birth and will not comply
with Oskar's wish for him to be a drum-wielding three-year old like himself.
During the war, Oskar takes up with a performing troupe of midgets like
himself, led by his mentor, a midget-clown named Bebra. Oskar performs on his
drum and breaks glass with his voice for legions of German soldiers on the front
lines during World War II. He falls in love with Roswitha Raguna, an Italian
somnambulist and midget like himself, but she is killed by artillery fire during the
allied invasion of Normandy. After that, Oskar returns home.
Oskar becomes the leader of a band of anti-establishment youths called The
Dusters. He refines their way of doing things and helps them break into government
offices. They are finally caught in a church, sawing apart a statue of the Virgin Mary
and the baby Jesus, because a sister of one of the members ratted them out.
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Alfred, a member of the Nazis, is killed at the end of the war by the invading
Russian army. Once Alfred is gone, Oskar, Maria, and Kurt are forced to emigrate to
Düsseldorf to be with Maria's sister, Guste. There, Kurt and Maria take up trading on
the black market, and Oskar becomes a tombstone engraver. Later, during the tough
time of the currency reform after the war, Oskar becomes a model at the academy of
art in Düsseldorf. Later, he takes up jazz with his friend Klepp and they put together
a jazz band and play at a nightclub called "The Onion Cellar" in Düsseldorf. When
the nightclub owner dies, Oskar is offered a contract to take his drum on the road for
solo acts. This leads to a recording deal and makes Oskar rich.
The record company turns out to be owned by Bebra, who becomes a close
friend of Oskar and then dies. Oskar stops drumming. Out walking in the fields
outside Düsseldorf, Oskar finds the severed ring finger of the woman, a nurse named
Sister Dorothea, who lives in the hall close to his Düsseldorf apartment and has been
murdered. He keeps the finger because he has been in love with her. He then meets
another man, Vittlar and they become friends. For Vittlar's sake, he asks him to turn
him in to the police Sister Dorothea's murder, which Vittlar does. Oskar is put on
trial for the murder and is wrongfully convicted and forced to live in a mental
hospital, where he writes his memoirs.
2.3.1 Check Your Progress:
1. ------- is later executed for his grudging role in the defence of post office.
a) Oskar b) Alfred c) Jan Bronski d) Joseph
2. With both Agnes and Jan dead, Alfred marries ------- who is Oskar's first
love.
a) Roswitha Raguna c) Sister Dorothea
b) Maria Truczinski d) Hedwig Bronski
3. ------- becomes the leader of band of an anti-establishment youth called
'The Dusters'.
a) Jan b) Klepp c) Alfred d) Oskar
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4. The record company turns out to be owned by ----- who becomes close a
friend of Oskar.
a) Bebra c) Agnes
b) Maria d) Sister Dovothea
5. ----- is put on trial for the murder of Dorothea and is wrongfully convicted
and forced to live in a mental hospital, where he writes his memoires.
a) Oskar c) Joseph
b) Alfred d) Klepp
B) Fill in the Blanks
1. The Tin Drum is the fictional autobiography of____, who at the time of his
writing is thirty years old.
2. When Oscar was a____, he received a toy tin drum from his mother Agnes.
3. Oskar becomes the leader of a band of ____youths called The Dusters.
4. Alfred, a member of the Nazis, is killed at the end of the war by the
invading ____army.
1. Who gave 'the tin drum' toy to Oskar?
2. What is the height of Oskar before the time of his writing and in the middle
of writing?
3. Who started the family tradition of owning grocery stores and forced
delivery business?
4. Whom does Oskar call his "Presumptive father"?
5. What are the two great intellectual influences on Oskar?
 gnome(n) - a legendary dwarfish creature supposed to guard the earth's
treasures underground.
 incendiary (spirit) (aj) - tending to stir up conflict
 clique (n) - a small group of people who spends time together
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 ratted up (v) - decayed
 adulterate (v) - make poorer in quality by adding another substance
 grudge (n) - long lasting feeling of ill will resulting from a past insult
 unbeknownst (aj) - without the knowledge of
 troup (n) - a group of entertainers who tour to different venues
 somnambulist (n) - a person who walks in sleep
 midget (n) - an extremely small person
 artillery (n) - a large gun used in warfare on land
 spurn(v) - reject with contempt
2.4 Major and Minor Characters in The Tin Drum

1. Oskar Matzerath (Bronski): He is the main character and narrator of the novel.
Oskar willfully stunted his growth at three feet tall as a three-year-old, although later
in the novel he grows to four feet one inch. For a major part of the novel, Oskar is
found with his red and white lacquered tin drum, which he plays constantly. He is
endowed for most of his life with the ability to shatter glass with a high pitched
scream, though he eventually loses this ability.
2. Bruno Munsterberg: He is Oskar's keeper in the mental institution. He keeps
an eye on Oskar through a peephole in his bedroom door and spends his time making
elaborate works of knotted art with old pieces of string.
3. Anna Bronski (Koljaiczek/Wranka): Oskar's maternal grandmother, wearer of
four potato-colored skirts, who hides Oskar's grandfather Joseph Koljaiczek under
her skirts to keep him from the law and then marries him. They bear a daughter,
Agnes, Oskar's mother.
4. Joseph Koljaiczek (Wranka) /Joe Colchic: Oskar's maternal grandfather who
hid himself from the police under Anna Bronski's four skirts. He was wanted for
arson (burning down a paper plant). He fathers Agnes, Oskar's mother, the day that
he meets Anna Bronski, (whether while hiding under Anna's skirts or later that night
is a subject of debate), and marries her that night. He then takes on the persona of
Joseph Wranka, a dead riverman, living and working for many years. Once when he
47
is found to be Joseph Koljaiczek, he attempts to escape from the law again, only to
drown under a raft in his flight. A family myth remains that he actually survived
drowning and fled to America, where he became a millionaire lumber baron in
Buffalo, N.Y. under the name Joe Colchic.
5. Agnes Koljaiczek (Matzerath): She is Oskar's mother and closest confidant.
Although she marries Alfred Matzerath, a soldier, she meets as a nurse, she has an
ongoing affair throughout her life with Jan Bronski, her cousin. Oskar suspects that
Jan, and not Alfred, is his actual father. After watching an eel fisherman at the coast,
she begins to eat fish obsessively and eventually dies.
6. Jan Bronski: Vincent Bronski's son and cousin to Oskar's mother (Agnes
Matzerath)'s as well as her lifelong adulterous lover. Jan is also the man that Oskar
presumes to be his biological father. Jan is a skinny, perpetually sickly man, who was
turned down four times from the army. He works in the Polish post office in Danzig
and is taken prisoner while unwillingly defending it against the Germans when they
invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. He is later executed.
7. Klepp (Egon Munzer): Oskar's friend who comes to visit him in the mental
institution. A jazz flautist, he played in a jazz band with Oskar and Scholle, a
guitarist, at the Onion Cellar, a club in D?orf after World War II.
8. Gottfried von Vittlar: A friend of Oskar's, who comes to visit him in the
institution. He first met Oskar in his mother's apple tree while Oskar was on a walk
after World War II. Vittlar is the reason why Oskar is in a mental institution - Oskar
asked him to turn him in as the murderer of the nurse Sister Dorothea, even though
he was innocent.
9. Alfred Matzerath: Oskar's assumed father (Oskar presumes Jan Bronski to be
his actual father), whom Agnes Koljaiczek met while working as a nurse. Alfred had
been shot through the thigh in World War I. He and Agnes were later married. He is
a strong and vocal supporter of Hitler throughout World War II, and is killed by
Russian soldiers when they take Danzig after the war.
10. Albrecht Greff: The greengrocer and boy scout leader. He is obsessed with
order, and knows little about the vegetables he sells. He is rumored throughout the
book to be 'rather too fond of the young boys in his troupe (which is eventually taken
away from him in lieu of the emergence of the Hitler Youth Corps). Each morning in
the winter, Greff goes out to the frozen sea, cuts a hole in the ice and swims. He is
48
preoccupied with inventing clever machines. When he is summoned to appear in
court on a morals charge by the German authorities, Greff kills himself with an
elaborate counterweighted machine that he invents in order to hang himself in his
basement.
11. `Lina Greff (Bartsch): Albrecht Greff's wife, a slovenly woman who rarely
gets out of her bed. She carries on an extended adulterous affair with Oskar, which
Albrecht knows about, but ignores. She provides Oskar with his first substantial
sexual experiences.
12. Bebra: Oskar's lifelong mentor and role model; he is, like Oskar, a man who
refused to grow. Oscar first meets Bebra at the circus - Bebra is a musical clown.
Later, Oskar joins up a performing troupe Bebra has put together; they perform for
soldiers on the front lines during World War II. Later, when Oskar signs to a record
and performing contract, Bebra is in charge of the company. Through Bebra, Oskar
meets Roswitha Raguna, the love of his life.
13. Roswitha Raguna: A beautiful Italian woman who, though a bit taller than
Oskar, has nevertheless chosen not to grow. She is the most celebrated somnambulist
in all the parts of Italy. When Oskar joins Bebra's performing troupe, he and
Roswitha have a long love affair that lasts until she is killed by mortar fire on the
front lines of France in World War II.
14. Herbert Truczinski: Oskar's friend who, in order to get away from almost
certain death works in a bar on the Danzig waterfront (he was stabbed repeatedly by
sailors), takes a job guarding a figurehead from an old sailboat named 'Niobe.' The
figurehead is supposedly cursed and is responsible for Herbert's death - he takes an
ax to the figurehead but kills himself in the process.
15. Maria Truczinski (Matzerath): Oskar's first sexual partner and the mother of
the boy he considers his biological son, Kurt. Maria marries Alfred Matzerath after
Agnes dies, because Alfred thinks he has gotten Maria pregnant. Oskar flees to
Western Germany with her after World War II.
16. Kurt Matzerath (Bronski): Kurt is Maria's son and the reason why she marries
Alfred Matzerath, for he believes himself to be Kurt's father. Oskar, however, knows
better - he is convinced-he fathered Kurt with Maria in her bed after pouring fizz
powder in her navel. Kurt does not like Oskar and does not understand him; he is of
normal size and does not understand how to drum.
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17. P. Korneff: A tombstone artisan in Dusseldorf with whom Oskar gets a job of
chiseling inscriptions. Korneff has a constant skin infection - there are boils
constantly erupting on the back of his neck.
18. Sister Dorothea (Kongetter): The nurse lives across from Oskar in the Zeidler
flat. He never lays eyes on her in the light, but is infatuated with her. He hides
himself in her closet, and then has a failed sexual episode with her in the flat's
darkened bathroom. Her murder is wrongly pinned on Oskar, who comes into
possession of her severed ring finger.
1. The main narrator of the novel is -------.
a) Maria c) Oskar
b) Sister Dorothea d) Lina Greff
2. ------- is obsessed with order and knows little about the vegetables he sells.
a) Jan Bronski c) Gottfried Von Vittlar
b) Oskar d) Albercht Greff
3. ------- kills himself with elaborate counterweighted machine that he invents
in order to hang himself in basement.
a) Klepp c) Albercht Greff
b) Alfred Matzerath d) Bebra
4. Raswitha Raguna is the most celebrated ----- in all Italy.
a) the night club owner c) a greengrocer
b) somnambulist d) None of the above
5. P. Korneff is a ----- in Dusseldorf with whom Oskar gets a job of chiseling
inscriptions.
a) Oskar's keeper c) Joseph’s elder brother
b) Oskar's maternal grand father d) a tombstone artisan
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B) Fill in the Blanks
1. ___is the greengrocer and boy scout leader
2. Klepp (Egon Munzer) played in a jazz band with Oskar and Scholle, a
guitarist, at the______, a club in Dusseldorf after World War II.
3. After the War, Danzig became a part of _____again.
4. ____, Oskar's rented dog brings Oskar a ring finger that turns out to belong
to Sister Dorothea.
5. Oskar and Maria have a long history with ____Oskar would spit in Maria's
hand, which was full of powder, and she would drink it.
1. What is Oskar endowed with for most of his life?
2. Who become a millionaire lumber baron in Buffalo, under the name Joe
Colehic?
3. Whom does Oskar suppose to be his actual (biological) father?
4. Where did Gottfried Von Vittlar meet Oskar?
5. Who is Oskar's lifelong mentor and role model?
 arson (n) - the criminal act of deliberately setting fire to property.
 cemetery (n) -a large burial ground
 Coffin (n) -a chest for a dead person to be buriedin.
 erupt(v) - break out suddenly
 flautist (n) - flute player
 scout (n) - a person sent ahead of a main force to gather information about
the enemy
 impromptu (aj) - done without being planned or rehearsed
 outskirt (n) - outer part of town or city
 umbilical cord – cord connecting an embryo with its mother.
 internment – compeling or being compeled of persons esp. aliens during a
war to live within certain limits or in a special building, camp, etc.
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2.5 Themes and Other Aspects in The Tin Drum
 Theme/s:
 Fictional autobiography (Oskar Matzerath):Writing from inside mental
institution
 History /Biography of Oskar Matzerath’s family
 Love Affair
 World War II
 Murder
 Memoirs
 Narrative Techniques:
A) Use of objects and objective correlative to propel his story line.
Objects and Places:
 Knotted string art: Bruno M?berg, Oskar's keeper in the mental institution,
makes pieces of old string (which he finds after visiting hours in his patients'
rooms) into elaborate pieces of knotted art. He dips the string in plaster to
harden and places the sculptures on pedestals fashioned out of old knitting
needles.
 Kashubia: A rural region in the north of Poland, west of the city of Danzig
(Gdansk). This is the region Oskar's maternal grandmother, Anna Bronski, is
from.
 Four potato-colored skirts: The clothes that Anna Bronski, Oskar's maternal
grandmother wears (simultaneously) each day, in accordance with a strict
schedule: the skirt that was closest to her body one day is placed on the
outermost layer the next, so that the skirts rotate in succession. She has a fifth
skirt as well, just like the other four, which she rotates into the succession on
washing days.
 The Tin Drum: One of the central themes of the novel: Oskar is in possession
of a red and white lacquered toy tin drum, on which he constantly plays and
needs to play, in order to proceed successfully in life and to remember the past.
He goes through cycles of drumming and not drumming throughout the novel
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and it is a source of constant tension. He is forever destroying and getting new
drums on which to play.
 Danzig: The setting for the majority of people in the novel, Danzig (now
Gdansk) is a major northern port town in Poland. Danzig was a free and
independent city until September 1, 1939, when it became the first region taken
by Germany at the outset of World War II. After the war, Danzig became a part
of Poland again.
 Skat: A three-handed card game that Jan Bronski, Agnes Matzerath, and Alfred
Matzerath play continuously throughout the novel. From time to time, their
friends play with them as well.
 Glass-breaking Scream: Since age three (when he was given his first tin
drum), Oskar was endowed with the ability to scream with such a high pitch that
he could shatter any piece of glass. He could control it, as well - at one point he
can break windows on the other side of the city and he can etch writing into
glass. Once he begins growing at the end of the novel, he loses this ability.
 Nurses: Oskar has a lifelong fascination for nurses, since he is five. Every time
he is in the hospital, he laments having to leave on account of the nurses. The
woman he is wrongly accused of killing, sister Dorothea, is a nurse.
 Sutterlin script: A style of handwriting referred to often in the novel; it was the
standard German script taught in schools from 1915-1945.
 Rasputin: A Siberian Peasant and faith healer who gained favor in the Court of
Czar Nicholas II of Russia before the Russian Revolution of 1917, by allegedly
healing Nicholas' hemophiliac son. He was renowned for his sexual exploits,
and was assassinated by a group of aristocrats in 1916.
 Goethe: Known as one of the central figures of both German and world
literature, Goethe spearheaded the German Romantic Movement in the late 18th
century. His plays and poems are known for their understanding of the human
condition and human individuality. His greatest work is considered to be the
dramatic poem Faust.
 Rostrum: The impromptu stages that were set up by the Nazis to hold rallies.
They were marked by their symmetrical rows of Nazi flags, uniformed SS men,
and party comrades.
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 Baby Jesus Sculpture: The sculpture, of the Virgin Mary seated with the baby
Jesus and John the Baptist on her lap, is in the church of the Sacred Heart. It is a
key image of focus for Oskar - he spends time trying to get this baby Jesus to
drum and as the leader of the Dusters, he sneaks into the church to cut the
sculpture into pieces and steal it.
 Saspe Cemetery: A cemetery on the outskirts of Danzig; it is the place where
Jan Bronski is executed and buried by the Nazis.
 Severed Horse's Head: At the beach on Good Friday, Oskar, Jan, Agnes, and
Alfred see an old man fishing for green eels with a black severed horse's head
tied to a clothesline. The memory of this scene eventually kills Agnes.
 Coffin: Oskar spends a lot of time admiring and describing coffins, saying that
his mother's coffin was the proper one because it suited the human body so well.
It was black and 'tapered at the foot end.'
 Herbert Truczinski's Back: On the scars on Herbert's back, Oskar sees (like
images in clouds) the same promise he finds in his drum. He sees the
reproductive organs of women he has known, the ring finger of the murdered
sister Dorothea and his own umbilical cord.
 Niobe: The cursed figurehead that Herbert Truczinski was put in charge of
guarding at the Maritime Museum in Danzig. The sculpture is responsible for
his death.
 Card House: Jan builds a house of cards during the battle for the post office,
which is knocked down by the Germans. Oskar says card houses are 'the only
dwellings worthy of humankind.' (Chapter 20, Pg. 247)
 Empty Cartridge Case: Leo Schugger gives Oskar the empty cartridge case
used to execute Jan Bronski, then leads him to Saspe, the cemetery where Jan
was shot and buried.
 Fizz Powder: Before the war, this was what the lower classes substituted for
soda - flavored powder that fizzed when mixed with water. Oskar and Maria
have a long history with fizz powder - Oskar would spit in Maria's hand, which
was full of powder and she would drink it.
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 Lovebird: On the way to Matzerath's funeral, a soldier gives Maria a cage with
a lovebird inside; Kurt tries to pull out its feathers, then throws rocks at it in the
cemetery and hits it.
 The Lion's Den: A dance hall in Dusseldorf that Oskar visits several times; it is
a place for young people, built in a bombed out building.
 The Onion Cellar: A nightclub in Dusseldorf where Oskar's jazz trio plays. In
the club the owner, Schmuh serves raw onions which make the guests cry.
 Swarm of Sparrows: Schmuh, the nightclub owner, liked to hunt sparrows, but
as a rule he would only shoot twelve in a day and then give the remaining birds
food. One day he killed thirteen. In the car on the way home, a swarm of
sparrows attacked the car and forced an accident, killing Schmuh.
 Lux: A rottweiler that Oskar rents to take walks with - Lux is the one that first
finds Sister Dorothea's ring finger.
 Ring Finger: Lux, Oskar's rented dog, brings Oskar a ring finger that turns out
to belong to Sister Dorothea. - This ring-finger is responsible for Oskar's
internment in the institution.
 Streetcars: In every city in which Oskar finds himself, the streetcar is his
chosen means of transportation. In Danzig, the streetcar would take him not only
through the city, but past Saspe cemetery on the way to the shore.
B) The Organization of Chapters
Book I -Chapter 1-16
Book II -Chapter 17-38
Book III –Chapter 39-46
Book I -Chapter 1-16
1. The novel opens with Oskar Matzerath writing from inside a mental institution.
He is being watched through a peephole in his door by his keeper, Bruno
Münsterberg, an artist. Bruno spends his time scrounging for bits of string in his
patients' rooms, which he ties into elaborate works of knotted string art, dipped in
plaster to harden, and mounts on pedestals fashioned with knitting needles. He thinks
of coloring his artwork, but Oskar advises against it, preferring the white enamel of
55
his hospital bed. Oskar maintains that his bed is the most perfect of all beds and if he
had his way he would only build its bars up higher to keep the world away.
2. The chapter opens in the mental institution. For the first time in the novel, Oskar
mentions his tin drum, which he claims is responsible for his rememberance of all
essential past events. Oskar says:
"If I didn't have my drum, which, when handled adroitly and patiently, remembers all
the incidentals that I need to get the essential down on paper, and if I didn't have the
permission of the management [of the mental institution] to drum on it three or four
hours a day, I'd be a poor bastard with nothing to say for my grandparents."
Oskar says that his drum tells him that it was in the afternoon, under Anna's four
skirts, while the two constables searched, his mother, Agnes Koljaiczek (Matzerath)
was begotten by Anna and Joseph Koljaiczek. Late that night the two were married
after Vincent Bronski, Anna's brother, bribed a priest with a side of bacon to perform
the ceremony. They then move away to the coast, where Koljaiczek found work as a
raftsman.
3. In the mental institution, Oskar reads Bruno a portion of what he has written
concerning his grandfather. Bruno says it is "A beautiful death" and begins to
recreate the story with his knotted string art.
Oskar is visited by his two friends, Klepp (Egon Münzer) and Vittlar (Gottfried
von Vittlar). Klepp brings Oskar a jazz recording and Vittlar brings him a chocolate
heart on a pink ribbon. They parody scenes from Oskar's trial (alluded to here and
explained later - see below). Oskar tells them the story of his grandfather Koljaiczek.
In response, Klepp makes swimming motions and shakes his head. Vittlar accuses
Oskar of being the murderer, because Koljaiczek must have known that it would be
wholly too burdensome to have a living grandfather. He adds that his grandfather's
punishment to Oskar and his family was not to give them the satisfaction of having a
corpse. Then he says that once Oskar is released, the myth about America will give
Oskar an aim, for America is "the land where people find whatever they have lost,
even missing grandfathers.”
4. Oskar says that he has a treasure which he has guarded throughout his life: his
family photograph album. One of the tortures of Hell, Oskar says, will be to shut up a
naked soul in a room with the framed photographs of his day.
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Oskar relates his days with Klepp, just before his internment in the institution.
The two would often go to the movies - for Klepp, they went to Westerns, and for
Oskar they went to movies about doctors and nurses. After each show they would go
to a photo studio and have passport photos taken. Having waited for the photos, they
would go to a nearby bar, order beer, blood sausage, onions and rye bread and spread
the photos over the table. They would compare the current photos with previous
ones, then they would cut up the photos and rearrange the body parts on each picture,
putting their noses on their ears, etc. Then they would give away one of the altered
photos to the waiter who always took one. Oskar never gave his pictures away to
women, but one day Klepp, unbeknownst to Oscar, gave one away to the redheaded
girl with the cigarette tray. Eventually he married her, as Oskar says, because he
wanted his picture back.
5. Oskar opines that the first thing made plain to him was that grownups were
incapable of understanding him. He relates the story of his third birthday. Jan
watched Agnes play the piano, while Anna, Hedwig, and Alexander Scheffler sat
with Greff and listened to Boy Scout stories. Matzerath was busy cooking. Oskar,
beating on his new drum, wandered into the adjoining grocery store and found the
trap door to the cellar open, Matzerath having forgotten to close it. Oskar says he
realized what the door demanded of him - not suicide, but sacrifice. He walked down
the sixteen stairs, placing his drum in among the sacks of flour so as not to damage it.
Then he walked up to the nineth stair and threw himself off, landing headfirst on the
concrete floor. The clatter of broken glass brought everyone running.
6. Oskar says that Klepp often spends hours making schedules, including his eating
of blood sausage and handing out illegal Communist propaganda. Klepp shows
Oskar his schedule and it takes Oskar back to his first experience with a schedule.
It began in kindergarten. Hedwig Bronski would take Oskar and her son Stephan
Bronski together to the same kindergarten which was attended by six to ten other
children. Their teacher, Auntie Kauer would take them for walks through town. She
would harness the children together with shafts of pale-blue knotted wool and bridles
of wood with bells attached on the sides. Auntie Kauer would hold the reins and have
the children trot along in front of her, singing prayers and hymns like "Jesus for thee
we live, Jesus, for thee we die."
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7. Oskar tells Bruno and Klepp that he happened to see on a blackboard of that
school a picture with the words "My first School day" in Sütterlin script.
Oskar's parents thought that their attempt to put Oskar in school had been
sufficient so they no longer worried about his education. Oskar mentions Meyn the
Trumpeter, a tenant of Oskar's apartment complex who spent his time in the attic
drinking gin and playing his trumpet who recognized Oskar as his drum accompanist.
Their duet drove Meyn's four cats out onto the roof. Oskar asked Meyn to teach him
to read, but Meyn knew only three things: gin, the trumpet, and sleep.
8. In the institution, Oskar mentions Dr. Hornstetter, a nervous woman who comes
into his room to smoke cigarettes and reassert the fact that Oskar suffers from
childhood isolation. Oskar says she is right - he hardly ever played with other
children when he was young, preferring his Rasputin and Goethe medley to childish
games.
There was a courtyard behind Oskar's building, a place where the housewives
took all of their rugs to beat the dirt out of them - a ritual that Oskar hated. The
children in Oskar's building played there. There was a shed in the courtyard that
belonged to Old Man Heilandt. The shed was full of rusted machinery and he would
let Oskar in, but none of the other children. The old man spent his time straightening
old nails that he pulled out of wooden crates.
9. That Christmas Agnes bought four tickets to the theater - for herself, for Oskar,
and for Stephan and Marga Bronski. Oskar laments the fact that there were too many
children there for his taste - Marga spent her time playing at the balcony rail. Oskar
identified himself with the play- Tom Thumb. It was marked that the audience never
saw Tom Thumb; he was instead played by an invisible offstage voice. The play
made Agnes cry; she began to call Oskar Tom Thumb after Christmas.
They did not go to the theater again until the summer of 1933, when Agnes,
Oskar, Alfred Matzerath, and Jan Bronski took a trip to the Opera-in-the-Woods. A
morning in the park, then an afternoon at the beach - Agnes, who was already
beginning to get fat, wore a straw-colored bathing suit. Oskar was supposed to go
naked; he covered his private parts with his drum. Later they had coffee and cake.
Ages ate three helpings of five-storey cake.
10. Oskar says he made a habit of spending time with his drum under rostrums until
November of 1938, breaking up rallies and transforming marches into waltzes. Oskar
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maintains, however, that he was not a resistance fighter - "resistance" is a much-
overused word. He prefers the reader to see him only as an eccentric who rejected the
uniforms and colours of the mainstream.
Oskar learned to play the tempter from his grandmother Anna Koljaiczek. She
came in from the country to Danzig each Tuesday for market, selling eggs, butter,
and geese. Every hour a man who rented out hot bricks would push a brick under
Anna's four skirts. Oskar envied those bricks, for he always wanted to be under his
grandmother's skirts.
11. Oskar laments the fact that he lost his glass-breaking voice ability in the year
before he was committed to the institution. When he saw his friend Vittlar, he was
reduced to using the man's first name, Gottfried; because his voice was so lowly.
The incident with Jan and the necklace put a temporary end to Oskar's
temptations. At that time, however, Agnes found religion; Oskar says she did so
because she had fallen into a routine of sin with Jan Bronski. So she went and
confessed to Father Wiehnke every Saturday at the Church of the Sacred Heart.
12. Oskar was mad at Jesus for not drumming, but glad the drum was all his. He
was angry that the windows did not break; but at the fact that did not preserve his
Catholic faith.
Matzerath, who was a Protestant, closed the store on Good Friday. He, Oskar,
Agnes, and Jan took a streetcar to a beach resort which was still mostly boarded up,
as it was mid-April. On the way they passed Saspe cemetery where Agnes said she'd
like to be buried. Alfred thought the soil too sandy. Once there, they walked along
the beach and saw no one save a lone old man sitting on the breakwater. He had a
wriggling sack next to him and held onto a clothesline that disappeared into the
water. The man, with a tobacco stained smile, pulled in the clothesline. Although
ready to leave, Oskar's group stayed to watch. The man climbed down the rocks and
heaved a severed horse's head, attached to the clothesline, onto the breakwater.
Clinging to the black horse's head were green eels, which the man pulled off the
horse and put in his bag which Matzerath held. The man pulled open the horse's
mouth and pulled out two large eels from the horse's throat, causing Agnes to throw
up her breakfast. Circling seagulls swooped down and ate what Agnes had disgorged.
The man pulled an eel out of the horse's ear, spilling the horse's brains out of its
head.
59
13. Exactly two weeks after Easter, Agnes began to eat fish obsessively. She would
start in the morning with herring, then move on to any sort of fried, boiled,
preserved, or smoked fish she could find. She began to vomit at intervals throughout
the day, neglecting to answer either Jan's or Alfred's questions about why she was
doing so. After drinking the oil from several cans of sardines, she was taken to the
hospital. There, Agnes was found to be three months pregnant. Dr. Hollatz said she
had jaundice and fish poisoning, but Oskar says it was the memory of the eels in the
severed horse's head, and the fear of seeing it again, that did her in. For four days she
retched, then finally died. Oskar says in his mother's death she and Jan Bronski had
become Romeo and Juliet; she had died for him, held their love on a pedestal, and
sacrificed herself.
14. After his mother's death, Oskar lost all his will; he stopped breaking up
demonstrations with his drum and singing out the glass of shop windows. Oskar
plunged himself into Gretchen Scheffler's books, and spent time taking walks alone.
On one of these walks, Oskar ran into Bebra, who invited him to a cup of coffee at
the Four Seasons hotel. Bebra was accompanied by a beautiful woman who, like
Oskar and Bebra, had chosen not to grow: her name was Roswitha Raguna. Bebra
asked about Oskar's dejection; he told of his mother's death. Roswitha immediately
invited Oskar to travel around Europe with her and Bebra. In the same breath,
however, as she gazed into Oskar, she trembled and withdrew from him. Oskar asked
Bebra to explain why she shied away.
15. Herbert was reduced to mulling over his troubles; Oskar got him to go into a
partnership with him. Oskar would sing out the windows of a store and Herbert
would do the salvaging of the loot. They robbed two delis and a furrier. They were
forced to give it up, however, because disposing of the goods involved revisiting the
black market of the waterfront, which Herbert had no intention of doing. After
another bout of mulling, Herbert got out his suit and went looking for a job - he
Herbert's funeral, Leo Schugger again offered his condolences to the assembly at the
cemetery. Meyn the trumpeter went back to drinking gin and played the trumpet
beautifully over Herbert's grave. Leo Schugger neglected to give Meyn his
sympathies, but rather cried in fear at seeing him. Once home, Meyn found his four
cats, who he fed herring heads. The stench of the cats, however, became unbearable
to him. He reached for the poker that sat by his stove and flailed out at the cats until
they were dead. He put the cats into a potato sack and took them downstairs to dump
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them in the trash, but failed to notice that the sack was not blood-proof - it began to
drip as he went down the stairs. The garbage can was full and the lid would not stay
on well - after Meyn dumped his cats, the lid began to move. The cats were not quite
dead. In his house, Laubschad the watchmaker, a member of the local SPCA, saw the
garbage lid moving. me a guard at the Maritime Museum.
16. At Herbert's funeral, Leo Schugger again offered his condolences to the
assembly at the cemetery. Meyn the trumpeter went back to drinking gin and played
the trumpet beautifully over Herbert's grave. Leo Schugger neglected to give Meyn
his sympathies, but rather cried in fear at seeing him. Once home, Meyn found his
four cats, who he fed herring heads. The stench of the cats, however, became
unbearable to him. He reached for the poker that sat by his stove and flailed out at
the cats until they were dead. He put the cats into a potato sack and took them
downstairs to dump them in the trash, but neglected to notice that the sack was not
blood-proof - it began to drip as he went down the stairs. The garbage can was full
and the lid would not stay on well - after Meyn dumped his cats, the lid began to
move. The cats were not quite dead. In his house, Laubschad the watchmaker, a
member of the local SPCA, saw the garbage lid moving
Book II -Chapter 17-38
17. On visiting day in the institution, Maria brings Oskar a new drum. Oskar would
not accept the receipt from the store - he even had Bruno wash the price tag off the
drum with hot water before he would look at it. Maria takes the old drum, well worn
as it is. Per Oskar's instructions, she is to put it in the cellar at home, along with all of
Oskar's other used drums. Oskar asks himself what it is that makes him collect his
worn out drums - his answer is fear of a drum prohibition sometime in the future.
This complex started on November 9, 1938, the day he lost Sigismund Markus to the
Nazis and with it, his supply of drums
18 Oskar slept dreamlessly on the letters. He was awakened by the sound of
machine-gun fire - the Germans had attacked the post office. Oskar's first thought
was of his drum's safety - he dug a hole in the basket of letters and placed his broken
drum inside. Oskar went in search of Koybella or Jan. In the hall, he could hear shots
being fired from inside the building by the postal workers. Thinking his glass-singing
talents could be enlisted to help the Poles, he instead got tangled in the grownups'
feet. He watched the first Polish wounded as they were carried into the building. The
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first man was grazed in the arm. The second had been shot in the belly. A third
wounded man was taken to Oskar's windowless room; he followed, lamenting that
the man was placed into one of the mail baskets to bleed his drum. The drum, after
all, had nothing in common with the blood of the Poles.
19. Victor Welhun helped Jan and Oskar carry Koybella to the windowless room.
On the way, they consoled themselves by thinking that the British and French would
come to save them. Oskar knew better than to expect help. Jan, scared to death, was
admitted to the room along with Oskar and Koybella, in which all of the wounded
had been placed, on top of the unsent mail. After dressing Koybella's wounds, Jan
couldn't think of what to do. He pulled out his skat cards and he, Oskar and Koybella
began to play. Koybella could hardly keep himself upright; Jan and Oskar tied him to
a mail basket with a pair of suspenders. Koybella was only conscious for the game
itself; between hands he sagged in the suspenders. Oskar was troubled, for this was
the first time he had let on that he was not a three-year-old in mind as he was in
body; he let on that he could play skat. Jan began to confuse himself - he started
calling Oskar Alfred or Matzerath and Koybella Agnes, then vice versa.
20. Oskar says he has misled the reader in the last chapter - the events were not so
grand or blameless as he made them out to be. As soon as the guards came into the
room, Oskar had begun making himself out to be the childish victim, and making Jan
out to be the evil culprit who used Oskar as a shield for bullets. Jan didn't notice, and
this fact comforts Oskar, for it relieves him of responsibility. Jan was lost in his
world of cards.
Oskar says he has two great burdens of guilt in his life: it was he who sent both
Agnes and Jan to their graves. While Oskar was placed in the hospital with a fever
and given back to Alfred, the thirty prisoners were taken to the run-down cemetery in
Saspe and executed. Oskar learned this from Leo Schugger, who knew about all the
burials in Danzig, even the unannounced ones.
21 Oskar says that while the governments of Europe spent all of their time and
money gobbling up the metal of Europe, he was running out of drums. He did his
best to destroy the drum he had found in the post office because it reminded him of
his guilt over Jan's death, but it somehow survived his attack. Oskar was convinced
that he would get a new guiltless drum for Christmas, but he did not. He was sure the
grownups had hidden it from him; when he was proven wrong, he used his glass-
62
breaking voice for the first time in a long time, and shattered all the decorations on
the Christmas tree. Alfred could not understand either his motivations or actions.
22. Oskar begins by talking about fizz powder, a soda substitute of flavored powder
that fizzed like soda when mixed with water. Agnes would sell it in little bags of
green, orange, raspberry, or lemon flavor.
Oskar and Maria spent the first summer of the war on the beach reserved for
ladies. One day, looking for her harmonica, Maria produced a package of fizz
powder from her beach bag. Maria grew thirsty, but the water fountain was thirty-
five paces away, over burning sand. After a long while, Maria picked up the package,
opened it, and placed it back on the towel. Oskar picked it up and held it out to
Maria, who put one finger in the package and offered the finger to Oskar. Oskar
tasted the powder-covered finger. Maria held out an empty hand and Oskar filled it
with powder. Oskar summoned up all of his saliva and spit into the hand full of
powder. It fizzed, and Maria felt something she had never felt before. Maria licked
her own palm. After a few minutes, she filled her hand again, then made it known
that she wanted Oskar's saliva. But Oskar had saliva and it could not replenish
quickly. He had to walk across the burning sand to the water fountain in order to
wash out his mouth and replenish his saliva. When he returned, Maria was on her
belly and didn't move. Her hand was empty of fizz powder. Oskar never found what
had happened to that handful of powder.
23. In the mental institution, Oskar tried an experiment. He sent his keeper Bruno
out to find him fizz powder, but the stores no longer sold it. In the end, the lab
technician at the hospital synthesized some for Oskar out of sympathy. It was visiting
day: both Klepp and Vittlar came to visit Oskar. Stalin had died that day, and Klepp,
the purveyor of Communist propaganda, was in mourning. When Klepp left, Oskar
whispered to Vittlar if he knew about fizz powder. Vittlar became incredulous, said
he was an angel that could not be tempted, and left.
24. Oskar says that he never liked Greff the greengrocer; Greff never liked him
either. Greff was a vegetarian and would talk about vegetables of idealized
perfection. Oskar thought it was nonsense; in his rural family they were practical
about potatoes and such. Greff was a generally overdone person and Oskar felt that
Greff could not give up the boy scout troupe that had been taken away from him
when the boys were placed into the Hitler Youth Corps. The boys would come by
63
often to see Greff and they would sing the songs they were used to sing. The
meetings were tolerated because both Greff and several boys had become higher-ups
in the Hitler Youth or the Nazi Party.
25. Just as the mud had set in on the front lines of the war, Oskar says he, too,
bogged down in the mud of Lina Greff. Maria had taught Oskar to appreciate the
delicate side of femininity; Lina taught Oskar femininity on a grand scale - she made
a man of him. Lina was permanently bed-ridden and slightly ailing, and could not get
away from Oskar. She simply laid herself out for him to experiment with.
Having lost the visits from his former boy scouts, Greff the greengrocer spent
his time tinkering with his homemade contraptions. The boys were fighting and some
had died in the war
26. Greff's elaborate structure caused Oskar to look upon suicide as a noble form of
death. During the time after Greff's death, Oskar was given a geography lesson by
the advancing armies over the radio. But Oskar grew tired of home. He chanced upon
Master Bebra and Roswitha Raguna on the way back from Gretchen Scheffler's,
where he had read up on the ancient general Narses, a midget like Oskar who had
conquered countries. Bebra and Roswitha convinced Oskar to go abroad with them to
Paris and to the west. Bebra had become an officer in the Propaganda Company of
the Army, his job consisting of entertaining the troops. Driving in the car, Roswitha
caressed Oskar; she told him that she had never forgotten him and still had the glass
he had sung an inscription in for her. In the park, Oskar thought over the offer for the
sake of form, then accepted.
27. The troupe started their tour, finally arriving in Paris in September. Oskar and
Roswitha spent all their time together, admiring the Eiffel tower and exchanging
kisses. Oskar compared the arching legs of the tower to his time under his
Grandmother Anna.
In Paris, Oskar upgraded his performance - instead of exploding beer bottles
with his voice, he would destroy priceless pieces of blown glass from the French
castles. He went chronologically through history, starting with the reign of Louis
XIV, then Louis XV, then Louis XVI, and finally that of Louis Philippe. Only
seldom did someone in the crowd of soldiers recognize this historical acumen. The
troupe spent the winter in Paris - they stayed in first class hotels and Oskar and
Roswitha spent their time comparing the beds together.
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28. When Oskar returned home, nothing had changed. The only difference was in
Alfred, who shed authentic, speechless tears when he saw Oskar. Oskar resolved at
that moment to recognize Alfred as a potential father and called himself Matzerath in
addition to Bronski. They took him in, but the questions began. They were angry that
Oskar had simply disappeared, for they had had to swear to the police that they had
not killed him. Now that he was back, a representative from the Ministry of Public
Health came by to place Oskar in a mental institution, but Alfred resisted because he
had promised Agnes that he would not do so. Every two weeks there was a letter in
the mail asking for Alfred's release to take Oskar away, but Alfred refused to sign.
Oskar returned to the church of the Sacred Heart several times, trying to get the
baby Jesus to repeat his drumming performance. Jesus never obliged. Cold and
shivering in the church night after night, Oskar began to cough, a habit that remains
with Oskar to this day when he enters a church. Oskar began to go to church because
nothing kept him at home and every time he saw his son Kurt, the boy would attack
him.
30. The first thing Oskar did when he took over the Dusters was demand to be
introduced to and ally with Moorkähne, the leader of the other faction of Dusters.
Moorkähne also recognized Oskar as Jesus. The storeroom and treasury of the
Dusters was Putty's basement - it was filled with stolen army surplus, including
several guns. Oskar made them bury the guns in the back yard and give him the
firing pins, for he didn't want to use that type of weapon. At the time, the Duster's
assets amounted to two thousand, four hundred twenty Reichmarks. Later, when they
were forced to confess, the police counted their assets at thirty-six thousand
Reichmarks.
31. Oskar begins with the image of a picturesque swimming pool, graced by many
young, slender people. A young man climbs the ten-foot diving board and everyone
watches, his friends goading him to dive. This, Oskar says, is the situation he and the
Dusters were in at their trial. All of the boys dove from the board. That left Oskar
alone, who stood up on the board and said he could see the whole world from up
there. He celebrated the simultaneity of the world, weaving the fabric of history.
Even when Lucy pleaded, Oskar did not jump, but turned and made his way down
the ladder rung by rung. As Oskar left the courthouse, a man approached Matzerath
and asked him to consider putting Oskar in an institution, because he was gullible
and so easily taken in by disreputable elements. For ten days, Matzerath considered
65
the offer, then on the eleventh day, signed the release, but the city was under artillery
fire then, and the mail had stopped.
32. Refugees from Poland began to arrive in Danzig. To Oskar's family, a man
named Mr. Fajngold arrived, whose wife Luba and children Lev, Jakub, Berek, Leon,
Mendel, and Sonya had been killed. Fajngold remained convinced, however, that his
wife and family were alive - he showed the imaginary family around the store, and
introduced them around to everyone. He and his imaginary family were shown
Matzerath's corpse - Fajngold helped to carry Matzerath upstairs; Maria and the
imaginary Luba dressed the body. Lina Greff was of no help - she was busy in her
house with a whole group of Russians. Fajngold convinced Old Man Heilandt to
make another coffin for Matzerath. He used the door between the kitchen and the
living room from Mother Truczinski's flat, but this time didn't bother to make the
coffin tapered at the foot end. Heilandt wouldn't cart the coffin as far as the city
cemetery; they went to Saspe instead.
33. In the institution, Oskar says that he asks his keeper, Bruno, to measure his
height each day after breakfast. Oskar, at present, measures four foot one, when for
most of his life he was exactly three feet.
Oskar completes the story of Matzerath's funeral: after Oskar had thrown his
drum into the grave, his son Kurt had heaved a stone and hit Oskar in the back of the
head. Oskar leapt for his drum, but was pulled out by Old Man Heilandt without the
drum. It was after this stone hit him that he began to grow, according to Maria and
Fajngold, although he had been growing already.
34. Oskar says that to this day, the aches and pains of growth are with him still - he
grinds his teeth to keep the sounds in his joints down. His fingers are swollen; he
cannot hold his drumsticks to drum, or his fountain pen to write. He thus turns his
story over to his keeper, Bruno, to relate the story of his train trip to the west with
Maria and Kurt.
35. In Düsseldorf, Oskar, Maria, and Kurt take up with Maria's sister Guste
Truczinski. Guste had married a soldier named Köster, who was shipped to the
Arctic front soon after they had met. He was reported to be a prisoner in Russia, and
Guste forever clung to the hope that he would come back
36. Oskar says only wealthy people got tombstones, and "wealth" was relative. Five
sacks of potatoes got a plain head-marker. A tomb for two brought Oskar and
66
Korneff material to make new suits. An apprentice of the supplier made the suits for
them. Oskar got a single-breasted dark blue pinstriped suit. It took five fittings for
the apprentice to figure out how to deal with Oskar's hump. Korneff's suit was
double-breasted. From another man, Korneff bartered nice shoes. He gave Maria
money to buy him dress shirts, letting her keep the ample change.
37. Oskar says he would have been a good citizen had he married, owning a large
stonecutting business. It was the currency reform, however, which though allowing
for general prosperity, made Oskar fall victim to art. He left Korneff before he could
be let go because of the currency reform. Oskar neglected his appearance, spending
his time standing on street corners. He sat on park benches for hours on end. In the
park he was approached by four young art students, who wanted to use Oskar as a
model. Oskar accepted and was placed on a revolving pedestal in the studio of
Professor Kuchen.
38. Oskar and Ulla went house hunting for Oskar - the Academy gave him a
recommendation and the addresses of students not planning on returning for the next
semester. Oskar went back to Korneff, who was exactly the same, but had weathered
the currency reform; not only was he selling tombstones, he was refinishing stone
edifices on buildings with war damage, finding newfound prosperity. He hired Oskar
back on a half-time basis. In three hours' work, he earned a third of his monthly rent.
Book III –Chapter 39-46
39. Aside from his infatuation with Sister Dorothea, Oskar spent his time inscribing
tombstones and posing with the Muse Ulla at the art academy. It was Raskolnikov's
idea to paint Ulla dressed as a nurse alongside Oskar and call it "Fool Heals Nurse."
It was Oskar's suggestion to paint Oskar as the guilt and Ulla as the atonement
(Raskolnikov's only themes).
Oskar had taken to checking Sister Dorothea's doorknob to see if it was locked.
It always was, until one day, as Oskar began to despair, the door opened. He debated;
finally it was the thought of Maria, who had taken a new lover, her boss, that made
him go inside. The room was windowless and dark. The smell of vinegar was
everywhere, although there was no bottle of vinegar to be found. From her comb,
Oskar saw she had blond hair that had begun to fall out; this image roused feelings of
love in Oskar. Oskar crossed the room to Sister Dorothea's bed and on the way found
one of her bras
67
40. In the hallway, Oskar was satisfied that there was no sign of Dr. Werner in
Sister Dorothea's room. He heard a cough from the end of the hall that Oskar says
now was calculated to get his attention - Oskar ignored it. A few days later, in the
morning before going to the Academy to be painted with Ulla as a Greek god, he
went through the mail and found a letter from Dr. Werner to Sister Dorothea. He
went to the kitchen and boiled water, then took the letter and steamed the envelope
open so as not to damage it. The letter was not overtly tender, but through the
coldness Oskar sensed that it was a love letter. Oskar resealed the letter and began to
laugh as he replaced it under Dorothea's door. Then, at the end of the hall, Oskar
heard a voice plaintively ask him to bring some water. This was Klepp's apartment -
he was not sick, he simply used Oskar as an excuse to get water. Klepp's apartment
smelled of a corpse that doesn't stop smoking cigarettes, sucking peppermints, and
eating garlic - Oskar says Klepp smells this way even now. In the dirty room were
several packages of spaghetti, olive oil, tomato paste, salt, and a case of lukewarm
beer. Klepp urinated in the beer bottles lying down, for he seldom bothered to move.
Klepp always used the same water to cook his spaghetti, which became increasingly
viscous, and stayed in bed up to four days at a time.
41. Oskar says that today it is Klepp who is trying to get Oskar out of bed; he is
trying to get even because Oskar had made him forsake his bed. In the wake of their
first duet, Klepp became a dues-paying communist. The promise of the jazz band
excited Oskar. He and Klepp talked about it incessantly, deciding they needed a third
man, a guitarist who could also play banjo. It was during this time that Klepp and
Oskar would cut up their passport photos over beer and blood sausage. They looked
in all the Düsseldorf bars for a guitarist, and though they picked up with some bands,
they found no one. Oskar had trouble playing; half his thoughts were with Sister
Dorothea. But he gave himself up to Klepp. He stopped posing with Ulla, who was
eng Schmuh fired Oskar and the rest of "The Rhine River Three," for his drum solo
that turned the patrons of the Onion Cellar into children without even using onions.
Oskar thinks that Schmuh feared his competition. But the patrons complained; the
band was brought back part time.aged again to Corporal Lankes, and no longer
needed the money; he hated posing without her. Oskar no longer went to see Maria
and Kurt, because her new husband (and boss) Mr. Stenzel was always around.
42. The newly formed band practiced outside the city in the meadows. By chance,
the nightclub owner Ferdinand Schmuh would go to those same meadows to shoot
68
sparrows. He would make his wife drive to the country, then she would stay in the
car while he hunted. In his left pocket he kept his ammunition, in his right he kept
bird food. He would never shoot more than twelve sparrows in a day. One day,
Schmuh addressed the trio, imploring them to not scare away the birds with their
music. Klepp knew of Schmuh and said so; impressed, they began to talk. They
played for him and Schmuh offered them a nightly gig playing at his club, the Onion
Cellar.
43. Schmuh fired Oskar and the rest of "The Rhine River Three," for his drum solo
that turned the patrons of the Onion Cellar into children without even using onions.
Oskar thinks that Schmuh feared his competition. But the patrons complained; the
band was brought back part time.
44. Oskar stopped playing music with Klepp, though they still spent their time
together. He was sick of jazz and didn't deny that his style had changed and wasn't
jazz any more. Klepp found another drummer for the band and got another gig. The
drumming contract was Oskar's last resort. Even though he threw away Dösch's
business card, he remembered the number; after a few days, he called and the doctor
excitedly set up a meeting.
45. Vittlar questioned Oskar about what he had in his pocket; he had seen that it was
a finger. He wanted to try on the ring set with aquamarine. Oskar says that he hadn't
seen Vittlar in the tree because Vittlar has a knack for blending in and looking like
his surroundings. In the mental hospital, Oskar says that he asked Vittlar to bring him
a transcript of the statement he made to the police regarding the finger. Oskar relates
that statement in full.
46. In the mental institution, Oskar writes of his flight on his thirtieth birthday.
Klepp gave him jazz records, and Vittlar gave him chocolate and said that when
Jesus was thirty, he gathered disciples. Oskar doesn't like the idea. Oskar's lawyer
came and told him that the ring finger case that put Oskar there was being reopened.
He said that new evidence had been found pointing to one Sister Beata as the real
killer. Oskar says he has been dreading this - that they would reopen the case and
discharge him from the hospital, take away his white enamel bed, and force him to
take up disciples.
Dr. Erich Werner, the man who had sent Sister Dorothea the coy love letters that
Oskar had secretly read, was in love only with Sister Dorothea. Sister Dorothea's best
69
friend Sister Beata, however, was in love with Dr. Werner. Even though Sister
Dorothea was not in love with Dr. Werner, Sister Beata became jealous of the
doctor's affection for her friend and killed her. But Doctor Werner had been sick and
Beata wanted to take care of him - she made sure that he did not get better, and he,
too, died at Beata's hand. Oskar had found Dorothea's severed ring finger and had
Vittlar turn him in for a crime he did not commit.
1) The novel opens with Oskar Malzerath writing from inside -------.
a) a green grocery c) a mental institution
b) a jail d) a theatre
2) Matzerath, Oskar, Agnes and Jan took a street car to a beach resort, which
was still mostly boarded up as it was -------.
a) April c) June
b) Mid April d) May
3) On visiting day in the institution, ------- brings Oskar a new dram.
a) Anna c) Klepp
b) Raswitha Raguna d) Maria
4) ------- also recognized Oskar as Jesus.
a) Dusters c) Moorkahne
b) Dr. Erich Werner d) Mr. Zeidler
5) The night club owner ----- would go to those same meadows to shoot
sparrows.
a) Victor Weluhn c) Herbert Truczinski
b) Ferdinand Schmuh d) Dr. Erich Werner
1) Meyn the trumpeter went back to drinking gin and played the trumpet
beautifully over -------'s grove.
2) For the first time in the novel Oskar mentions his ------- which he claims is
responsible for his remembering of all essential past events.
70
3) In----- Oskar up graded his performance instead of exploding beer bottles
with his voice.
4) Along the border of the Western Cemetery, there were -----manufacturers
of tombstones.
5) In the mental institution, Oskar writes of his flight on his ------- birthday.
1) What is responsible for Oskar's remembering of all essential past events?
2) Who had performed Oskar's baptism?
3) Who did want Oskar to confess the truth to the German?
4) What does 'Dusters' mean?
5) Who had sent Sister Dorothea the coy love letters?
 pedestals (n) - the base or support on which a statue or column is mounted
 enamel (n) - a coloured shiny substance applied to metal, glass or pottery
for decoration or protection
 Raft (n) - a small inflatable boat, a large amount
 conducive (aj) - contributing or helping towards
 allusion (n) - an indirect reference to something
 corpse (n) - a dead body of a human
 sausage - a short tube of raw minced meat in a skin, i.e. grilled or fried
before eating
 propaganda (n) - information that is often biased or misleading used to
promote a political cause
 kindergarten (n) - a nursery school
 isolation (n) - the action of isolating or the fact of being isolated
 Unpredictable (aj) - not able to be predicted, change able.
 condemn (v) - express complete disapproval of
 laments (n) - a passionate expression of grief
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 offstage (ad/av) - (in a theatre) not on the stage and so not visible to the
audience
 Rostrum (n) - a platform on which a person stands to make public speech,
receive a prize or conduct a Orchestra.
 portrait - painting, drawing or photograph of a person
 gin (n) - a trap for catching small game; a machine for raising and moving
heavy weight
 (n) - a dance in triple time performed by a couple who turn rhythmically
round and round as they progress around the dance floor
 robes (n) -a loose outer garment reaching to the ankles worn on formal or
ceremonial occasions; a bathrobe or dressing gown
 sculpture (n) - the art of making three dimensional figures and shapes, by
covering stone or wood or casting metal.
 wriggle (v) - twist and turn with quick writhing movement
 heave (v) - lift or drag with great effort; produce (a sign) noisily; throw
(something heavy);try to vomit.
 cling (v) - hold on tightly to; stick to
 seagull - a long winged seabird having white plumage with a grey or black
back
 swoop (n) - move rapidly downwards through the air;carry out a sudden
raid
 disgorge (v) - cause to pour out; bring up (food)
 mull (v) - warm (wine/beer) and add sugar and spices to it; think about at
length
 Salvage (v) - rescue (a ship or its cargo) from loss at sea.
 waterfront (n) - a part of a town or city alongside a body of water
 bout (n) - a short period of illness or intense activity
 Prohibition (n) - an order that forbids something.
 Graze (v) - scrape and break the skin on.
72
 Reinforcement (n) - the action of reinforcing.
 suspenders (n) - braces for holding up trousers
 Sagged/sag (v) - sink downwards gradually under weight or pressure; hang
down loosely or unevenly.
 culprit (n) - a person who is responsible for on offence or misdeed
 shield (n) - a broad piece of armour held for protection against blows or
missiles.
 execute (v) - carry out; carry out a sentence of death on
 gobble (v) -eat hurriedly & noisily;use a large amount quickly
 replenish (v) - fill up again after some has been used.
 overdone - use too much of,
 bog (n) - an area of soft, muddy, wet ground
 contraptions (n) - a machine or device that appears storage or
unnecessarily complicated.
 explode (v) - increase suddenly in number or extent; blast, blow up, burst.
 acumen (n) - the ability to make good judgement and take quick decisions.
 potential (aj) - would be; aspiring, budding, promising.
 fantasize (v) - imagine something desired.
 protestant (n) - a member or follower of any of the Western Christian
Churches that are separate from the Roman Catholic.
 oblige (v) - make (someone) do something by low, necessity or because it
is their duty.
 ally (n) - a person, organisation, or country that cooperates with another.
 surplus (n) - an amount left over when requirements have been met.
 goad (n) - a thing that stimulates someone into action. (v) provoke to
action.
 simultaneity (n) - the quality of being simultaneous
 artillery (n) - large guns used in warfare on land
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 gullible (aj) - easily persuaded to believe something
 refugee (n) - a person who has been forced to leave their country because
of a war or because they are beginning persecuted for their beliefs.
 taper (v) - reduce in thickness towards one end.
 leap (v) - jump high or long way; move quickly or suddenly
 relate (v) - give an account of
 entrepreneur (n) - a person who makes money by starting new business
 hump (n) - a rounded raised mass projecting from the ground
 frown (v) - furrow one's brow to show disapproval, displeasure or
concentration.
 apprentice (n) - a person learning a skilled practical trade from on
employer
 pinstriped (aj) - a very narrow pale stripe in dark cloth
 barter (v) - exchange (goods or service) for other goods or services
 recommendation (n) - advice, advocacy, approbation, approval.
 tonement (n) - amends for a wrong; the reconciliation of god and
humankind through the death of Jesus Christ
 nausea (n) - a feeling of sickness with the need to vomit
 squat (v) - unlawfully occupy on uninhabited building or area of land
 viscous (aj) - having a thick sticky consistency between solid and liquid
 spaghetti (n) - pasta in long strands
 luke warm (aj) -only slightly warm; unethuziastic
 duet (n) - a performance by two singers, musicians or dancers
 forsake (v) - abandon, give up, break off from
 schnapps (n) - strong alcoholic drink resembling gin
 remnant (n) - a small remaining quantity
 gravel (n) - a loose mixture of small stones and coarse sand, used for paths
and roads.
 skeptical (n) - a person who questions accepted belief or statements
 doff (v) - remove (one's hat) when greeting someone.
 aquamarine (n) - a light bluish-green colour; a light bluish green precious
stone.
74
 disciples - a follower of christ during life, especially one of twelve
apostles; a follower of a teacher / leader
 escalator (n) - moving staircase consisting of a circulating belt of steps
driven by a motor.
 arrogant (aj) -having too great a sense of one's own importance or
abilities.
2.6 Summary:
The four main sections in this unit enable students to know about the plot,
character/s, theme/s and narrative technique/s.
2.7 Answers to check your progress

2.2.1
A) 1) c 2) b 3) c 4) c 5) c
B) 1) Grocery store
2) Soldier
3) 1956
4) Expressionism, Theater of the Absurd
5) Logic, morality
C) 1) in Danzig, a northern part city in Poland
2) in 1945
3) his use of objects and objective correlative
4) a swiss ballet dancer named Anna Schwarz
5) 1959
2.3.1
A) 1) c 2) b 3) d 4) a 5) a
B) 1) Oskar Matzerath
2) three year-old
3) Anti-establishment
4) Bebra
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5) Russian
C) 1) His mother, Agnes.
2) 4 feet, an inch and 4 feet two inch
3) Anna, grandmother of Oskar (Maternal)
4) both of these men, Jan and Alfred Matzerath
5) Rasputin and Goethe
2.4.1
A) 1) c 2) d 3) c 4) b 5) d
B) 1) Albrecht Gref
2) the Onion Cellar
3) Poland
4) Lux
5) fizz powder
C) 1) Oskar is endowed with the ability to shatter glass with a high pitched
scream, though he eventually loses this ability
2) Joseph Koljaiczek (Wranka)
3) Jan Bronski
4) In his mother's apple tree while Oskar was on a walk after War II Bebra
2.5.1
A) 1) b 2) b 3) d 4) b 5) b
B) 1) Herbert
2) a tin drum
3) Paris
4) six
5) Thirtieth
C) 1) Tin Drum
2) Father Wiehnke
3) Vincent and Anna
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4) a group of boys that had become famous in Danzig for raiding the offices of
the Hitler Youth, Stealing Medals from soldiers and ammunition from
stockpiles.
5) Dr. Erich Werner
2.8 Exercises:
A) Long Answer Type Question:
 Gunter Grass has interwoven various themes in The Tin Drum with one
another to create a single design. Discuss
 How does Gunter Grass deal with the theme of Coalminers’ Strike in the
novel?
 Bring out the autobiographical elements in the novel.
 Bring out the principal traits of Oskar in The Tin Drum
 Bring out the principal traits of Gottfried Von Vittlar in The Tin Drum
 Discuss the theme of the novel.
 Comment critically on Magic Realism in the novel.
 Bring out the outline story of The Tin Drum.
 Write in brief the summary of the novel.
B) Write Short Notes:
 Oskar as a Narrator
 Oskar’s Life
 Narrative Technique in The Tin Drum
 Significance of the Title of the Novel The Tin Drum
 Art of Characterization in The Tin Drum
 The End of The Tin Drum
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Text Prescribed:-
 Gunter Grass: The Tin Drum
Reference Books:-
 Foster .E.M: Aspects of the Novel: London, 1949.
 Lubbock, Percy: The Craft of fiction, London: Jonathan Cape 1965.
 Walt, Ian: The Rise of the Novel, Peguine, 1957.
 Bradbury, Malcolm: The Novel Today, Glasgow, F.C.Paperbook.1978,
1982.
 Matz, Jesse: The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell,
2004.
Websites-
www.studyguide.com
www.novel.com
www.wikipedia.com

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Unit-3
Emile Zola’s Germinal
Contents
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Life and Works of Emile Zola
3.3 Plot Summary of the novel Germinal
3.4 Major and Minor Characters in Germinal
3.5 Themes and Other Aspects in Germinal
3.6 Summary
3.8 Exercises
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3.0 Objectives:
 know about the life and works of Emile Zola
 know about the plot summery of the Germinal,
 learn the major and minor characters in Germinal
 learn the themes and other aspects in Germinal
 be able to answer the questions on the novel Germinal
3.1 Introduction:
This unit discusses the life and works of the famous French novelist and critic,
Emile Zola, who was born in Paris. It also discusses the outline and detailed
summary of the the famous novel Germinal, pointing out many aspects of life in
France in the 19th century. Zola’s Germinal is the 13th in a great series of 20 books
that covered the multiple lives of several French families over many decades. It
details the poor working conditions of the workers in a mile-deep coal mine, the
grinding poverty of them, the various levels of bourgeois managers and owners.
Germinal is a book about a mining village in France during the Industrial
Revolution. It tells about the oppression and difficulties faced by miners and them
coming together and strike against the company.
3.2 Emile Zola: His Life and Works:

Emile Zola (1840-1902) was a French novelist, critic and the founder of the
Naturalist movement in literature. The son of Francois Zola Single and Emilie
Aubert, Emile Zola was born in Paris on April 2, 1840. Shortly after his birth, he was
taken to the south of France by his father, a gifted engineer on Venetian extraction,
who had formed a company to supply Aix-en-Provence with a source of fresh water.
Zola spent his childhood in Aix-en-Provence, in southeast France, where the family
moved in 1843. When Zola was seven, his father died with his project uncompleted,
leaving the family with money problems. Naturally, Emilie Aubert, his mother, was
largely dependent on a tiny pension. Despite this, Émile's boyhood and schooling at
Aix were, on the whole, a happy period of his life. He retained a lasting affection for
80
the sunbaked countryside of this part of France. One of his closest friends at school
and his companion on many a summer's ramble was Paul Cézanne, the future painter,
who broke in later life when Zola created a fictionalized depiction and the bohemian
life of him.
In 1858, Zola and his mother moved to Paris where he completed his rather
sketchy education. In his youth, he started to write under the influence of the
romantics. His widow mother had planned a career in law for him. However, he did
not succeed in passing baccalaureate examinations. He abandoned his studies and not
wanting to be dependent on his mother, looked for work. He led a life of poverty
verging on destitution. Before his breakthrough as a writer, Zola worked as a clerk
in a shipping firm and then in the sales department of the publishing house of Louis-
Christophe-Francois-Hachette. Here he learned much about the business and
promotional sides of publishing and met several distinguished writers, among whom
was the philosopher and literary historian, Hippolyte Taine, whose ideas strongly
influenced the development of Zola's thought.
He, in his early years, wrote literary columns and art reviews for the Cartier de
Villemessant's newspapers. As a political journalist, Zola did not hide his antipathy
toward the French Emperor Napoleon III, who used the Second Republic as a
springboard to become Emperor. During his formative years, Zola wrote several
short stories and essays, four plays and novels. Among his early books was Stories
for Ninon, published in 1864. When his sordid autobiographical novel Claude’s
Confession (1865) was published, many critics received it unfavourably and gave
negative treatment to it. This furiated the police and Zola was fired from Hachette.
About 1868-1869, when Zola was working as a freelance journalist, he
conceived the idea of writing a series of interlinked novels tracing the lives of
various members of a single family whose fortunes were to counterpoint the rise and
fall of the Second Empire (1852-1870). He proposed in particular to demonstrate
how the forces of heredity might influence the character and development of each
individual descending from a common ancestor. The scheme enabled him to
apportion to each novel the analysis of a particular section of society, ranging from
the upper stratum of high financed and ministerial authority down to the suffering
masses-starving in the slums or toiling in the mines.
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The Rougon-Macquart was originally planned in ten volumes, but ultimately the
series comprised of 20 volumes, ranging in subject from the world of peasants and
workers to the imperial court. Zola prepared his novels carefully. The result was a
combination of precise documentation, dramatic imagination and accurate portrayals.
Zola interviewed experts, wrote thick dossiers based on his research, and created
powerful thoughtful portraits of his protagonists and outlined the action of each
chapter.
The first six volumes were largely ignored by the critics, although they included
some powerful pieces of social satire. For example, The Rush for the Spoil (1872)
dealt with the real estate speculation; The Belly of Paris (1873) attacked the
pusillanimous conservatism of the small-shopkeeper class and his Excellency Eugene
Rougon (1876) was an exposure of political jobbery. Only with the seventh,
L’Assommoir (1877), did Zola finally produce a best seller that made him one of the
most talked of writers in France and one of the most bitterly assailed creatures. The
plot of this novel is almost nonexistent. He contented himself with tracing the life
story of a simple-minded, good-hearted laundress who lived in a working-class
district in the north of Paris. By dint of hard work, she achieves at first a modest
prosperity, until her husband's increasing ficklessness and addiction to drink drags
her down to utter destitution. For the title of this novel, Zola used a contemporary
slang word for a liquor store. The problem of alcoholism among the poor looms large
in the book as do the related problems of overcrowded housing conditions,
prostitution, and the risk of starvation during the periods of prolonged
unemployment. Though in no sense a work of propaganda, L'Assommoir succeeded
in drawing attention to the wretched conditions the urban proletariat had been living
throughout the 19th century.
Succeeding volumes of the The Rougon-Macquart cycle included many others
that were universally read, though savagely condemned by conservative critics. In
1885, Zola published one of his finest works, Germinal. It was the first major work
on a strike, based on his research notes on labour conditions in the coal mines. The
book was denounced by the right-wing political groups declaring it to be a call to
revolution. It was the first novel in which the possibility of a social revolution
launched by the proletariat against the middle classes was seriously mooted. In his
descriptions of the dangerous daily labour in the pits and of the rioting of the
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exasperated strikers, Zola achieved effects of agony and terror of a kind never before
realized in literature.
Nana (1880), another famous work of the author, took the reader to the world of
sexual exploitation. Zola's tetralogy, The Four Gospels, which started with
Fruitfulness (1899), was left unfinished. The Soil (1887) represents his attempt to do
something for the farm labourer as he had done for the miner in Germinal. The
picture of rural life he offered was anything but idyllic, rape and murder being shown
as the inevitable concomitants of the narrowness of the peasant's horizons and his
atavistic land hunger. Finally, The Downfall (1892) gave an epic dignity to the story
of France's calamitous defeat at the hands of the Prussians in 1870.
The immense sales of his works enabled Zola, by 1878, to purchase a property
outside Paris, at Médan, a hamlet where he lived quietly for most of the year,
occasionally entertaining the younger writers forming the vanguard of the short-lived
naturalist school. Five of them collaborated with him in the production of a volume
of short stories issued in 1880 under the title Soirees de Medan. Of these five, the
two most talented, Guy de Maupassant and Joris Karl Huysmans, brake away from
him shortly afterward. Zola did, however, have important disciples outside France:
Giovanni Verga in Italy, Eca de Queiros in Portugal, George Moore in England, and
Frank Norris and Stephen Crane in the United States.
Zola set out his fundamental theoretical beliefs in The Experimental Novel
(1880), but he never adhered to them in practice. Naturalism embraced many of the
tenets of the older realist movement, such as an interest in average types rather than
above-average individuals, the cultivation of a pessimistic and disillusioned outlook,
a studious avoidance of surprising incident, and a strict obedience to consequential
logic in plot development. The special innovation of naturalism lay in its attempt to
fuse science with literature. This meant, in practice, that human behavior had to be
interpreted along strictly materialistic or physiological lines and that the individual
was to be shown as totally at the mercy of twin external forces, heredity and
environment.
Zola's private life was not free of strains. He married in 1870, was childless.
Then, in 1888, he set up a second home with a young seamstress, who bore him two
children. This unexpected blossoming of domestic happiness probably accounts for
the sunnier tone of the books he wrote after the completion of The Rougon-
83
Macquart. They included a trilogy—Lourdes, Rome and Paris (1894-1898)--dealing
with the conflict between science and religion, and a tetralogy of utopian novels, The
Four Gospels, of which only the first three were completed. Zola had an ardent zeal
for social reform. He was anti-Catholic and wrote many diatribes against the clergy
and the Church.
Zola's dramatic intervention on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus carried his name even
further than his literary work. Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, had been
wrongfully condemned for espionage in 1894, and with much courage and
recklessness of consequences, Zola challenged the findings of the court-martial in an
open letter to the President of the Republic (J'accuse, Jan. 13, 1898). Since his
statement charged certain high-ranking army officers with falsification of evidence,
Zola was put on trial. He lost his case, spent a year in hiding in England, and
returned to France on June 5, 1899. The letter was published on the front page of the
Paris daily, L'Aurore. The newspaper was run by Ernest Vaughan and Georges
Clemenceau, who decided that the controversial story would be in the form of an
open letter to the President, Félix Faure, accused the government of anti-Semitism
and of wrongfully placing the Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus in jail. The case,
known as the Dreyfus affair, had divided France deeply between the reactionary
army and church, and the more liberal commercial society.
Zola was brought to trial for criminal libel on 9th June 1899, and was convicted,
on 23 February, 1906 and sentenced and removed from the Legion of Honor. He
declared that Dreyfus' conviction and removal to a prisoner’s island came after a
false accusation of espionage and was a miscarriage of justice. Rather than go to jail,
he fled to England. But soon he was allowed to return in time to see the government
fall. The government offered Dreyfus a pardon (rather than exoneration), which he
could accept and go free and so eventually admit that he was guilty or face a re-trial
in which he was sure to be convicted again. Although he was clearly not guilty, he
chose to accept the pardon. However, in 1906, Dreyfus was completely exonerated
by the Supreme Court.
Zola died in Paris on 29th September 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning caused
by a stopped chimney. He was 62 years old. His death may not have been accidental
as the inquest found. There is reason to believe that he was the victim of an
assassination plot engineered by a few of the more fanatical of his political enemies.
His enemies were blamed, but nothing was proved. (Decades later, a Parisian roofer
84
claimed on his deathbed to have closed the chimney for political reasons.) Zola was
initially buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, but on 4 June 1908, almost
six years after his death, his remains were moved to the Panthéon.
A) Choose the correct alternative.
1. Emile Zola belongs to the period beginning from _______ to _______ .
a) 1929-1978 b) 1840-1902
c) 1844-1933 d) 1845-1903
2. Emile Zola was born in_______.
a) America b) London
c) India d) Paris
3. Emile Zola was a/an ______ novelist.
a) French b) American
c) Indian c) African
B) Fill in the blanks.
1. Zola spent his childhood in -------.
2. Zola’s family moved to Southeast France in--------.
3. Germinal is a book about-------.
4. Zola also worked as a -----------.
C) Answer in a word/phrase/sentence.
1. What was Emile Zola’s father?
2. What is the theme of Zola’s Nana?
3. When did Emile Zola die?
3.2.2Terms to Remember:
 bourgeois: middle class
 venetian : vince
85
 baccalaureate: exam intended to quality successful
 pusillanimous: faint-hearted
 conservatism : action for protecting something
 freelance : self-employed and hired to work for different companies on
particular assignment
 stratum : layer of social class
 proletariat: people from down class
3.3 Plot Summery of the Novel Germinal:

Considered by Andre Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French
language, Germinal is the story of miners’ strike. Set in northern France during the
1860s, the work takes its title from the name of a month in the Republican calendar.
This calendar, introduced by decree on 5th October 1793 and backdated to 22nd
September 1792 (which thus became the first day of the First Republic), was a
logical consequence of the ban on the Christian religion in France following the
Revolution of 1789. Replacing the Gregorian calendar, it took the autumnal equinox
as its starting point and was designed to segment time in a non-Christian manner.
Each of the year’s twelve months was divided into three ten-day periods known as
decades, while the five remaining days became national holidays.
The months themselves were renamed to evoke the principal organic or
meteorological characteristics of the moment: Vendemaiaire, Brumaire and Frimaire
for the autumn months of vintage, mist and frost; Nivose, Pluviose, Ventose for the
winter months of snow, rain and storm; Germinal, Floreal, Prairial for the spring
months of seeds, flowers and meadows; and Messidor, Thermidor and Fructidor for
the summer months of harvest, heat and fruit. Derived from Latin, these names were
intended to evoke the Roman Republic, which revolutionary France proudly if
briefly took as its model. However, following Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat in
1799 and Concordat with the Roman Catholic Church in 1801, the calendar was
eventually abandoned from 1st January 1806.
Germinal is a novel by Emile Zola published in 1885, the thirteenth in the series
Les Rougon-Macquart, and perhaps the most famous. Usually considered Zola’s
86
undisputed masterpiece and one of the greatest novels ever written in the French
language, the novel—an uncompromisingly harsh and realistic story of a coalminers’
strike in northern France in 1860s –has been published and translated in over one
hundred countries and has inspired five film adaptations and two television
productions. The title refers to the name of a month of the French Republican
calendar, a spring month. German is a Latin word which means ‘seed’; the novel
describes the hope for a better future that seeds amongst the miners. As a title,
Germinal neatly focuses on the novel’s two central subjects: political struggle and
the processes of nature. Indeed at the centre of the title is the mine itself, Zola’s
chosen emblem of the oppressive working conditions in which ill-paid labour makes
a fortune for capital. Since the novel opens in March and ends in April of the
following year, its chronology combines one annual cycle with a symbolic passage
through the month of ‘germination’. The action takes place in the coal fields of
northern France, during a strike caused by the reduction of wages. Besides, through
all the technical aspects of mining conditions of life in the settlements, Zola shows us
not only the beginning of political organization and unity of the working class, but
also the divisions between anarchists and Marxists. The novel was prescient for
twenty years and was published before the disaster Courrieres, 1099 at which miners
were killed. Conditions are brutal within the coal-mine and not much better at the
surface – mothers routinely sell themselves and their young daughters sexually in
order to put a meagre amount of food on the table. Zola has also described the
brutalizing effects on women and children being employed underground to haul
away the coal as the men dug it out. Debt, deprivation and depravity are the natural
order and one can imagine that things could not be otherwise than worse. Germinal
is also seen as a cry of pity and justice.
The novel’s central character is Etienne Lantier, previously seen in Zola’s other
masterpiece.’ Assommoir (1877), a young migrant worker who arrives at the
forbidding coalmining town of Montsou in the bleak far north of France to earn a
living as a miner. He has lost his former job from railway workshop as he slapped
one of his superiors, and arrives in Montsou looking for work. Economic conditions
are bad and no one wants to take on new workers. On the way, he is greeted by
Vincent Maheu, another workman, who befriends him. He finds him place to stay
and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit –as a hewer. Etienne is grateful
both for offered underground work and the new start in life. At first, he mistakes one
87
of the Maheu children, 15 yrs old Cahlerine, for a boy, because she is so slight and
her puberty has been delayed by the physical strain of her job as a tram-cart pusher at
the bottom of the pit. When he realizes that she is both attractive and friendly
towards him helping him learn ropes, sharing her food with him, he is deeply drawn
to her sexually. Soon he joins the rank of the coal miners but does not share their
passive resignation to the harsh living and worst working conditions. He finds in
Montsou that whole families work in the mines—elders, mothers, fathers, small
children. And even injured and sick people. Etienne is portrayed as a hard-working
idealist but also a naïve youth; Zola’s genetic theories come into play as Etienne is
presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestor’s traits of hotheaded
impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the
influence of drink or strong passions. Luckily, Zola keeps this theorizing in the
background and Etienne’s motivations are much more natural as a result. He
embraces socialist principles, reading many books of proletarian literature. He
convinces the miners to begin a provident fund which later, when the mining
company cuts the already bare-bones wages, will enable the miners—for a time to
make an attempt to better their lives by going out on strike. Finding Workmen
irreproachable, Etienne develops a passion for socialism. His correspondence with
Pluchart, a mechanic at Lille who recruits new members for the international, and his
study of socialist literature strengthens his determination to fight for social change
and justice. He succeeds in setting up a strike fund for the miners and later becomes
their leader when the Company tries to implement a disguised wage cut in the form
of a new payment policy for timbering. With the help of Pluchart, Etienne tries to
persuade the miners to become members of the International. At tavern, Etienne
meets Rasseneur, a former activist and leader of an earlier strike. He has long
conversations with the anarchist Souvarine, supporter of violent action. When the
strike erupts, he leads it. But when he preaches violent action, the miners and their
families hold back. He is unfairly criticized by other miners. The novel is has a love
story leading to the tragic end. Etienne falls in love with Catherine, daughter of
Maheu, who is employed for pushing carts in the mines, and he is also drawn into the
relationship between her towards her brutish lover Chaval. Etienne shocked by the
miserable living conditions of miners, and when the mining company, alleging the
economic crisis, decides to lower wages, his rebellion is exasperated. Dreaming of a
more just society, it spreads revolutionary ideas pushing miners to strike. Weeks
elapse. The strikers starve themselves as a band unleashed furious cries of “Bread!
88
Brad!” The strike causes damage in the close mines. To face this strike, employers
call upon the army to control it. The miners, strikers and the military opens fire on
workers and Etienne, to escape an arrest, hides underground in the mine. The army
intervenes, the strike ends and miners return to work. But, Etienne and Catherine are
affected by the flood. They take refuge in an air pocket that enables them to survive
a few days. After the failure of the strike, they come to Voreux. Souvarine is
responsible for the destruction of the mine-shaft that leads to Etienne, Catherine and
Chaval being trapped together underground. In a fit of madness, Etienne shatters the
skull of Chaval. Unfortunately, Catherine dies shortly after this in the bowels of the
mine. Etienne, the only survivor is hospitalized for a few weeks. He is dismissed
from work by the company and from the leadership by the miners angry. He gets a
letter from Pluchart to come to Paris. He has lost his illusions but he has a heart full
of hope. He knows that a day will come when the work force, still germinating, will
be organized to overcome injustice. The novel ends with a hopeful note justifying the
title, because it suggests that as the seeds germinate wheat and other food plants, the
revolt of miners will carry the seeds of struggle, and this will change the world one
day: “Some men were pushing a black army, avenging, which slowly germinating in
the furrows, growing crops for the next century, and whose germination was going to
soon break ground.”
Basically, in Germinal, Emile Zola describes the struggle of nineteenth century
coalminers in northern France. The novel contains minute details of the life of the
miners, presenting a complete picture of the conditions then prevailed. The central
presence of the Maheu family adds a human element to the story. Though the strike
is the central theme of the novel, Zola deals with several significant elements of the
miners’ life, particularly accidents and starvation they suffer. The Maheu family is
the most unfortunate family facing all the calamities that can happen in the life of a
mining family. Thus, it has one son being crippled in the mine, and deaths of
youngest children from starvation and the death of the oldest son in an explosion.
And last but not least in importance is the shooting by soldiers of the father as he
protests at a strike rally. Zola also describes the lives of the mine owners, who have a
very miserable existance. In fact the general message is that the mine, often
described as a beast in the novel, represents all modern industry having negative
effect on the lives of all involved, except perhaps the distant directors in Paris. Zola
only spent a couple of days touring through mines in the north, but his description is
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so real that the world of the miners comes vividly to life as a background for the
human tragedy the ultimate destination of the novel. However, the final message of
the novel, echoes the title of the work. There is hope for a new germination of
protest, just as Étienne’s arrival brought life to the latent seed of the miners’
discontent a year earlier.
In short, it is seen that Germinal is the product of the French Revolution. The
immediate cause of the French revolution was a shortage of bread. Both the miners
and the owners are keenly aware of the famous shout “Bread! Bread! We want
bread!” They are symbolically calling not only food, but for revolution.
3.3.1Check Your Progress:
1. Germinal is ______in the series of the Rougon-Macquart.
a) 10th b) 12th
c) 13th d) 15th
2. Germinal is published in_______ .
a) 1885 b) 1886
c) 1890 d) 1985
3. ________ is the hero of the Germinal.
a) Chaval b) Etienne Lantier
c) Rasseneur d) none of these
1. In Germinal, action takes place in --------.
2. The strike, in Germinal is caused by -------.
3. Germinal is also seen as a ----------.
4. The protagonist of the novel is -------.
5. Zola, in Germinal, describes--------.
1. How old was Maheu?
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2. Why was Etienne dismissed from his previous job?
3. Who killed Chaval?
3.3.2Terms to Remember:
 disaster: sudden misfortune
 courier: messenger
 discernible: good judgment
 irreproachable: beyond criticism
 exasperated: rouse the anger of
 unleashed: to make free
 germination: sprout
3.4 Major and Minor Characters:

1. Etienne Lantier: Etienne Lantier is the main character of this novel. He is
young, a man of 21 years’ old, skinny but strong looking. Driven by a workshop
railway company for slapping one of the superiors, he is dismissed from his job and
arrives one evening at Montsou. He worked there as a mechanic. On the way, he is
greeted by Vincent Maheu, another workman, who befriends him. Etienne finds
work in the mine as a hewer and is integrated with the mining team that includes
Vincent Maheu, Chaval Catherine Maheu and others. He falls in love with Catherine.
His love for Catherine is real love and not lust. But Chaval, his competitor, sees
nothing in Etienne. He thinks that he steals miners’ salary. Etienne has a passion for
socialism. He is in touch with his former foreman Pluchart, who sends him books to
read. He convinces the miners to begin a provident fund which later, when the
mining company cuts the already bare-bones wages, will enable the miners for a time
to make an attempt to better their lives by going out on the strike. He fights with
management for miner’s right. He tells the management, “the mine should belong to
the miners, like the sea belongs to fisherman, like soil belongs to the peasant.” When
the army occupied Montsou and Etienne was charged by the miners, he chooses a
secret place to hide and avoid the anger of miners. When Chaval tries to rape
Catherine, she shatters the skull of Chaval. When the strike ends and miners return to
work, Etienne also goes to work with Catherine. But due to flood, they are taken by
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water. They take refuge in an air pocket which enables them to survive.
Unfortunately, Catherine dies before help arrives. Etienne, only survivor, is
hospitalized a few weeks before heading back to Paris. Etienne is dismissed from the
leadership by the angry miners and the leadership is given to Rasseneur. At last he
gets a letter from Pluchart to come to Paris. Though Etienne has lost his illusions, he
has still a heart full of hope. He knows that a day will come when the work force,
still germinating, will be organized to overcome injustice. Etienne is develops
throughout the novel consistently and becomes the national hero.
2. Vincent Maheu: Vincent Maheu is an old man nicknamed Bonnemort. He
is called Bonnemort because of successive escapes from death in the mines. Nearly
sixty years old, Bonnecort suffers a bad cough because of particles of dust from the
mine pits. His family consists of his wife La Maheude, his wife, Zachaire and Jealin,
his sons, Catherine, the daughter, and little ones—Lenore and Henri. His family
works in mine undergoing every now and then dangers and hazardous situations.
Maheu is a man of patience. He is liked and respected by Etienne and others. He
supports the strike. He is selected as a spokesman by the miners. But in his whole
life, he faced unfortunate incidents and grinding poverty. Usually, Maheu is a model
of father. He is a representative of the miners.
3. Chaval: Chaval is the name of the miner who takes Catherine Maheu form
her house. He is twenty-five years’ old, tall and thin, and strong looking. He has
some limited leadership abilities but is he dominant and self-centred. He works
along with the Maheu down in the mine. He takes possession of Catherine by raping
her and later on takes her away from her family. He is violent and treats a woman
like a possession of limited value; Catherine eventually leaves him and comes back
to her family. During the strike, Chaval works for the Jean-Bart mine. He is bribed
by its owner; so he convinces the other miners not to go on strike. Chaval is killed
by Etienne during the flood of the mine.
4. Catherine Maheu: She is the young female protagonist of the novel. The
tragic love story is centred on her. She is 15 years’ old. She is very slim, but has
delicate arms and grey eyes. In miner’s trousers, she looks like a little man. She
works in mine with her family. Chaval takes possession of her by raping her and
later on he takes her away from her family. She is harrassed and beaten by Chaval.
Being tired with psychological and physical torture by Chaval, eventually she leaves
Chaval and lives with Etienne. She becomes the object of romantic rivalry between
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Etienne and Chaval. She thrives on being a tom-boy, equaling up with men both in
work and in life in general. At last, she dies in the bowels of the mine.
5. Rasseneur: Rasseneur is a former activist and a leader of an earlier strike.
He is a former hewer, whom the company has discharged three years previously in
consequence of a strike in which he has borne apart. He is a good workman and has
a fluent tongue. He puts himself forward every time. His wife is keeping a liquor-
shop like many of the miners’ wives; so when he is dismissed, he turns a host-
himself, finds someone to advance him money and sets up a tavern right in front of
the Voreux pit, as a challenge to the company. As his business grows, he becomes a
centre. He is more moderate than Etienne. He hates Etienne and does not like his
leadership. When Etienne is dismissed from the leadership, he takes back the reign of
leadership.
6. Pluchart: Pluchart is an organizer for the Communist International
Workingmen’s Association (an organization to which Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels originally belonged). He tries to organize labours from many countries into a
single movement to overthrow capitalism and establishe socialism. Etienne is a
follower of him. As per request of Etienne, he comes to Montsou. He gives a speech
on the grandeur and benevolent mission of the International and expresses wish of
the the emancipation of the working class. He explains that the whole world should
unite in one common demand for justice and to sweep away the corrupt bourgeoisie.
7. Paul Negrel: He is 26 years old young, good looking nephew of Monsieur
Hennebeau. He represents the type of the rebellious offspring of the bourgeoisie
who rebels against his upbringer, but who does not really identify with the workers.
He always comes first at the post of danger, whenever some slip or explosion.
8. Maigrat: Maigrat suggests maigre, ‘meager’ which alludes to the
storekeeper’s stingy, greedy nature. He runs the company store which is the only
store that advances credit to the miners when they have no cash. The miners are
always robbed by him. He exploits women sexually when they come to his store to
take advance or to take things on credit. He is stout, stern and self-composed. He
prides himself upon never changing his mind. At last he is murdered by the working
class women of Montsou.
9. Leon Gregorie: He is an important investor in the mining company that
owns the Voreux mining pit. He lives comfortably in a cozy house with his wife, a
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daughter, and a maid. All his revenues drive from an investment in the mining
company made by his grandfather a century early.
10. La Maheude Maheu: She is a wife of Vincent Maheu. She works with her
family in mine. She plays the most obvious and prominent mother’s role.
11. Monsieur Hennebeau: He works as general manager for many coal-pits.
1. -------- is the main character of the novel.
a) Etienne b) Maheu
c) Cheval d) Pluchart
2. Catherine is raped by ---------
a) Chaval b) Pluchart
c) Souvarine d) none of these
3. _______ is the eldest son of Maheu.
a) Jeanlin b) Leanre
c) Henre d) Zacharie
4. The tragic love story is centred on______
a) Chaval-Catherine b) Catherine-Etienne
c) Catherine-Rasseneur d) Souvarine-Catherine
5. ______ is the follower of Pluchart.
a) Lantier b) Catherine
c) Rasseneur d) Souvarine
B) Fill in the Blanks:
1. Etienne’s love for Catherine is love, not -------.
2. Chaval works at ---------.
3. Catherine is -------- years old.
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4. ---------- takes the possession of Catherine by raping her.
5. ---------- is called Bonnemort.
1. Who is the competitor of Etienne in love for Catherine?
2. Who convinces the miners to begin provident fund?
3. How old is Vincent Maheu?
4. Who sends letters to Etienne Lantier?
5. Who takes the bribe from owners of the mine?
 assassination: violent murder
 grandeur: magnificence
 defiance: the act of defying
 emancipation: emancipating or being emancipated; setting free esp. from
legal, political, or moral restraing.
 benevolent: kind and helfful
 Bonnemort: means good death
 Montsou: is a Company town
3.5 Themes and Other Aspects in Germinal:
A. Themes:
Zola has handled various themes, through his novels, like family life, socialism,
France or French people, social reforms, violence, riots, mines, miners or mining,
strikes or lockouts, starvation etc. The family for him symbolizes major themes of
the social changes transforming France under the Second Empire:
These are the themes in Germinal
 the huge gaps between the 'haves' and 'have-nots';
 wasteful extravagance against widespread grinding poverty;
 corruption in high places most sections of society being exploited.
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Zola explores the political consequences, the class struggle, and the pressures to
resort to violence and terrorism in the novel. He takes side in the contemporary
debates on:
 science vs. religion;
 education vs. oppression;
 labour vs. capital.
But he falls short of advocating socialism, and his message seems that workers
and bosses were both being swept along by an irresistible tide of social change.
Zola’s masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885) exposes the inhuman
conditions of French miners in the 1860s. It is a dramatic novel dealing with the
human aspects of working life, sexual desire and everyday relationships, but it is a
complex novel at the same time of full of revolutionary ideas. The idea of
germination, the springing forth of new life, pervades the entire story and it is rich
with symbolism throughout. Etienne, a newcomer who quickly becomes the leader of
the workers’ rebellion, literally sows the seeds of socialism and promises of a new
world order in the minds of simple miners. Through out Germinal, Zola describes
the lives of the miners and touches upon a few main themes. Despite the violence
and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations, Lantier retains
his belief in the ultimate germination of a new society, leading to a better world.
1. Marxist Socialism:
Emile Zola’s Germinal is a national epic which locates the centre of its heroic
encounter in the class struggle. Zola’s concept of the class struggle is largely
Marxian. Germinal is a novel about the birth of political ideas and new social
movement in a society. Zola's masterpiece is set in the French society of the 1860's.
The action happens during the early stages of the rise of the working class against the
aristocratic middle class establishment (called the "bourgeoisie"). The title of the
novel itself points to the idea of germination in plants. In Zola's analogy, social and
political ideas behave much like wild seeds in the natural world. Sowed in a fertile
soil and given the right conditions, ideas will grow and develop into something much
bigger and stronger than their initial state might suggest. Never and newer Ideas will
also spread around them and contaminate their surroundings and eventually take a
life of their own.
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Socialism is an attempt to equalize material wealth and production by the
government or people. Simply put, socialism seeks to bring workers together with
the upper class, making their life fair and equal. Germinal is a book about inequality
and its injustice. It is a book not only about extremes, mostly economic, but also
about mental extremes. Socialism comes into the picture as Etienne's ideas evolve
towards a more equal society. In the beginning of the book, Etienne is only a
wandering mechanic, looking for work. He meets Catherine and Chaval at Le
Voreux mine and there his ideas begin to form. Etienne along with the other main
characters, faces the issues of socialism, social justice, human nature and
relationships. Throughout the book, the miners change and evolve. Their ideals and
values develop and progress. Etienne, Catherine and Chaval exhibit the effects of
these themes through their actions and lives. Their relationships evolve throughout
the book and their lives are the result of socialism and social justice. Their actions
are an example of human nature being acted upon by another force humans
themselves. Human nature and human relationships go hand in hand; relationships
are products of human nature. Socialism also relates itself to these ideas.
The novel and its main characters represent some of the important political and
economic theories of the time. In particular, the novel focuses on the revolutionary
ideas which Zola saw as being a potential threat to society. For example, Zola's
concern with Marxist Socialism is reflected in the characters of Pluchart and Etienne
Lantier.
Pluchart is the secretary of the Workers' International and his lectures are
designed to spread the revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx. The basic idea behind
Marxism is that workers are exploited by the bourgeoisie or the capitalist owners of
the means of production. In order to change this situation, the workers need to rebel
against their capitalist oppressors. When Pluchart gives a speech to the coal miners at
the Montsou Company, he tells them of the many benefits they would receive under
a Marxist economic system. His description of a Marxist society sounds very good
on the surface, with "the workers of the whole world united by a common hunger for
justice, and thirst for sweeping away the rotten bourgeoisie and establishing at long
last the free society in which he who does not work does not reap!" (242). Pluchart is
the one who recommends the use of a strike in order that the coal miners make the
Montsou Company give them higher wages and better working conditions.
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M.A. I : Literature in English Novel… 7
Although Pluchart recommends the use of a strike, it is Etienne Lantier who
becomes the leader of the strike, and when the strike failes, people turn on Etienne
and threaten to kill him. Zola denounces anarchy as a means for political and
economic change. The nihilistic attitude of anarchy is shown in the character of
Souvarine, the Russian who helps Etienne plan his strike. Souvarine (Russian
Savarin) is modeled on the violent anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876),
who escaped from the exile in Siberia to London. His spilt with Karl Marx caused
the first International Workingmen’s Association eventually to collapse. He
advocated terrorist acts of assassination and destruction to disrupt governments and
inspire people to rise up against them and create a peaceful egalitarian utopia.
Souvarine considers Etienne's ideas for a worker revolt to be "balderdash." He feels
that it is necessary to destroy the old society before a new one can be created. Marx
rejected secret conspiratorial activities. According to him, an open movement could
provide the necessary basis for a true socialist revolution. Whereas Pluchart and
Lantier are followers of Marx, Souvarine's "Master" is "Bakunin, the destroyer"
(236). Souvarine takes Bakunin's political ideas to their extreme. Thus, he claims that
a revolution should "raise fires in the four corners of the cities, mow people down,
wipe everything out, and when nothing whatever is left of this rotten world, perhaps
a better one will spring up" (144). Souvarine is obviously a fanatic with a bleak view
of the world around him. Zola indicates that he is obsessed with "mystic dreams" and
"bloody visions" (381). Souvarine's ideas for violent revolution are clearly far from
flawless and they serve no purpose. The motto of both of them is same, but ways are
totally different. The violent anarchists of Russian type called nihilists were the
leading image in most people’s mind of radical activists. They were said to act out
of an irrational desire for destruction. Zola demonstrates remarkable insight in
portraying Souvarine as a sensitive man traumatized by love, who has turned to
violence out of compassion. This pattern in fact fits many of history’s most violent
nihilists.
2. Gender equality:
In the 19th century, women were viewed differently than they are now, and
those differences really play a part in the roles women played in the literature of their
time. It seems, though, that general groups of women remain the same despite time
differences. The way women cope up with the working class, lower class, or
generally difficult situations is by aligning their personalities with specific walks of
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life. The women characters in Germinal are seen striving for equality or masculinity
amongst the men. They strive for equaling themselves to men both in work as well
as in life in general. In Germinal, the women usually fit into three general categories:
the first and most important category is the maternal role of motherly conduct or at
least maternal instinct, the second category is that of the tom-boy or the woman
striving for equality/masculinity amongst the men, and the final category is that of
the consort or the wanton. Each group of women has a unique way of improving
their lives in relation to others through specific means that may be either demeaning
or admirable in their difficulty.
The first and most important role of women in this setting is the maternal role.
The mothers in Germinal are very consistent people and the constants in the society
holding the people together. The most obvious and prominent mother role is that of
La Maheude. As the maternal link in what is introduced as the feature family, she
exemplifies many of the traits of common maternal influence and she gives the
readers an insight into the average family of colliers in late nineteenth century
France.
La Maheude, as the featured maternal influence in the story both encompasses
strength and maternal instinct, but her motivations for the protection of her family
are not necessarily the same as in a middle class American society. Take into
consideration the following passage referring to the commoditizing of children in the
coal industry.
“It wasn't something you thought about, a child just came along, naturally. And
when it was grown, it brought in some money and generally kept things going. In
their house, for example, they could have managed if it weren't for Grandpa, who
was getting all stiff and for the fact that out of the whole bunch of them only her
eldest daughter and two of her sons were yet old enough to work down the mine.”
(Zola, 94)
Children and the action of rearing multiple children in this context becomes a
very important job. When the children are young, it is the duty of the mother that she
should through her influence during such an impressionable stage shape hard-
working and trust-worthy breadwinners. When the children finally get old enough to
go to work, their embezzlement of resources from their younger days becomes and
they in turn make living easier. As a mother, La Maheude has this important job in
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essence providing for her family by creating new sources of income, and shaping the
essence of the next generation in society.
Catherine is the next classification of women in the land of the colliers. She
thrives on being a tom-boy, and equaling herself up to the men both in work and in
life in general. Many women like the men start working in the mines fairly early. It's
more practical to work in the dirty dank mines because of the more constant money
flows, rather than work with the weaker, the sick, and the decidedly feminine type,
where the easier jobs are available with low payments. Catherine represents what
Lydie will some day become. While these two women/girls are the hardest workers
of the female roles in the mines, at the same time they are the most easily influenced
and taken advantage of by their male counterparts.
Catherine and Chaval for instance have a relationship where there is definitely a
sense of male-chauvinistic ownership of the stronger women by the few men who
can overpower their hidden weaknesses. When it comes to the text itself, this
aggressive attitude is really evident in the first sexual advances of Chaval to
Catherine with his sexual advances. Though Catherine is young and far from ready
for a relationship, she is forced into a very intense relationship by the abusive
Chaval. Her inability to resist such advances from a man that is supposed to be her
equal shows her real weakness in life. Though the women who work in the mines are
supposed to be the representatives of the strongest young women in the story, in
reality Zola has given them fallout in their inability to resist their "superiors" in the
featured males. The group of women who fit into this category is smaller than the
rest simply because of the unique status these women take in society. They work as
more of an intermittent phase between childhood and the maternal group of women
who play such a pivotal part in the future generations.
The most set apart role of women in the working class is the consort and
mistress. These women are some of the strongest in the book, and the ones who last
the longest. If the women don't take on the maternal or tom-boy role, they take on
role as mistress and tend to make quite a good life for their family in general, despite
the stigma of promiscuity. There are two different perspectives of mistresses given in
Germinal. One is of La Pierronne: “Anyway, here's what I wanted to tell you,' she
says, Apparently La Pierronne was seen out an about last night near the First Estate.
The gentleman in question and you know who I mean! was waiting for her behind
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Rasseneur's, and off they went together along the canal. How about that, eh? And her
married woman!'” (Zola, 105).
This isn't the only case of infidelity among the women in the village, but then
again, usually their sins are somewhat less conspicuous. In the case of La Pierronne,
her husband is conscious of her infidelity and he uses her urges to his advantage. She
sleeps selectively with people for favors, for increased rent, and for other goods in
the village. Her promiscuity is something that in turn provides food for her family in
the times during the story when there was little to go around and wages were null.
Likewise, other women sleep with shop owners like Maigrat to pay for groceries and
to afford to feed their families. These instances of promiscuity are seen more as an
essential way to feed and clothe their less fortunate family members.
Despite the heavy influence of the 19th century ideologies concerning women,
Germinal is fairly accurate in its characterization and grouping of women in a
situation such as theirs. The women in the collier towns only have a few options for
life positions that allow them to maintain some level of sanity and self
consciousness. They find their way for the rearing of their families and the equality
of the sexes. They also have the ability to cope amazingly with the situations they
have been put in.
B. Other aspects:
1. Writing of Germinal:
Germinal was originally published in serialized form in the newspaper Le Gil
Blas. The first of the eighty-nine installments appeared on 26th November 1884, the
last on 25th February 1885. The completed novel was then published in book form
on 2nd March 1885 and for the first five years this original French version sold some
83,000 copies. It was the thirteenth of the twenty novels comprising Zola’s great
family saga entitled Les Rougon-Macquart. Zola spent his working life as a writer;
the vivid detail in his novels came from painstakingly thorough research. In 1877
number 7 in the saga, 'L'Assommoir', was his first big-selling success. It was the first
French novel to feature working class characters - English translations were called
'The Gin Palace', 'The Dram Shop' or 'The Drunkard'. By the time no.13 was being
planned, Zola was financially prosperous. He decided to set this life-and-death
conflict between labour and capital in a coal mine. Miners’ strikes often involving
hardship and violence and the dark tunnels of the mine offered many dramatic and
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symbolic possibilities. Zola’s research visits helped him add authentic details to his
novels. He had a great talent for being able to imagine people’s feelings and what
their lives were like, after observing them only briefly.
In his earlier plan, Zola had envisaged that his novel on working class—which
became L’Assommoir—would depict the appalling conditions in which the new
urban proletariat was forced to live and work and how the demands and pressures of
such an existence rendered it a prey to the alcohol which was so cheaply available
and so injurious to health, resolve and marital harmony. Now he wanted to write
another novel about working class life which would chart the contemporary
manifestations of the revolutionary currents that—in France at least—had sprung to
view in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1870. Germinal would be that novel—the people’s
novel.
When L’Assommoir was published in 1877 (as the seventh novel in the series), it
earned Zola large royalties and vociferous reviews. Those on the political Right
charged him once again with being tasteless and immoral, while—more importantly
for his moderate left-of-centre views—those on the Left condemned him and charged
him with depicting the working class in gloomy. Where Zola had thought he was
indicting the system by showing how low human beings can be brought out by
background and circumstances details of as in Gervaise’s case, his socialist
detractors saw a degrading portrait which would only reinforce bourgeois prejudice.
They were unwilling to acknowledge that, in so powerfully eliciting the reader’s
sympathy for Gervaise as the honourable victim of insuperable and malign forces,
Zola might have been hoping to make the reader a partisan of social and political
reforms.
By way of defending the honourableness of his intentions, Zola let it be known
that he was planning another novel about working class and one which would focus
on its political aspirations and on the economic and social conditions in which its
members lived. But which area of work should he choose? While on holiday at
Benodet in Brittany in 1883, Zola met Alfred Giard (1846-1908), the left-wing
depute for Valenciennes and a biologist with a particular research interest in the
reproductive organs. Since his constituency in northern France was one of the
centres of the French coal-mining industry, Giard no doubt saw a golden opportunity
to secure the services of a brilliant publicist for the miners’ cause; While Zola, no
doubt keen to re-establish his radicalist credentials, could also see the artistic and
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polemical merits of taking a miners’ strike as his subject. Accordingly, and
characteristically, he began to document himself thoroughly, reading book after book
about the mining industry, about the topography and geology of the area around
Valenciennes and about radical politics: about the history of socialism and about the
International Working Men’s Association founded in 1864, better known as the First
International. He familiarized himself with the full range of radical political theory:
the libertarian socialism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-65), who had famously
declared in 1840 that property is theft (if it means the ability of one man to exploit
the labour of another but not if it means the individual’s right to possess his own
‘means of production’, be it land or a workshop full of tools); the ‘Communism’ or
‘centralized socialism’ of Karl Marx (1818-83), who had published his Manifesto of
the Communist Party in 1848 and whose Das Capital (1867) had begun to appear in
French translation in 1875; the ideas of Auguste Blanqui (1805-81), the
revolutionary socialist and insurrectionary who had been prominently involved in the
revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and was elected President of the Commune (1870-71)
while in prison, where indeed he spent long periods; and finally the anarchism or
‘nihilism’ of the Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76), author of
Statehood and Anarchy (1873).
Zola read, more particularly how Marx had been elected one of the thirty-two
members of the First International Provisional General Council and then assumed its
leadership; how the representatives of the national federations would meet at a
congress every year in a different city; and how at Hague in 1872 the clash between
supporters of Marx’s socialism and Bakunin’s supporters of anarchism led to an
irrevocable split in the movement. In order to prevent the Bakuninists from gaining
control of the Association, the General Council, at Marx’s behest, moved its
headquarters to New York before finally disbanding at a conference in Philadelphia
in 1876. The Bakuninists nevertheless took over the de facto leadership of the
International and held their own congresses from 1873 to 1877. At the Socialist
World Congress in Ghent in 1877, the Social Democrats broke away as their motion
to restore the unity of the First International was rejected by the anarchist majority.
But the International now began to wither, and after the Anarchist Congress in
London in 1881, it ceased to represent itself in organized movement. Only later, four
years after the publication of Germinal in, 1885 was the Second International, so-
called Socialist International, founded at a congress in Paris. This Second
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International supported parliamentary democracy and finally at its congress in
London in 1896, expelled the anarchists (who opposed it) from its ranks, reaffirming
the Marxist doctrine of the class struggle and the unstoppable advent of proletarian
rule. Germinal was thus set at a time when the International was in its infancy and
yet published after its (temporary) demise, and it must therefore have left its first
readers with an overwhelming sense of both the ephemerality and the inevitable
recurrence of revolutionary fervour.
But by way of preparing to write Germinal, Zola did not just read books. At
first posing as Giard’s secretary, he visited the small mining town of Anzin, near
Valenciennes, on 23rd February 1884. A strike had begun there four days earlier and
he remained for approximately a week there, taking copious notes on what he saw
and heard – a document which remains a powerful and accurate account of the
realities of colliery life at that time. Zola was aware that there had been a major
strike at Anzin in 1866 (as well as several since), and because Les Rougon-Macquart
was set during the Second Empire, he chose this as the focus for his imaginative
reconstruction of the past. Hence the chronology of Germinal, which begins in
March 1866 – a date which is not given in the novel itself but which can be inferred
from the reference in the opening chapter to the Emperor waging war in Mexico.
But Zola drew on other strikes for his novel, notably on the strike at La Ricamarie in
the mining area of Saint-Etienne, where on 16th June 1869 troops fired on the striking
workers and thirteen miners were killed, including two women, and sixty were given
a prison sentence. Similarly at Audin, in the Averyron, fourteen striking miners were
shot dead on 7th October 1869 and twenty were wounded. Working conditions in the
mines had changed little in the intervening years and so Zola could use what he saw
at Anzin in1884 for the fictional recreation of events in 1866-67. But the political
situation had evolved considerably. A law passed on 19th May 1874 had made it
illegal to employ women to work underground or children under twelve to work
anywhere in mine; and on 21st March 1884 a bill sponsored by Rene Waldeck-
Rousseau (1846-1904) was passed, legalizing trade unions. The next day saw the
beginning of what would have been the revolutionary month of Germinal. Twelve
days later, on his very own ’12 Germinal’ – and indeed on the day of his forty-fourth
birthday – Zola began to write the first chapter of his novel.
The title Germinal was borrowed by Zola from the new Calendar which the
French National Convention adopted in 1792. Late March and early April together
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formed the revolutionary month called ‘Germinal,’ the month of germination. The
calendar used during the French Revolution substituted rational, natural names for
those traditionally given for the months of the year: the rainy month, the foggy
month, the windy month etc. Germinal is the month in which plants first begin to
sprout from the ground; but the image of sprouting plant life is also used throughout
the novel to symbolize the rising consciousness of the workers as they realize the
sources of their suffering and organize to combat them. In this month ‘Germinal’
nature springs into renewed life and germination becomes universal. At the same
time, in selecting this title Zola bore in mind certain events which occurred in
Germinal of the year III. of the first French Republic, when hungry men and women
swarmed furiously in the Convention Hall, demanding ‘Bread and the Constitution of
’93.’ Those suggestive incidents inspired more than one page of the book; but the
idea which permeates it, is that the germination and fruition of a new social system,
the coalition and uprising of the toiling masses will result in banding themselves
together to readjust present-day conditions and secure their fair share of the good
things of the world. In short, the title symbolizes the springtime of social revolution
The picture of the strike in Germinal is a masterpiece. It is absolutely based on
facts, and is yet lofty as an epic. A deep pathos permeates the whole work. Mind
and heart alike revolt as the scenes of the tragic sufferings of the toilers pass before
one’s eyes. The picture is by no means overdrawn. Though the novel was written by
Zola in 1885, the conditions of labour of the French coal-miners, whose struggles
form the immediate subject of the work, remain virtually the same as before. The
strike was caused by conflict over pay systems. Miners were then not employed
directly by the mine-owner. The leader of each ‘gang’ bid for a seam of coal in an
auction. The gang was paid only for the coal it dug out. Tunnels often caved in,
causing bad accidents. The mining company feared that the whole mine would
collapse. Miners suspected it was a trick to reduce their pay and went on strike. Zola
also described the brutalizing effects of work on women and children being
employed underground to haul away the coal as the men dug it out. He was moved
by the plight of pit ponies that lived permanently in the dark tunnels down the mine.
However, Zola was according to some crities, almost too impartial in portraying
the owners and managers: they were ‘trying the best they could’. They would ‘like
to pay better wages’, but competition and falling coal prices prevented them.
Owners of small mines feared the financial power of big mining companies with
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distant uncaring shareholders. Managers were better-off, but if they gave charity to
ignorant miners, their handouts probably would have been wasted in a bar.
2. Narrative Subversion in the Naturalist Novel: Germinal
Victor Hugo confidently declared: just one month before the publication of Les
Miserables in 1862 ‘The literature of the 19th century will have only one name; it
will be called democratic literature’. In their correspondence, manifestos, and
fiction, several French writers after 1848 expressed the belief that literature was
becoming increasingly democratic. In the seventies, Emile Zola’s naturalist or
experimental novel emerged as international rallying point for ‘democratic’
literature. In Le Roman Experimental, Zola hails science as the vehicle that will
carry all forms of social life, including literature and the arts, toward democracy.
During the middle of the century, science had begun to assume a new importance for
the layman, primarily because of its practical applications to industry. Zola tapped
this source with confidence and optimism, linking the naturalist novel with science
through the concept of experimental methodology.
It was the Munich naturalist Conrad Alberti who defined the term ‘democratic’
in relation to literary naturalism: “Modern art must be democratic…..in the higher,
universal human sense that before it, as before the law, there are no class distinctions,
all men are equal and the worker is no less important than the Kaiser.” Alberti’s
stipulation that naturalist art was democratic in a ‘higher, universal sense’ neutralized
any political overtones and allowed writers who were both temperamentally and
politically divergent to examine working class life under the rubric of naturalism.
Zola described L’Assommoir, published in 1877, as ‘the first novel about the
people that does not lie and that has the odor of the people.’ Zola’s frank depiction
of the degrading effects of poverty and the closed of working-class life in
L’Assommoir, which focuses on the decline of a laundress, earned him a lasting
reputation. In Zola’s L’Assommoir, the narrator often speaks the same lower-class
idiom as the working class characters. Traditionally, however, the narrator’s
viewpoint in the naturalist novel is generally identifiable with the author’s. This is
the case in Germinal, where the middle class narrator occupies a superior vantage
point both intellectually and morally to their working-class protagonist.
The working-class protagonist of Zola’s Germinal is Etienne Lantier, who loses
his job of a railroad worker at Lille because of a fight with the superior and arrives in
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Montsou looking for work. He joins the ranks of the coal miners but does not share
their passive resignation to the harsh living and working conditions. Etienne’s
correspondence with Pluchart, a mechanic at Lille who recruits new members for the
International and his study of socialists’ literature strengthen his determination to
fight for social change. He succeeds in setting up a strike fund among the miners and
later becomes their strike leader when the Company tries to implement a disguised
wage cut in the form of a new payment policy for timbering. With the help of
Pluchart, he tries to persuade the miners to become members of the international.
In the central episodes where Etienne’s social and political views are presented,
Etienne himself is not allowed to speak; rather it is the narrator who acts as
intermediary, giving the reader his characterization of Etienne’s ideas. In chapter
three of part three, the narrator describes the vision of the new city of justice with
which Etienne bedazzles the other miners: “Abruptly, the closed horizon burst open,
and a gap of light emerged in the gloomy life of these poor people……. All
unhappiness disappeared as if swept away by a great burst of sunlight, and, like a
dazzling fairy tale, justice descended from the heavens……As in dreams, a new
society emerged in a single day, an immense city, with all the splendor of a mirage,
where each citizen performed his task and shared in the joys of the community. And
this dream grew continually larger, more elaborate and all the more seductive as it
climbed higher into the impossible.”
Critical of Etienne’s politically immaturity, the narrator portrays a labour
leader’s conception of justice with unmistakable irony as a pastiche of fairy tale,
magic, and religious symbolism. Throughout Germinal, Zola employs the parallel
described by Engels in “The History of Early Christianity,” to convey both the
miners’ faith in their struggle and their naiveté. The miners’ understanding of
socialism resembles the Christian expectation of a life after death; they have little
cognizance of the political realities of the here and now, only a vision of a promised
land somewhere in the future. Although Etienne is more politically sophisticated
than the other miners, he is never permitted to achieve a degree of political insight
into that would place him on a par with the narrator. When Etienne’s subsequent
reading of various socialist texts, characterized as haphazard by the narrator,
transforms him from visionary to pragmatist, the narrator underscores the fact that
Etienne has merely replaced his former dream with a ‘new dream’. Etienne develops
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a political program that consists of little more than a jumble of ideas from Marx and
other leading socialists.
Having established the intellectual shortcomings of the working- class
protagonists, the narrators in Germinal proceed to the more stance of these characters
as they rise to positions of leadership. Etienne’s attempt to establish a strike fund
among the miners and his outspoken criticism of the existing order make him the
miners’ uncontested leader. Shortly after he succeeds in setting up a strike fund for
the miners, Etienne’s ‘expression changed, he became serious, he enjoyed hearing
himself speak…’ The sense of superiority implied by the bearing of Etienne is
underscored by the narrators in this novel as an indication of increasing vanity and
ambition. Etienne dreams of becoming a popular labour leader: “Montsou at his feet,
Paris in a hazy distance, who knew, delegate to parliament one day, the speaking
platform of a grand chamber where he envisioned himself overwhelming the
bourgeoisie with the first address made by a worker in parliament” (235). After the
failure of the strike and the death of several miners in a confrontation with the army,
the workers turn against Etienne. He is pursued by a crowd of miners as he walks
through the village and is showered with stones and angry insults. Etienne scorns the
miners for their stupidity and brutality when they blame him for their losses and,
during his hideout in a cave, reflects upon his feeling towards his former comrades:
“A feeling of superiority separated him from his comrades, an exhaltation of self,
that grew the more he educated himself…….What nausea, this heap of wretches,
living at a communal banquet! Not one with whom to talk serious politics, a bestial
existence, always the same stifling air reeking of onions……He wanted to enlarge
their perspective, to raise them to the level of comfort and good manners of the
bourgeoisie, while making them the masters; but that would take a long time!
……Gradually, his vanity at being their leader, his constant need to think for them,
disengaged him, breathed into him the soul of one of those bourgeois that he
detested” (370-72).
It is Etienne’s very engagement with the miners that begins to undermine his
feeling of solidarity with them. With an increase of power and pride, he becomes
conscious of ‘good manners’ and develops a middle-class sensibility. Through his
portrait of Etienne, Zola suggests that the worker who tries to educate himself in
order to fight for this class becomes estranged from his working-class origins and is
placed in an equivocal position because he necessarily adopts certain bourgeois
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values and attitudes. The very soul of a bourgeois is breathed into Etienne and he
experiences a physical repulsion toward his former comrades.
Germinal is also a violent novel that includes the killing of several miners by the
army, called in to maintain order; the murder and castration of the shopkeeper
Maigrat by the working-class women of Montsou and the deliberate destruction of
the mines. While violence does erupt in Germinal, the narrator attempts to discredit
the alternative of anarchism as a means of achieving social reform by labelling it as
foreign. In this novel, the alternative of anarchism is similarly connected to a foreign
source, the Russian émigré, Sourvarine, who works as an engineman at the mine, and
advocates total destruction of the existing structures of society. In Germinal, Zola’s
use of an intricate web of Christian is an attempt to shift the emphasis away from
Etienne’s goals, which are tainted with personal ambition, philosophy and which are
agains the force that the miners collectively represent. The novel ends on a prophetic
note, the miners toiling underground becoming the seeds of an avenging army that
will one day sprout forth. The novel also represents attempt to go beyond the
traditional view of the worker as a passive figure circumscribed by his environment
and show him as an active political force in society. This image of a politically
empowered working-class is, however, continually undercut. The narrators in the
novel, occupy a superior vantage point, socially, intellectually, and morally, to their
working-class protagonists and portray the latter as social climbers.
The portrait of the politically active worker in the naturalist novel is
characterized by a deep-seated dichotomy. The impulse toward a more democratic
literature becomes a beacon for naturalist writer like Zola who is motivated by a
desire to understand and depict the new forces shaping the working world during the
mid-to-late 19th century, and who is committed to the realist notion that the novel is a
faithful mirror of that world.
3. The Revolutionary Setting of Germinal:
Novelists must distil certain preconceptions in their readers’ minds in creating a
fictional universe. By making the imaginary world conform to these preconceptions,
the author makes effective the ‘intensity of illusion’ as necessary to the success of
any novel. When the reader recognizes every accurate aspect of an author’s vision—
psychological, social, physical, moral, etc.—he is led to accept the validity of the
vision as a whole and is manipulated into seeing the world through the author’s eyes.
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An important set of preconceptions played upon by Zola is political in nature.
His works speak to the political consciousness ingrained in every citizen of a modern
state by depicting the close relationship of individual men and personal events to the
great political movements of their day. The particular aspect of political reality
exploited by Germinal is the proletariat’s struggle for dignity. The novel makes the
miners’ strike an integral part of the general revolutionary movement sweeping
across Europe and emphasizes the similarity of fictional conditions and reactions
with historical forces prominent in the mind of every educated Frenchman. The
revolutionary setting of Germinal refers both to the political, social, and economic
background of its plot and to the historical situation of Europe at the time of its
publication. The Montsou strike is the direct result of a continental industrial crisis,
and the novel’s first chapter contains a list of the many industries and towns
threatened by the same kind of strike.
In the historical circumstances surrounding Germinal’s publication, almost any
dramatic spectacle of an eruption against the status quo would imply Revolution.
Fear of a universal uprising was steadily acquiring the emotional intensity of a myth
of mankind’s destruction in the minds of Europeans. Germinal appeared almost
halfway between 1848, the year of revolutions all over Europe which saw the
publication of the Communist Manifesto, and 1917, the year the Russian Revolution
began when women marched through the streets of Moscow shouting the same cry
for the bread which resounds in Zola’s novel. The spectre of communism haunted
Europe throughout the years following 1848. The proletariat became a vital and
threatening presence through such events as Marx’s formation of the International in
1864, strong and militant workers’ delegations at the International Expositions of
1862 and 1867, and the days of the Commune in 1871. The Third Republic’s
repressive measures set back the French for a time after the Commune, but it
regrouped them quickly, showing impressive strength in the 1881 elections, and the
seized attention through such powerful spokesmen as Jules Guesde and Marx’s sons-
in-law, Paul Lafargue and Charles Longuet. France’s highly developed anarchist
movement, led by Jean Grave and Elisee Reclus, gave dreadful immediacy to
workers’ demands. Zola carefully puts such background in Germinal when he makes
use of a strike as to be the novel’s centre. The study of the proletariat in Les Rougon-
Macquart, was originally intended to be a novel on the Commune, the most vivid
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manifestation of workers’ power at the time Zola conceived such a study. As the
days of the Commune receded, however, strikes became the primary symbol of
socialist revolt.
Even before the end of the Empire, the strike was an important symbol of
workers’ militancy. In 1869, a long series of strikes culminated in, at Aubin and La
Ricamarie, both of which ended tragically when miners were shot down by the
soldiers. Third Republic was convulsed by strikes. The Anzin upsrising of 1884
which Zola observed and strikes in 1866, 1872, 1878, and 1880, and many more
strikes in industrial and mining centres showed the same frequency of convulsive
revolts. Continuous journalistic reports made strikes the concrete expression of
workers’ unrest and the ‘natural’ choice to be the centre of Zola’s novel.
Zola increased this inherent connotative power by making his strike a
comprehensive resume of the actual strikes which has engrossed and frightened the
French ourgeoise. The origin of the novelistic strike in a disguised salary decrease,
the irrational violence it produced, and its culmination in the miners’ massacre were
all part of the popular mystique attached to strikes. Zola amalgamated journalistic
description and popular conceptions into an archetypal literary symbol endowed with
the immense emotive strength that revolt holds for those it threatens.
This strength is increased by the fact that the Montsou strike is directed by
members of continental revolutionary organizations whose activities had long
terrified the bourgeoisie. Germinal presents in microcosm both the principal
ideologies working for the overthrow of the European society and the vast majority
whom of masses those ideologies may inspire and direct. Communism, nihilism,
Christian socialism, and moderate socialism: each of the important leftist movements
is expounded and incarnated by an important character in Germinal---Etienne,
Souvarine and Rasseneur respectively, with the exception of Rasseneur for whom the
strike does not represent the violent threat posed by the other ideologies. All these
men and their ideas are made part of the general historical situation by the fact that
they come into the corons from the outside world---from the revolutionary setting
surrounding both Germinal and return to that world after their part in the novel’s
action. Germinal is so involved in actuality that their passage from history into
fiction and back again is simple and easy. Etienne and Souvarine are seen not as
unique rebels spawned in an imaginary world but as men involved in dreadful real
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movements who stand temporarily as literary individuals before retreating back into
the anonymous multitude preparing doom.
The strike’s leaders synthesize that multitude by conforming to accepted ideas
about the personality and biography of men such as themselves. Zola intended to
express the essence of revolutionary ideologies through delineation of character. He
refers to Rasseneur, Etienne, and Souvarine interchangeably in the singular as an
individual and in the plural as mouthpieces for a segment of the proletariat.
Souvarine and Etienne’s exemplary qualities are kept continuously before the reader
by recounting their careers in intermittent flashbacks throughout Germinal.
Etienne’s fight with his foreman, the apostolic fervor of his devotion to justice, his
organizational skill and his natural leadership make him a typical communist.
Furthermore, there is an explicit parallelism between his career and the history of the
International. Etienne’s rise to leadership and subsequent degeneration into egoism
corresponds to the International’s rise to the forefront of workers’ movement and its
consequent degeneration into factional leadership. As Germinal bring its readers’
political fears into its world, so it sends its dramatic fictional presentation of fury and
violation out into the historical world by foreshadowing a final dies irae. The
International which Etienne joins at the end of the novel is the International
attempting to raze society. The cities and men which Souvarine will destroy are the
cities in which the reader lives and the men he knows. These two characters leave the
corons to become immediate historical menaces.
Political Revolution implies totally apolitical, unnatural evil loosed upon the
world. Oppressed workers become demonic wolf men, and a localized upspring
against injustice becomes Armageddon. Fear of socialism is transformed into
apocalyptic terror. This terror begins to be aroused by the simple physical fact that
the miners come from the underground. Zola’s personal obsession with the dual
underground themes of burial and germination is evident in his earliest works. This
obsession receives its most striking novelistic formulation in Germinal, where Zola
constantly excites man’s ancient dread of the dark things beneath his feet. Germinal
forces its readers to place their ears to the ground and hear both the murmuring of
society’s buried men and the screams of hellish demons. When the strikers refuse to
return to the mines and violate the day with their blackness, they prefigure a dark
army which will sprout from the earth into the sun, an army of monsters as terrifying
to the bourgeoisie as the mines’ devils are to the workers.
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The intermingling of politics and the myth of underground explosion is implicit
in the novel’s title. ‘Germinal’ has the multiple connotations of hunger and revolt,
spring and fecundity (as its etymology indicates, germinal was the first month of
spring in the Revolutionary calendar). It represents death as well as life for what is
germinating is an army of hungry men. Germinal’s political and mythic aspects
reinforce each other. Political realism gives the force of history to mythic; demonic
symbolism infuses primitive terror into politics. Germinal, in the great tradition of
the novel, accords universal scope to the political universe in which it unfolds.
Unlike more circumscribed political novels, Germinal’s power has increased
rather than diminished with time. Its intensity derives from the political and social
awareness of modern man rather than from the historical footnotes of modern
scholars. The reader is shown the eternally imperative need for justice when he is
brought into contact with a certain group of miners rebelling against conditions
caused by a forgotten industrial crisis. The working conditions of French miners
have changed, but the threat of an underground army erupting from the earth is even
more acute now than in 1885. Our century rather than Zola’s is the Age of
Revolution, and Germinal still speaks directly to the most emotional part of man’s
political consciousness. Zola gave his novel a vitality and immediacy which he
could have achieved in no other way by grounding it in the central social movement
of his and our age.
Because of the perfect harmony between its revolutionary setting and its plots,
Germinal presents the most striking instance of a political setting’s contribution to
one of Zola’s works. But fictional use of historical reality is evident throughout the
Rougon-Macquart cycle. The reign of Napoleon III, war, industrialization, stress of
mass society, all serve Zola both as subject matter and as important components of
narrative technique. The human condition as temporally determined furnishes the
bridge by which the reader is brought into the cycle’s imaginary world. Zola’s
literary success is inseparable from his perception of the political and social
configurations of contemporary society.
A) Choose the correct alternatives.
1. The strike, in Germinal, was caused by---------.
a. the conflict over pay systems b. struggle between black and white
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c. struggle between leaders. d. None of these.
2. The period in Germinal was --------.
a. April-May b. Aug.-Sept.
c. Nov.-Dec. d. None of these.
3. --------- strives on being tom-boy.
a. Chaterine Maheu b. Jealin.
c. Chaval d. Lenore
4. ----------- defined the term ‘democratic’ in relation to literary naturalism.
a. Conard Albert b. Joseph Conrad.
c. Emile Zola d. None of these
5. Zola’s L’Assommoir was published in ----------.
a. 1877 b. 1777 c. 1977 d. 1677
6. ----------, the character of Germinal leads to nihilist activities.
a. Souvarine b. Vincent Maheu
c. Etienne d. None of these
7. ---------- is the master of Souvarine.
a. Pluchart b. Bakunin c. Maheu d. Chaval
8. Zola’s concern with Marxist Socialism is reflected in the character ---------.
a. Chaval b. Etienne c. Bakunin d. Souvarine
9. --------- is the ideal of Etienne.
a. Pluchart b. Bakunin c. Chaval d. None of these
B) Fill in the Blanks.
1. Zola visited to ------ for research.
2. Zola’s --------- was his first big-selling success.
3. ----------- played maternal role.
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4. Etienne takes help of --------- to persuade the miners to become members of
the International.
5. --------- is the integral part of Germinal.
6. Souvarine is obsessed with ---------.
1. Where did the novel’s title come from?
2. What does the Germinal symbolize?
3. What women in the Germinal are striving for?
4. What are the three categories of women in Germinal?
5. What did Zola depict in his L’Assommoir ?
6. Why is the novel Germinal considered violent?
7. What does Zola’s work speak about?
8. What does the revolutionary setting of Germinal refers for plot?
9. What are the topics of contemporary debates of Zola?
 preconception: an opinion formed in advance
 ingrained: deeply rooted
 commune: feel that one is in close relationship
 receded: decrease in value
 amalgamate: join together
 microcosm: a little world
 delineation : sketch
 germinal: sprout
 stupefied: make clear thought difficult
 propping: property/ support used to keep something
 begrudged: envy/ give unwillingly
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 discrepancy: contradiction
 fallacy: mistaken idea
 sophisticated: artificial
 cognizance: the fact of being aware
 haphazard: accidentally
 par: equality
 rampage: rush about in anger/ violent behaviour
3.6 Summary
In this unit, we have read about the life and works of Emile Zola and about the
characters used by him in his novel Germinal, and about various themes and aspects
depicted in his novel Germinal. Though Zola had bitter experiences in life, he had an
ardent zeal for social reform. His Germinal is an undisputed masterpiece and one of
the greatest novel ever written in the French language. Basically, Zola describes, in
his novel, the struggle of 19th century coalminers in northern France. He also
describes the lives of the miners and touches upon a few main themes. Though there
are many characters, Zola has deliberately created the four main characters Etienne,
Rassener, Pluchart, and Souvarine in order to demonstrate the various alternatives to
action available to the workers in their struggle against the oppression of the mine
owners, the capitalist. By using all types of tricks, everyone tries to win the support
of the miners. Etienne is a radical, and has passion for socialism. Rasseneur is
practical, and does not lose his temper. Souvarine is a the violent anarchist. He
wants to act by natural forces. He is an extremist. Pluchart looks hardly
revolutionary. We have also seen in this unit some sources of Germinal, several
themes and narrative subversion and the revolutionary setting of Germinal.
All these points, no doubt, would be fruitful to you. They will enhance your
understanding of the novel. Read the original text and discuss the points, the themes,
and the aspects of the novel.
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3.7 Answer to Check Your Progress:
3.2.1
A) Choose the correct alternatives
1. b 2.d 3. a
1. Aix-in-Provience
2. 1843
3. a mining village in France
4. a freelance journalist
1. a gifted engineer
2. sexual exploitation
3. on sept., 29, 1902
3.3.1 Check the Progress:
A) Choose the correct alternatives:
1. c 2. a 3. b
B) Fill in the Blanks:
1. the coal fields of northern France
2. the reduction of wages
3. cry of pity and justice
4. Etienne Lantier
5. the struggle of 19th century coalminers in northern France
1. 60 years’ old
2. because he slapped his superior
3. Etienne Lantier
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3.4.1
1. a 2. a 3. d 4. b 5. a
1. Lust
2. Jean-Bart-mine
3. 15 years
4. Chaval
5. Vincent Maheu
1. Chaval
2. Etienne Lantier
3. 60 years’ old
4. Pluchart
5. Chaval
3.5.1
1. a 2. a 3. a 4. a 5. a
6. a. 7.b. 8. b. 9. a.
1. Anzin
2. L’Assommoir
3. La Maheude
4. Pluchart
5. the miner’s strike
6. mystic dreams and bloody visions
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1. The novel’s title came from the name of the 7th month in the Revolutionary
calendar.
2. The title Germinal symbolizes the springtime of social revolution.
3. They are striving for the equality or masculinity amongst the men.
4. Maternal role, the tom-boy, the consort or wanton.
5. Zola depicted the effects of poverty and the closed perimeters of working
class.
6. Because it includes the killing of several miners by the army.
7. Zola’s work speaks about the political consciousness ingrained in every
citizen of a modern state.
8. It refers to the political, social and economic background of the plot.
9. Science vs. religion, education vs. oppression, and labour vs. capital.
3.8 Exercises:
1. Bring out the outline of the Germinal.
2. Describe the Germinal starts out.
3. Comment on the significance of the title Germinal by Emile Zola.
4. Sketch the character of the protagonist, Etienne Lantier, in Germinal.
5. ‘Germinal’ is the novel in which sex and violence play dominant role
dominantly.’ Discuss.
6. Germinal is a political and revolutionary novel. Explain.
7. Write a note on the revolutionary setting of the novel.
8. Write a note on the end of the novel.
9. Write a note on the women characters in the novel.
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3.9 References for Further Study:
1. David Baguley, ed. Critical Essays on Emile Zola, 1986.
2. Mark Bernard, Zola, 1988.
3. Elliot M. Grant, Zola’s Germinal: A Critical and Historical Study.
Leicester University Press, 1962.
4. Robert Lethbridge, Zola and the Craft of Fiction, 1990.
5. Willaiam J Berg and Laurey K. Martin, Emile Zola Revisited, 1992.
6. Richard Zakirian, Zola’s Germinal: A Critical Study of its Primary Sources.
(Geneve, Droz)
7. Brian Nelson, (ed.) A Selective Analytical Biography, 1982.
8. Alan Schom, Emile Zola: Biography, 1988.
9. William Dean Howells, Emile Zola.
10. Angus Wilson, Emile Zola, New York, 1952.
11. www.jstor.org

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Unit-4
J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians
Contents
Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 J. M. Coetzee: Life and Works
4.3 Introduction to the text
4.4 Plot/Summary of the Novel Waiting for the Barbarians
4.5 Major and Minor Characters in Waiting for the Barbarians
4.6 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s in Waiting for the Barbarians
4.7 Summary
4.9 Exercises
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4.0 Objectives:
After completing the study of this novel you will be able to:
 know about the life and works of J. M. Coetzee.
 know about political, social, economic, and religious conditions of South
Africa.
 know about Coetzee’s attitude towards colonization.
 know about Coetzee’s merits as a novelist.
4.1 Introduction
This unit begins with the discussion of the life and works of the novelist. It
also studies the novel in terms of its plot, characters, themes, etc.
4.1.1 Life and Works of J.M. Coetzee:
John Maxwell Coetzee is a novelist, literary critic and translator. He was born in
Cape Town, South Africa on 9th February 1940. He is now an Australian citizen and
lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He won the Booker Prize twice and was awarded
‘Nobel Prize’ in literature in 2003.
His father was an occasional lawyer, government employee and his farmer, and
mother was a schoolteacher. His great grandfather Baltazar Dubiel was a Polish
immigrant to South Africa. The family used to speak English at home, but Coetzee
usually spoke Afrikaans with other relatives. Coetzee spent most of his early life in
Cape Town and in Worcester in Cape Province. When Coetzee was eight years old,
his father lost his government job due to disagreement over the state’s apartheid
policy, As a result, his family moved to Worcester. Coetzee attended St. Joseph’s
College and received B.A. with Honours in English and in Mathematics in 1961.
Coetzee married Philippa Jubber in 1963 and divorced in 1980. He has a daughter
and a son his only died in a car accident.
4.1.2 Academic and Literary Career:
He worked as a computer programmer for IBM and International Computers
Ltd. He received his M. A. degree from University of Cape Town. He was awarded
Ph.D. in linguistics in 1969 by the university of Texas at Austin. His Ph.D. thesis
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was on Computer Stylistic Analysis of the Works of Samuel Beckett. In 1968, he
began teaching English and literature at the State University of New York, at
Buffalo, where he stared his first novel. He was denied permanent residence in the
U.S. due to his involvement in Anti-Vietnam-War protests. He then returned to South
Africa to teach English literature at the University of Cape Town. He was
distinguished Professor of Literature. Upon Retiring in 2002, Coetzee relocated to
Adelaide, Australia and became an honorary research fellow at the English
Department of the University of Adelaide. In addition to his work as a novelist, he
has published critical works and translations from Dutch and Afrikaans. On 6 March
2006, Coetzee became an Australian citizen.
4.1.3 Personality and Reputation:
Coetzee keeps himself away from the publicity to such an extent that he did not
even collect either of his two Booker Prizes in person. Author Rian Malan has said,
“Coetzee is a man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication. He does not
drink, smoke, or eat meat. He cycles vast distances to keep fit and spends at least an
hour at his writing-desk each morning. A colleague claims to have seen him laugh
just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee uttered
not a single word.”
In recent years, Coetzee has become a vocal critic of animal cruelty and
advocate for the animal rights movement. His fiction is similarly engaged with the
problem of animal cruelty and animal welfare.
4.1.4 Achievements and Awards:
Coetzee has gained many awards throughout his career. His novel Waiting for
the Barbarians was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Geoffrey
Faber Memorial Prize, and he is three-time winner of the CNA Prize. Age of Iron
was awarded the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award and The Master of
Petersburg was awarded the Irish Times International Fiction Prize in 1995. He has
also won the French Prix Femina Etranger and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. H
has also achieved the 1987 Jerusalem Prize for the freedom of the individual in
society. He was the first author to be awarded the Booker Prize twice, first for Life
and Times of Michael K in 1983, and again for Disgrace in 1999. He was also winner
of the Nobel Prize in 2003. The South African Government gave the Order of
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Mapungubwe in 2005 for his “exceptional contribution in the field of literature and
for putting South Africa on the world stage”. He holds honorary doctorates from the
various universities.
4.1.5 Fiction:
1. Dusklands (1974): The first novel is a critique of the violence inherent in
the colonialist and imperialist mentality of the Western world. The novel actually
consists of two separate stories. The first one ‘The Vietnam Project’ relates its
protagonist Eugene Dawn’s gradual descent into insanity and the second story ‘The
Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee’ is an account of a hunting expedition concludes with
Coetzee’s execution of the slaves and the massacre of the tribe.
2. In the Heart of the Country (1977): is a novel by J. M. Coetzee which
delves in the complex relationships that are formed between the colonizer and the
colonized. The novel takes place on an isolate farm, in South Africa. The story is told
through the perspective of an unmarried white woman who takes care of her father.
She clashes with him when he takes an African mistress, causing a rift that leads
towards vengeance, violence and a muddling of her own relationship with the
African.
3. Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
4. Life and Times of Michael K (1983) is a Booker Prize winner novel
(1983). It is a story of hare lipped, simple gardener Michael K, who makes an
arduous journey from civil war-ridden urban South Africa to his mother's rural
birthplace, during apartheid era, in the 1970-80s.
5. Foe (1986) is a novel by expatriate South African author J. M. Coetzee.
Woven around the existing plot of Robinson Crusoe, Foe is written from the
perspective of Susan Barton, a castaway who lands on the same island inhabited by
"Crusoe" and Friday as their adventures were already underway. Like Robinson
Crusoe, it is a framework story, unfolding as Barton's narrative while in England
attempts Barton to convince the writer Daniel Foe to help transform his tale into
popular fiction. Focused primarily on themes of language and power, the novel
become the subject of criticism in South Africa, where on its release, it was regarded
as politically irrelevant.
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6. Age of Iron (1990): The novel depicts the inward journey of Mrs. Curren, a
slowly dying cancer ridden woman. She comes face-to-face with the horrors of the
apartheid regime. The book is framed as an extended letter from the mother to her
daughter in America.
7. The Master of Petersburg (1994): It is a deep, complex work that draws on
the life of Dostoevsky and the history of Russia, producing profoundly disturbing
results. The content of the novel is strongly based on ‘At Tikhon’s’, a chapter written
by Dostoevsky for his 1872 novel Demons, and suppressed by his editor. The novel
has a scene from Coetzee’s own life and the death of his son at 23 in a mysterious
accident. Dostoevsky is found at the start of the novel trying to accept the death of
his stepson Pavel, which occurs in a similar manner.
8. The Lives of Animals (1999): In this recent novel, Coetzee expands his
interest in otherness beyond anthropocentric concerns regarding anti-apartheid and
examine, animals through the story of Elizabeth Costello. She is engaged in an
investigation of the polemical issue of animal rights. Elizabeth Costello persuades
her hostile American audience to change their views upon treatment of animals. The
argument, both complex and clear, compels us to admit harsh treatment of
discriminating animals, because of their appearance or behaviour.
9. Disgrace (1999): It is the story of a South African professor of English,
who loses everything and is unable to protect his own daughter. His disgrace comes
when he seduces one of his students and does nothing to protect himself from its
consequences.
10. Elizabeth Costello (2003): Elizabeth Costello travels around the world and
gives lectures on topics including the lives of animals and the institution literary
censorship. She struggles with issues of belief, vegetarianism, sexuality, language
and evil.
11. Slow Man (2005): Paul Rayment loses part of a leg after his bicycle
accident caused by a car, driven by a reckless young man. He becomes reclusive and
retreats to his flat where he is cared for by a succession of nurses. Paul’s feelings for
Marijana, a nurse for her teenage son Drago, become more complex, and cause
trouble in their family.
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12. Diary of a Bad Year (2007): The novel consists of essays and musings
alongside diary entries by both Senor C and Anya. The essays are on the politics of
George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Guantanamo Bay on the topics such as terrorism.
4.1.6 Fictionalised Autobiography:
1. Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997)
2. Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002)
3. Summertime (2009)
4.1.7 Non-fiction:
1. White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988)
2. Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992)
3. Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996), University of Chicago Press
[hence, US spelling "offense"]
4. Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986–1999 (2002)
5. Inner Workings: Literary Essays, 2000–2005 (2007)
4.1.8 His Works - General Remarks-
One of a number of youthful, dissident literary voices speaking against the
apartheid regime in the 1970s and 1980s, Coetzee’s distinctive prose was identified
early as eloquent, elusive and politically urgent. His work has been compared
favorably with Nabokov, Kafka and Conrad and with his mature works such as Foe
(1986). He had already achieved international acclaim. Much of Coetzee’s writings
deal with either directly or indirectly the recent events. More productively we might
think of Coetzee’s writings as maintaining easy correspondence between fictional
representation and the rapid, traumatic changes that have transformed and continue to
transform South Africa.
4.1.9 Check the Progress:
A) Answer the following questions with one word/phrase/sentence.
1. In which subjects did Coetzee receive B. A. degree?
2. What was the subject of his Ph. D. thesis?
3. What are the names of Booker Prize winning novels by Coetzee?
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4. Which was the award given by South African Government to Coetzee?
5. What are the names of two stories in Duskland?
B) Choose the correct alternative:
1. _________ is the protagonist of Slow Man.
a. Paul Rayment b. Charles MacLennan
c. Mandel d. Colonel Joll
2. In the year _________ Coetzee was awarded Nobel Prize.
a. 2006 b. 2005 c. 2006 d. 2003
3. _________ is Coetzee’s first Booker Prize winning novel.
a. Foe b. Life and Times of Michael K
c. Dusklands d. Waiting for the Barbarians
4. Daniel Foe is a novelist in the novel _________.
a. Foe b. Life and Times of Michael K
c. Dusklands d. Waiting for the Barbarians
5. The Master of Petersburg was published in the year _________.
a. 1994 b. 1999 c. 1998 d. 1992
C) Complete the following sentences with correct answers.
1. J. M. Coetzee’s great grandfather was a _____ to South Africa.
2. Coetzee’s father lost his job because of his disagreement over _________
policy.
3. Coetzee married to _________ in 1963 and divorced her in 1980.
4. Coetzee failed to get permanent residence in _________.
5. After retirement Coetzee relocated to_________.
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4.2 Short Introduction to Waiting for the Barbarians:
First published in Britain in 1980, J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians
was intended as an allegorical attack on Apartheid South Africa. However, by
constructing the narration entirely in the present tense, and situating the story in an
anonymous frontier settlement of an unnamed ‘Empire’, Coetzee eschews the
limitations imposed by specificities of temporal, geographical and historical context
and succeeds in attaining a universalism to which all writers aspire.
4.2.1 Explanation of the Novel's Title
Coetzee took the title from the poem Waiting for the Barbarians by Greek-
Egyptian poet, Constantine P. Cavafy. It may also have an allusion to Samuel
Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Inspiration from Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar
Steppe is also evident, both for the title and the plot.
4.2.2 Plot Summary
WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS by J.M. Coetzee is considered to be an
allegory of the oppression between oppressor and the oppressed. The narrator, a
Magistrate in one of the tiny frontier settlements in South Africa, finds the affairs of
the Empire smooth till the arrival of the interrogating officer, Colonel Joll of The
Third Bureau from the capital. His mission is to interrogate and suppress a rumored
rising of the barbarians against the Empire. The narrator is sympathetic towards the
natives who raced deep into the desert and the mountains when the settlers entere the
town. He does not give much importance to the frequent rumours about barbarians’
uprising against the Empire. But Colonel Joll takes pride in the superiority of the
Empire and used the rules of the government to torture the natives. He derives
pleasure in the sufferings of other people. An old man and a small boy whose arm is
seriously injured become the victims of Colonel Joll. Joll, in the name of
interrogation, tortures the old man to death. He leaves the body of the dead man
inside the cell at night to frighten the boy. Unable to bear the torture, the boy tells
Joll the next day that he knows about the plot of the barbarians and promises to take
him to the place where the conspiring nomad horsemen reside. The next day Joll and
his men go out for hunting the barbarians and return with a group of fishermen with
nets who try to hide when they see men on horseback. Though irritated at the action
of Joll, the Magistrate has to obey his orders to keep them in custody until further
orders. Joll goes into the desert with his men. The Magistrate knows the landscape
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and that it would be difficult for Joll to succeed in his mission and believes return to
the frontier. In the meantime, the narrator develops a sort of kinship with a barbarian
girl who takes to begging in the town, after being left out by her tribe on their return
to the desert. He makes her as his servant and also his companion at night. Later,
taking pity on the girl, he takes her back to her tribe, and the real trouble starts. The
servants of the Empire consider the narrator to be a barbarian himself because of his
sympathy towards the barbarian girl. A new officer named Mandel comes to the
town and takes charge of his office. The narrator is arrested and tortured before being
left free for want of reasonable charges. The narrator takes to begging and singing to
keep his living. The settlers tremble at the news of the barbarians uprising and shift
from the town to the capital, where they have the security of the civil guard. Mandel
is killed when he tries to leave the place with his family. The narrator gets his old
home again. Colonel Joll returns disappointed from the desert. He is not able to find
the barbarians. Most of his men are not able to find their way out while Joll and a
few men in his company are lucky enough to escape from the desert. He returns to
the capital in utter disappointment.
The narrator continues to live in the town with a few men of his community with
the hope that peace would be restored between the settlers and the natives soon. The
novel treats all the paradoxes of life like love and lust, hope and disappointment,
hatred and sympathy. The conflict between the loyalty of the narrator towards the
empire and his sympathy towards the natives is clearly expressed in the novel.
4.2.3 Characters
Magistrate
Colonel Joll
Girl 1
Mandel
Girl 2
Mai
Boy - grandson
Grandfather
Warrant Officer
Soldiers
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4.2.4 Check the Progress
A) Answer the following questions in one sentence/phrase/word
1) Where was waiting for the Barbarians first published?
2) Who wrote the poem waiting for the Barbarians?
3) Who is the narrator of the waiting for the Barbarians?
4) Who takes the charge of Magistrate?
5) What happens to Mandel at last?
B) Choose the correct alternative of the following
1) Waiting for the Barbarians was intended as an allegorical attack on ---------
- South Africa.
a) Democracy b) Monarch system of
c) Apartheid d) Empire of
2) Coetzee took the title of waiting for the Barbarians from the poem -------
a) The River b) Waiting for the Barbarians
c) The Canterbury Tales d) Enterprises
3) The narrator is sympathetic towards the --------------
a) natives b) non-natives c)White d) Red Indians
4) The settlers tremble at news of the Barbarians-------------
a) uprising b) defence c) defeat d) victory
5) The narrator develops a sort of kinship with a ----------- girl.
a) Barbarian b) native c) White d) Red
C) Fill in the blanks.
1) Waiting for the Barbarians is considered to be an allegory of the Oppressor
and the ------------
2) Colonel Joll is a government servant of -------------
3) Colonel Joll used the rules of the government to the torture the ------------
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4) The narrator took the barbarian girl back to her --------
5) Colonel Joll’s mission was to suppress a rumour rising of the barbarians
against the ------------
4.3 Detailed Summary of the Novel

4.3.1 Chapter I
A Magistrate in charge of administering the law in a colonial town witnesses the
torture of the invaded indigenous population. The colony or place is unspecified.
Most characters have no names, although the circumstances surrounding the events
indicate that the colony is in South Africa while the barbarians indicate the black
population. The Magistrate is of unspecified age although he refers to himself as
approaching retirement. At first loyal and dutiful, the Magistrate gradually becomes
skeptical about the ephicacy of the legal system he represents.
The Magistrate shows the garrison to Colonel Joll, sent by The Third Bureau to
investigate the rumors about a barbarian uprising. When they begin to talk about
interrogation methods, Joll shares his views with him and informs him about the way
he obtains the truth from the prisoners, and various stages of torture gradually
increasing in pain. The Magistrate questions the effect of pain as a reliable method to
elicit information but admists that the tortured gives the information that the torturer
wants to hear.
A family comprising of a boy, his mother, and grandfather are imprisoned on
their way to town, although they claim that they only wanted to see a doctor. The
Magistrate doubts that they are a threat to the colony, but Joll disagrees. The
following day Joll tortures them during the interrogation. He kills the grandfather,
who throws himself on his torturers on seeing his daughter tortured.
The Magistrate visits the imprisoned family after the interrogation. He finds the
boy asleep while the dead grandfather lying next to him with injuries that differ from
those described in the report. He realizes that the grandfather was tortured, but the
evidence of it is hidden. He wants to distance himself from all this before his
retirement. With the alleged barbarian uprising that leads to the strengthening of the
garrison and investigations, he is unable to remain uninvolved.
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The boy admits to theft of horses and arming by his clan during torture. The
Magistrate fetches a doctor for the boy, while Joll uses him to organize a raid on the
barbarians. He brings back a group of prisoners, who turn out to be fishermen. They
are placed in the barracks while the Magistrate is puzzled over their capture. They
have different customs and lack hygiene, and create various problems. The
Magistrate is distressed about incidents regarding the soldiers and the prisoners
especially when one of the babies dies. He blames Colonel Joll for all the trouble.
But he does not dare to inform the Bureau about it.
Joll brings more prisoners for torture; they scream at night keeping the
Magistrate awake. The fishermen are interrogated about the movements of horsemen
and visiting strangers. Eventually, he leaves his apartment. He engages in many
distractions including sleeping with women. His nightmares wake him up chasing his
partners out of his bed.
The interrogations are carried out along the entire frontier, but the Magistrate
doubts that they can improve safety. When Joll departs, the Magistrate tries to restore
order. The prisoners are sick, wounded, and terrified. Observing the miseries of the
prisoners, the Magistrate is terrible affected; but he knows that he is utterly hopeless
in the present situation. But to relieve the tormenting tension suffered by him.
He doubts the methods of the Empire, their effectiveness, and its tendency to
stick to old ways he feeds the prisoners and assures them their recovery.
4.3.2 Chapter I Analysis
The Magistrate, sent to administer a remote post in the imperial colony most
likely before the World War II, wishes for a peaceful life. He dislikes the torture
imposed on the barbarians, who are considered to be a threat, but in his view they
pose no significant danger. He is not against interrogations, but he finds it hard to
deal with torture imposed on the barbarians. His sensitivity makes him sympathetic
towards the barbarians who could do no more harm if they are simply released. He
considers that law and order are for the care of the barbarians and not for their
destruction.
The Magistrate is unable to establish any meaningful communication with
Colonel Joll. Joll is interested only in those matters that uphold his own position. He
disregards local customs and thinks that damage made through redaless killing and
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devastation caused by his army to the local wildlife is quite justifiable. He is even
unconcerned about the amount of animals killed that could not be consumed and had
to rot away. Even when his methods are ineffective, he refuses to accept other views,
as they question his authority.
4.3.3 Chapter II
The Magistrate discovers a blind girl begging on the street for money on a cold
winter day. Due to her injured ankles, she carries sticks with her to be able to walk.
He gives her money, being concerned about her health as well as attracted by her
beauty. When she disappears for a while, he inquires about her. He approaches her
when seeing her back on the street, offering her cleaning work at his house, as she is
not allowed to ask for money in town, especially that winter is coming.
When he brings her to his house, she feels unworthy of the work he offers her
and leaves. He finds her back on the street begging and brings her to his house again.
While he washes her and bandages her ankles, he inquires about her injuries. At first
she refuses to say anything, and he finally falls asleep lying next to her. She remains
in the house, doing laundry and cleaning.
The Magistrate washes and bathes her every day. He is confused about what he
wants from her, finding her distant and unresponsive to his demonstrations of
affection. She seems to accept daily bathing rituals, but he always falls asleep at the
end of it.
He questions whether he is really attracted to her or whether he feels guilty
about her torture. All he knows about her is that she is a daughter of a man who died
during the interrogation. None of the soldiers know anything more about her.
The barbarians stay away during winter months due to cold. They are not
interested in fighting with the Empire or trade they used to engage in. But whenever
they starte drinking, they create trouble for the people in the town as well as for
themselves. The Magistrate thinks that they become corrupted and dependent
because of the influence of civilization that has led to the loss of their virtues. He
opposes and detests such influence. Meanwhile, rumors spread that the barbarians
may threaten the Empire. Various measures are undertaken in anticipation of their
attacks, such as raids and vigilance. The Magistrate is less concerned about them,
getting busy with his old hobbies involving cataloging, reading, collating maps, and
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antelope hunting. He is also busy in his attempts to seduce the girl he hired. She
finally reveals how she was injured during her interrogation when her torturers
brought hot, fork-like tools close to her eyes. She had nothing to tell them and they
decided not to burn her eyes entirely. Since then, she is able to see through the edges
around the blur in the middle of her eyes. Her ankles are also broken, but eventually
get healed.
The Magistrate becomes frustrated with the bathing ritual that makes him tired
without bringing desired results. Thus, the magistrate and the girl seem to
misunderstand each other about what they want. She admits that she stays with him
because she has nowhere else to go. He starts visiting another girl with whom he
previously had a casual sex affair. After a while he also feels less attracted to his
maid, questioning again his motives behind keeping her in his house. When she
eventually shows that she is willing to have sex with him, he finds himself
indifferent. He begins to think that may-be he is driven by guilt about her torture and
Joll's depravities rather than feelings of love.
Despite his visits to another girl for sex, his relationship with his maid remains
the same—distant and indifferent. His frustration with the situation drives him even
further away from her. He separates their beds and resumes his social life. He has
disagreements with the military; but new conscripts arrive to replace the dead ones
frozen to death some distance away.
The Magistrate is concerned about the future of town exposed to danger through
the attacks on the barbarians who are not allowed to move freely with their stock.
They are also humiliated when they come to trade in town. The Magistrate thinks
these differences are only in their table manners and quality of life, and also in their
tolerance for death and slovenliness, but he continues to admire them.
4.3.4 Chapter II Analysis
The Magistrate finds himself attracted to a girl begging on the street for money
who has been tortured and whose father died during torture. He is unsure whether his
help is inspired by his pity or his attraction to her. When he brings her home, matters
complicate even further, and he is unsure about his response. He wants to make her
love him. His tactics have no effect on her and he decides to take her back to her
people, creating a friendly atmosphere during their trip. He struggles to make any
sense of his desires, although he realizes that his care has made the girl oblivious of
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his kind deeds and she continues to be passive in her attitude. Such passivity
becomes troublesome for him, but he is at the same time painfully aware that she
simply has no other place to go. He questions his feelings for her over and over
again, blaming the environment and the Empire.
During winter, soldiers become victims of their vices. They drink, smoke and
engage in idleness. Their lives become corrupted, corrupting those around them,
including the barbarians. Such civilization is unwanted, but only the Magistrate
opposes it, resenting its damaging effect. The devastation that such civilization has
on wildlife is catastrophic, leaving only waste. In the end, though no one is safe, the
Magistrate’s mood swings and he experiences uncertainty about his prospects in
future.
4.3.5 Chapter III
When winter ends, the season for animal trapping begins. The Magistrate
frustrated with the relationship between him and the girl, decides that it is best to
take her back to her people. He wants to notify the Bureau about his trip, justifying
its purpose as an attempt to restore good relationships with the barbarians. After
writing a letter, he decides not to send it. Without informing anyone about his trip, he
takes four soldiers with him, the girl, and heads for the mountains.
They travel south towards the desert and then to the valleys and to the old dead
river-bed. To shorten their trip, they choose a different route never previously
attempted previously. Even though winter has passed, the wind blowing through the
ice makes breathing difficult. They carry firewood and try to conserve food and
water.
As they advance, they experience tough winter conditions with dust entering
into their clothing and baggage. They are forced to save water, consuming only little
amounts. The terrain becomes desolate along the dry lake.
Once they leave the lake, conditions improve although they have to kill one of
their horses that refuses to rise. The girl becomes more open, conversing freely with
the soldiers. The Magistrate discovers through these conversations that she is witty,
and finds to her much more appealing. Unexpectedly, he becomes more sexually
attracted to her. He finally has sex with her, although he still questions why he really
wants her.
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After eight days of travel there is little food left. They are forced to get off their
horses to reduce the weight the animals have to carry, and walk alongside them.
Eventually, the horses feed again as they approach some grassy hills. Towards the
end of the trip, the Magistrate is finally satisfied with sex he has with the girl.
Just before they reach the mountains, they experience a fierce storm full of
snow, rain, ice and sand. They lose one of their tents in the wind and never recover it
again.
On the tenth day, they encounter some indigenous people on their horses riding
in front of them. Every time they get closer, they find that the barbarians move faster,
getting away from them or just matching their speed. When the barbarians are in
front of them, they follow them. The girl gets her period and is unable to hide it.
They all become uncomfortable due to their superstitious beliefs associated with
menstruation. To dispel bad luck, they perform a purification ceremony. The group
in front of them gets so close that they finally meet.
The Magistrate wants the girl to make her own decision about joining the group
or going back to the settlement with him although he wants her now to stay with him.
He communicates his intentions to her before she starts talking to them. When the
girl asks him why he wants her back, he is unable to provide a straight answer. She
does not like the settlement and decides to stay with her own people.
He offers them silver in exchange for one of their horses, but they refuse. Upon
seeing the girl for the last time, he tries to distance himself from her to forget her.
On their way back, one of the soldiers injures his foot. The separation between
him and the rest of the men grows after the fulfillment of their purpose of their trip.
He avoids sleeping with them in the same tent. Unfortunately they lose one more
horse and suffer inconvenience.
When they approach the settlement, they meet a group of soldiers. At first they
appear to be a welcoming party, but as they escort them to the gates, they turn out to
be the army.
4.3.6 Chapter III Analysis
Frustrated by the lack of success with seducing the tortured girl, the Magistrate
yields to the allure of spring, deciding to venture into the unknown and delivers the
girl to her family. It is the journey that changes his life as he suffers from harsh
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weather conditions in an equally harsh environment. When he manages to surpass all
the difficulties, he is arrested under suspicion of colluding with the barbarians.
His resolve to execute what seems to be only a short trip turns into a tragic
experience. Not only does he face dangerous storms, but also realizes that now his
sexual life with his girlfriend would be completely satisfying. Only it is too late to
reverse the damage that the girl has already experienced. She has no wish to return to
the place that deprived her of everything she had, her family, her freedom, and her
ability to live an independent life.
While he tries to escape the disappointment of their failed relationship, he
experiences more frustration due to the unexpected improvement in their attitude
towards each other. He is still unable to express his feelings towards her, but she is
stimulating enough for him to engage in sex. He also becomes impressed with her
social skills as she responds to his more jovial soldiers, showing her wit and humor.
Challenges upon challenges mount until he returns, facing his most difficult
challenge of being accused of disloyalty.
4.3.7 Chapter IV
Upon arrival, the Magistrate meets a warrant officer from the Third Bureau, who
accuses him of conspiring with the enemy. When the Magistrate accuses the army of
creating conflicts with the barbarians, he is imprisoned. In his solitude, he analyzes
the events of a last few weeks. Now more prison cells are built for the barbarians and
they are tortured in front of their relatives. Unable to defend themselves, they are
vulnerable and deprived of their humanity. He analyzes his feelings for the native girl
who stayed with him, questioning his pity for her. She became less of a human being
during her torture, turning into a creature who believes in nothing, only awaiting her
end.
The fire is set to assure protection clearing the river banks. It destroys wildlife,
creating more opportunities for the desert to advance. He finds out that the charges
against him involve irregularities, a relationship with a street woman, and a trip made
to inform the barbarians about the campaign against them. He remains silent about
these accusations, demanding a proper court hearing to defend himself.
Back in his cell, he analyzes his conversation with the officer, who seems to be
equally capable of crime as well as fulfilling his duties. He suffers adversely the
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humiliation of his imprisonment. He does not get appropriate food and extra
clothing. His lack of activities encourages endless analyzing. He hears that the troops
have left to fight the barbarians.
A few days later he manages to open one of the barrack windows and escapes.
He hides in the room of one of the girls he used to have sex with, getting under her
bed. He falls asleep, waiting for her. When she finally turns up in her apartment, she
is with a man, and they immediately enter into the and have sex. He endures all this
under her bed until they fall asleep. Unnoticed, he leaves her apartment, proceeding
towards the north gate unrecognized by the soldier standing there, who tells him that
a few men got sick and returned from the expedition against the barbarians.
When the Magistrate returns to his cell, his ward warns him that he should
remain silent about his escape. The Magistrate demands food, threatening that he
may join the barbarians next time. The troops return with the natives who have their
cheeks and wrists wired. The Magistrate watches it at first, but unable to bear it,
leaves. He changes his mind, grabs a bucket of water, and returns pushing through
the crowd. As the guards tighten the wires, they make the prisoners kneel. Colonel
Joll approaches the prisoners, rubbing the dust into their backs in the shape of the
word enemy. The soldiers start hitting them with canes until the charcoal mixes with
sweat and blood, making the signs disappear. The prisoners lie down on the ground
under torture. One of the soldiers hands his cane to a girl in the crowd, and other
soldiers follow this example. People overtake the flogging until Colonel Joll grabs a
hammer to crush the prisoners' feet. When the Magistrate shouts in protest, a soldier
hits him in the face breaking his cheek bone. He receives this punishment with a
smile because he knows that his skills as a speaker are poor. All he wants to say is
that it is worse to damage one's feet than to kill.
Magistrate returns to his cell with a broken nose, cheekbone, and swollen eye.
Without any treatment, he endures spasms of pain. He cannot eat and walk properly.
In the morning he cries from exhaustion, then lies in his bed.
Finally he is brought to his own office and meets Colonel Joll, who shows him a
string of poplar wood slips with some script written on them. Joll wants to know the
meaning of the script. The Magistrate makes up the content, unfamiliar with the
writing himself. He presents various possible meanings although he thinks the script
itself is meaningless. The Colonel abandons his inquiries about the writing and starts
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complaining about his behavior as a Magistrate. When the Magistrate demands trial,
he is told that only the Bureau handles the law, and he would not be tried because of
his popularity in town, although he is going to be relieved of his duties instead. The
Magistrate would have to consider performing his duties with caution as martyrdom
is quickly forgotten in outback places.
The Colonel views the barbarians as organized while the Magistrate thinks he is
creating enemies from the prisoners while being the enemy himself. He accuses Joll
of stirring up the war encouraging martyrdom. Joll responds calling him "the One
Just Man". The Magistrate refuses to relate the interaction he has with the barbarians,
and is taken back to his cell.
After a couple of days he is taken to the yard, where he is forced to run and
jump through the rope. Another day the soldiers force him to climb the ladder with a
bag slipped over his head and his hands tied at the back. They put a rope around his
head and tighten it. When he finally admits that nothing has passed between him and
the barbarians, they tighten the rope. They then hang him by the wrists tied at the
back, pull above the ground, and swing back and forth.
4.3.8 Chapter IV Analysis
This chapter is devoted mostly to the imprisonment and torture of the Magistrate
after he comes back from his trip to the mountains. Based on the false evidence from
the soldiers, who has accompanied him on this trip, he is accused of conspiring with
the barbarians against the Empire. Deep inside he regards himself opposed to the
Empire. He feels freed from the bond that forces him to accept crime and torture.
This freedom gives him permission to treat women in any way that is suitable,
subject to his whims. It makes no difference to him whether they are treated like
slaves, daughters or concubines, rejected, or be all of it at the same time. He felt no
responsibility towards them except for pity or desire. The life he has been leading
would render no accountability for his actions. In a place with no morals there is also
no enforcement or recognition of what is right and wrong. In his view it is the
Empire that is the enemy causing chaos and destruction. His imprisonment gives him
an opportunity to dissociate himself from any responsibility or shame he feels for the
lack of such responsibility on the part of the Empire. It is his turn now to undergo
torture, as he is now regarded the enemy of Empire.
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His isolation imposes memories of all those barbarians subjected to pain. Their
death is still reverberating among the walls. He becomes aware of the extent of the
suffering when the girl he fell in love with is tortured in front of her father. He can
relate to their ordeal and to the loss of their humanity. He realizes that he will also
undergo a similar transformation, turning into a creature deprived of any emotions.
The Magistrate soon recognizes that he has already become a machine and a
beast. His interrogator climbs to the top destroying everything on the way. The
analysis of his torturers shows that in fact the barbarians are not enemies, but those
who serve the empire. Their behavior can be more barbarian than those who are
accused of barbarian traits.
The Magistrate suffers various humiliations through the lack of clean clothes
and inability to clean his cell.
4.3.9 Chapter V
The barbarians arrive before dark, stealing clothing, food, and anything of use,
inspiring fear that turns into paranoia. The rumors spread that the barbarians arm
against their invaders.
The Magistrate is released from prison without any means of survival. He is
forced to live on the street. The barbarians hide while their huts are destroyed. They
reappear in other places, being cheated when they try to trade with fish. Policeman
Mandel wants the Magistrate to work. When he responds that he is still awaiting his
trial, he learns that there are no records of him. The Magistrate is at odds with
Mandel, who seems to be unaffected by his torture of other people. When he asks
Mandel how he can eat and get on with life after tormenting people, he hits him on
the chest. The Magistrate survives because of some few remaining friends that feed
him. Otherwise he lives from meal to meal he obtains anywhere he can, including the
women he used to know.
The rumors spread that the expedition has been wiped out or sent to defend the
country. Some settlers leave, abandoning everything behind. The soldiers control the
town, being regarded as the only protection against the barbarians. Winter makes
surviving tougher. The barbarians hide in the mountains and wait for the soldiers to
go away.
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At nights, Magistrate is still haunted by the memory of his lost love, dreaming
of kissing the girl. He has misgivings about her regretting his failure to understand
her.
Magistrate wants to leave the settlement, gets through the gate, and reaches the
lakeside. He notices the soldiers with a dog searching the empty huts that belong to
the fishermen living nearby. The soldiers continue to destroy the huts, despite his
attempts to stop them. Even when one of them is injured, other soldiers only laugh.
He thinks that law creates opportunities for both justice and injustice as his
previously conducted cases indicate, such as when convicting a man for running
away to join his family. He is doubtful about his ability to instill justice when
exercising his judicial duties. He feels responsible for enforcing such laws, although
prefers to bear the burden himself rather than leaving it to someone more ruthless.
Two barbarian men on horses arrive bringing a dead man on a horse, attached to
a wooden framework in his saddle. The view creates panic in town. Further fear is
inspired when the rumors spread about some barbarians camping a few miles away
from town. People barricade the gates themselves as the army seems to have
perished. The fishermen also fear for their lives. Mandel announces a partial
withdrawal of the army although some forces are to stay behind. A new offensive
will be undertaken in spring. During his speech some of his men return with stolen
goods, including hens and cocks that are immediately placed into the oven. Helpless
bystanders watch the outcomes of looting without protest.
The soldiers depart with Mandel taking carts, sheep, women, and children.
Soldiers rape mothers in front of their children. Some families leave through the
gates that are left open.
The Magistrate visits his previously rented apartment. His artifacts, clothes are
missing, but the stuffy smell remains. He lies down in his bed imagining that he may
sense the presence of the previous tenant there, but then he falls asleep. If any
barbarian attack was to occur now he would be unable to defend himself.
It turns out that the army has been defeated when led by the barbarians into a
desert. Despite this defeat, many were unable to accept the fact that men with bows,
who do not know how to read or write, managed to have the victory over those more
educated. He wishes for a second chance to repair the damage made if time could be
reversed.
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4.3.10 Chapter V Analysis
The army is unable to protect the town, as it is fighting the war with the
barbarians in the desert. No one knows that the army has already been annihilated not
by the barbarians themselves, but by their tactics. They simply the army into the
desert and disappeared. The army starved to death or froze to death. The soldiers find
it difficult to comprehend that people without education, using bows as weapons
were able to defeat them.
The rest of the soldiers are looting the town taking as much as they can. Mandel,
in charge of the army in the absence of Colonel Joll, has lost control. Those who are
to enforce the law become criminals themselves, as soldiers ultimately loot the entire
town. They feel no responsibility for leaving the town exposed to the enemy that was
fought against so hard.
The law failed to uphold the values of society. The law failed through those who
were to enforce it. The power of the law that was to be greater than individuals
encouraged injustice. The Magistrate himself has difficulties in dealing with it, as he
is ashamed of the injustice caused. The law as a product of the Empire unveils
powerlessness of the people because the Empire is only concerned with the survival
of its own power. It pursues its enemies in deserts through people such as Colonel
Joll, who never hesitates doing murder or torture in the name of his sovereign. Crime
justified leads to further crime, creating enemies. It is evident that those who were to
win the barbarians have become the barbarians themselves, victimizing then their
own people to perpetuate crime. The barbarians do not need to attack the town
because it is on its way course towards its own self-destruction.
4.3.11 Chapter VI
People in town as well as the fishermen nearby live in fear of barbarian attacks.
The Magistrate advises everybody to grow root vegetables that can survive winter
while new wells are being built. Children gather shallows that are smoked and
packed. Helmets placed alongside the rampart simulate the presence of soldiers.
Children to who pass by every now and then and they move them as if the soldiers
also moved. With three men guarding the town, the Magistrate assumes the
leadership in town along with legal administration. No one wants to gather wood
after the fishermen claim to have seen the barbarians nearby.
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Colonel Joll arrives in a carriage with several men to get food and horses. They
only find empty stables. The Magistrate is unable to maintain his calm in presence of
Joll, who only stares at him. Joll leaves as people throw stones at his carriage. The
Magistrate learns that no one knows what happened to the soldiers who were unable
to stay together. The barbarians lure the army into the desert cutting the horses loose
on the way, and vanish leaving the soldiers freezing in the mountains and starving in
the desert.
Men who dig wells find children's bones behind the barracks in a place that
appears to be a grave. More bones on top of each other are also found buried nearby.
The Magistrate recovers, finding himself interested in sex again. Despite his attempts
to combat erection by using milk root, as advised by the only herbalist in town his
sexual tension remains. After following his advice he soon finds himself looking for
a girl he previously visited, Mai. She is helping her mother taking care of her babies.
As they spend a couple of nights together they recall the girl who stayed in his house.
Mai tells him that the girl never knew what he expected of her and was never able to
understand him. Unhappy with the relationship between them she often cried. He
decides that it is best not to dwell on the past as he is not going to see her unless she
would come along with the barbarians. Mai expresses concern about living in fear for
her and her child's life. In the end the Magistrate thinks that visiting Mai was a
mistake, deciding to sleep alone from now on. He misses her only for a while.
He resumes his previous hobbies, such as collecting stones or decipherment of
ancient writing on poplar slips. If he were to write a record of the imperial post it
would involve living through seasons rather than a recollection of events. He is
ashamed of the impact that the Empire had on the barbarian population and he
considers the land to be a paradise on earth. Only when the barbarians realize they
are unable to live without the skills of white men, perhaps then they can be won. In
the meantime he intends to go on living, even though his journey may be pointless.
4.3.12 Chapter VI Analysis
The news about the army that vanished as the result of barbarian tactics has
spread. Those that remain in town try to protect themselves from the barbarians. The
Magistrate is in charge of administration of town again, discovering mass graves of
children. He renews his old friendship with sexual partners, who are all affected by
the situation the town faces without defense against the barbarians. Although it is
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pointless to worry about something that may or may not come, there is concern about
the future of children. In this way, the remaining inhabitants, such as women and
children become victims rather than invaders, living with fear of such population.
The magistrates desire to live in a place he consideres a paradise is mixed with
feelings of responsibility for the deaths of the barbarians. They were forced to endure
everything that the Empire imposed on its subjects. All efforts to civilize and win
them failed. The one last device to make them part of white civilization is if make
them enjoy its skills and inventions.
A) Choose the correct alternative of the following
1) The barbarians indicate the ---------population.
a) native b) white c) black d) immigrant
2) According to ---------- the barbarians are not threat to the colony.
a) Magistrate b)Colonel Joll c) Mendel d) Empire
3) ----------- was killed at the time of interrogation
a) boy b) mother c) grandfather d) grandmother
4) The garrison and investigation is strengthened because The Empire suspects
barbarians-------------
a) uprising b) victory c) conspirancy d) strategy
5) People of the town consider barbarians ---------------
a) different b) of same culture c) of same race d) brothers
B) Answer the following questions in one sentence/phrase/word
1) Who sends Colonel Joll to a small border town?
2) Why was Colonel Joll sent to a small border town?
3) Did Magistrate informed to the Bureau about his trip ?
4) Why does a barbarian girl stays with Magistrate?
5) What are the charges against the Magistrate?
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C) Fill in the blanks
1) Fishermen have different customs and lack ------------
2) Magistrate’s relations with his maid were distant and ---------
3) At last the barbarian girl decided to stay with -------------
4) ----------- calls Magistrate “the One Just Man”
4.4 Major Characters

4.4.1 Magistrate
The Magistrate is a civil servant and the narrator of the events that occur during
the time, when he is in charge of administration of a frontier colonial town. He
represents law while providing an account of what happens during his
administration. He finds himself unable to relate everything that he has experienced
in a place he considers to be a paradise on earth. He feels shame for those who
persecute indigenous people and consider them enemies although they themselves
create such enemies through the politics of the Empire. As he states, we are all
subject to law that is greater than us. Ironically, he falls victim to the system of
justice that fails to give him the right to a trial. He experiences a mock execution and
lawlessness. He becomes the very victim of the legal system, that makes him a beast
and machine. He is reduced in his humanity and limited to basic wants, such as
becoming fat.
He analyzes his understanding of law and justice. He feels the burden of
injustice that the legal system imposes; but he tries to repair some of the damages.
Once he accidentally becomes the enemy himself, he feels liberated from the
responsibility towards the system. As a part of his responsibility for the corruption of
the system, he tries to care for a barbarian girl but instead he perpetuates the torture.
He tries to understand her and to have a relationship with her, but fails. Without
some kind of understanding he is unable to form the bond. Even rituals, he
acknowledges and adheres, but fails to create such bond, as his daily ritual of
washing her does little to create intimacy. He adheres to rituals due to their meaning
of protection. Even though he is indecisive at times, he firmly stands for what he
believes to the extent that Colonel Joll calls him "One Just Man."
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He has a perception that the world moves through seasons and cycles rather than
through beginnings and ends. Losing direction after being subjected to prison and
poverty, fate forces him to begin his life again.
4.4.2 Colonel Joll
Colonel Joll is in charge of the army while being part of the Third Bureau, an
intelligence agency. He is an expert in extracting evidence under torture. This
knowledge is based on using pressure that indicates a certain tone of voice that has
certain quality when telling the truth. Such knowledge can only be acquired through
long experience. He is ruthless and determined to do anything to fulfill his mission.
Like others, he can equally get engaged in crime.
He has a pragmatic approach to time and history. If importance is missing, there
will be no tale to tell. His dark sunglasses that he is always wearing, represent
gazing. He is always watching. He is cynical about virtues, although he praises the
Magistrate as One Just Man' he being the only man who would rebel. He is unable to
stem away from the linear time of history. He denies the Magistrate the right to be
neither martyr nor historian as the Magistrate either a dies or a goes to trial. He
dismisses his standing, reducing him to a creature interested only in the most basic
necessities of life. He is concerned about his own appearance and comfort, and
displays a lack of concern for his surroundings. His superficiality renders him
mindless and unable to understand the barbarians, who he thinks have to be
annihilated for the needs of Empire.
He is a proud man who questions nothing, assuming and reinforcing the
superiority of the Empire; because it allows him superiority while engaging freely in
torture.
4.4.3 Girl
An unnamed barbarian girl, who has been tortured and partially blinded during
the investigation led by Colonel Jo, is forced to beg on the street. She has only a
limited description as having a fringe and olive skin. Due to her different background
and heritage, she represents different values. She is unable to understand the
Magistrate and his intentions. She is related to the world as a person who is only
concerned with facts rather than nuances. Her reasoning befuddles, and mystifies
him. Experience of torture changes her making suspicious and dependent on other
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people. She has a different approach to life and avoids things she does not like. When
she becomes subjected to the Magistrate's whims and changing moods, she becomes
at first passive because of her experiences. She detects his indecisiveness as he is
baffled about his attraction towards her. Her terror is in her inability to be
independent, being forced to accept the unknown. She represents the indigenous
population that is largely unknown and hence there arises curiosity in the Magistrates
mind. The Magistrate is compelled to decipher her, questioning her about the way
she is injured. She reveals the painful details gradually. She doesn't question him
about his motives; but complains about his treatment of her. As she is represented
from the point of view of the narrator, the Magistrate, only her outer characteristics
are shown, such as her behavior, the color of her hair, the color of her skin and her
scars. It is these features that attract and fascinate the Magistrate. As he is unable to
understand her, he does not delve deep into her and feels pity for her. Her description
is limited as per his perception. He formulates an explanation that she is in a certain
way incomplete after being tortured.
4.4.4 Mandel
Mandel is a policeman in charge of the army during the absence of Colonel Joll.
He also performs the duties of the guard. He has blue eyes and is more interested in
taking care of his uniform than people. When unable to exert control over the army,
he prefers to remain popular among his soldiers rather than to do what is right.
He derives pleasure by humiliating those who are unable to defend themselves
and tortus prisoners while exercising his poowers. He hits them with a cane when
they slow down during running. While getting the Magistrate to run in the sun naked
he also tortures him, hitting him if he slows down. He also gets the Magistrate to skip
through the rope until he is exhausted and can be punished. Another way to deliver
misery to prisoners is keeping them dirty. Mandel enjoys torture with creativity,
hanging the Magistrate by his hands tied at the back. He is proud of his previous
ability to poke his finger through a pumpkin.
He is serious about everything he does. If someone attempts to mock him, he
becomes furious. He also likes to use torture to extract confessions even if there is no
substantial evidence of any crime committed. He displays propensity to ridicule
people by humiliating them in public.
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4.4.5 Girl 2
An unnamed local girl has become the Magistrate's casual girlfriend. He has
been seeing her twice a week for a year, but during the interrogations conducted by
Colonel Joll near the Magistrate's apartment he sees her daily. She often ends up
sleeping on the floor, as the Magistrate pushes her out of bed when having
nightmares. He feels some affection for her.
4.4.6 Mai
Mai was the Magistrate's lover before she married the second time. She has four
children, although one of them dies. Her present husband is a soldier who vanishs
along with the army. She used to be the Magistrate's maid as well and works with the
girl, who is tortured and becomes his lover. Her oldest son is bringing the Magistrate
meals, when he is in prison. She lives in fear of future.
4.4.7 Boy - grandson
The boy is caught with his mother and her brother on the way to see a doctor
and imprisoned. He has a puffy and bruised face with one eye swollen. During the
interrogation his belly and groins are stabbed, leaving scabs, cuts, and bruises. He
confesses to stealing of sheep and horses, admits also that his people are arming. Joll
takes him with the army to show where his people live.
4.4.8 Grandfather
The boy's grandfather has been caught near the town following a stock raid. He
is interrogated and accused of stealing, but admits he knows nothing about it. He is
taken to prison on his way to see a doctor along with his sister and her son suffering
from a sore. He is killed during the interrogation for the apparent attack on one of the
interrogation officers. The Magistrate finds that he has broken teeth, crushed lips,
and one eye missing.
4.4.9 Warrant Officer
Warrant Officer is a man from the Third Bureau of the Civil Guard, who came
to examine the Magistrate's papers in his absence while the Magistrate was in the
mountains. He has blue eyes and regular white teeth. He accuses the Magistrate of
having dealings with the barbarians. He makes an impression of someone who has a
few years experience of torturing people.
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4.4.10 Soldiers
Two soldiers travel with the Magistrate to the mountains to take his girlfriend to
her people. They struggle with difficult weather conditions, picking faint tracks,
although they do not grumble, cook, and otherwise obey the Magistrate. At first they
are shy of the girl, but then they become friendly, displaying brotherly rivalry that
turns into irritability when she is gone. One of the soldiers fails to obey the
Magistrate on their way back, neglecting to take care of his feet. As one foot gets
inflamed, he has to ride most of his way back on his horse.
A) Answer the following questions in one sentence/phrase/word
1) For whom does the Magistrate feel shame?
2) In which field colonel Joll is an expert?
3) What does Colonel Joll always wear?
4) Why does Colonel Joll feel pride?
5) When was a barbarian girl become blind?
6) Why does a barbarian girl represent different values?
1) The Magistrate becomes the very victim of the ---------- system.
2) The Magistrate feels the burden of ------------ that the legal system imposes.
3) Colonel Joll has ------------- approach to time and history.
4) A barbarian girl becomes subjected to the magistrate’s -------
5) A barbarian girl’s terror is in her ------------ to be independent.
6) A barbarian girl represents the -------- population.
4.5 Themes
4.5.1 Terror of Colonial Paranoia
Unnamed victims, unknown enemies represent of insecurity of the indigenous
population. Violence exerted upon the barbarians is always justified. What is
unknown is regarded most frightening. The settlers are distressed experiencing
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nightmares about the barbarians, imagining that they are coming to rob, destroy, and
rape. Initially devised as an attack on the South African Apartheid, an unnamed place
where characters have no names, creates a sense of universalism, civilization based
on and motivated by fear. Its main purpose for the defence of the Empire is to create
constant trauma when being exposed to the unknown, such as the barbarians, always
being deprived of the ability to understand them.
The terror of unknown imposes limitations on the lives of the settlers, reducing
them to basic survival. People are too busy worrying about their own safety, unable
to engage in what would make them more human. Their fear of the barbarian attack
paralyzes their lives, inducing nightmares, and creating unconfirmed stories of rape
and danger. The barbarians are never found and they never come, but their imminent
danger paralyzes the local minds.
Such terror eventually leads to the paranoia of oppression. Everybody becomes
oppressed both the local population and the barbarians. The inability to deal with
these fears leads to mistakes in judgment, and the entire army perishes when led into
a trap. The situation worsens as terror spreads among the soldiers, who turn into
looters, leaving those most vulnerable to themselves. Ultimately, devastation spreads
until those who are responsible for this flee.
4.5.2 Justice
The Magistrate considers justice and law being above everybody else. His
knowledge of justice is far from being superficial. It is easy to explain what justice is
although it is also easy for everybody else to assume that they know law and the way
it enforces justice. During the time spent in the remote frontier town he changes his
perception of justice that becomes a way of exerting dominance. There is no need to
be fair and just with a barbarian. These people can be tortured and killed without a
trial. At first, bearing a false notion of justice is easier for the Magistrate. He finally
feels free when he is imprisoned, where he no longer has to bear the shame of
witnessing the suffering of people and being unable to do anything about it. When he
utters protest, he is called to be the only just man. His stance is ridiculed; his persona
belittled. To turn against the Empire amounts to deprivation of one’s humanity,
turning one into a machine and a beast condemned only to be concerned about
survival. Justice enforced by the Empire provides no protection to anyone as no one
in the end is safe. Even the army turns into a criminal engaging in looting those they
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are to protect. Justice leads to dehumanization and torture of its own people, who can
be falsely imprisoned without trial. The only justice that is left in the end is nature,
its seasons, and cycles with lives dependant on the earth and the stars.
4.5.3 Violence
Violence pervades throughout the book. Violence is used to deal with the
barbarians. Their imaginary invasion is utilized as a means of combat and retaliation.
The barbarians have been invaded, giving every cause to retaliate. There is no
alternative perception that the barbarians may want a different revenge and may not
be interested in violence per se. For Colonel Joll, violence is a means to obtain truth.
Violence ultimately is truth for him.
Violence unravels fear that is present through the lack of understanding. It
allows for ignorance and perpetual persecution so that the Empire may spread. Such
violence unfolds certain blindness, causing inability to see it among people. In this
way they are more susceptible to dictation. Violent campaigns instill fear forcing the
settlers to depend on protection. Ultimately it inspires rebellion.
The torture of the boy, his mother, and his grandfather inspires valedity of such
punishment. Violent interference in the lives of the barbarians leads to questions
about justice and its advocates who are responsible for violence. The oppressor and
the oppressed become engaged in violence against each other turning those around
them into participation.
The recognition of the connection between ignorance and violence unfolds when
the local fishermen are captured and accused of being part of the rebellion. The
Magistrate is conditioned to obey and is unable to confront injustice until he can
know himself. Only when he knows himself he is able to judge and question
violence.
When openly protesting against violence exerted on the barbarians, who are
wired through their cheeks and bones, the Magistrate begins to understand that
everyone who witnesses or allows violence becomes responsible for it. In this way,
he attains self-realization. Such violence becomes exposed as a fear producing
instrument to control people in accordance with the politics of the Empire.
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4.5.4 Conflict:
When a person or group has power in a society, It is their duty to help to protect
and enlighten the rest of its citizens. This is a civil duty, however unfair it may seem
to the powerful, they have to protect weak persons, especially in times of despair.
Why do you think that even in our society, people of fame and fortune are held to
higher levels of responsibility? When a "famous" person is caught doing something
inappropriate, there is a public outcry. The reason is because people of power are
supposed to do what's right. The empire in Waiting for the Barbarians is
irresponsible and tactless. The empire was afraid of the barbarians because it thought
of them as indecent people as they lived differently. The empire forced the barbarians
into becoming violent. In a sense, the empire was more barbaric than the actual
barbarians because of their treatment of their own people and others of different
backgrounds and beliefs. Although changing, it sounds kind of like our society. No
one cannot help but to get mad as the empire is destroying itself from within and it
leaves its people to die. To have powers means you are responsible for the good of
everyone, even if you don't want to be.
4.5.5 Torture:
Torture is a reccurring theme in the novel Waiting for the Barbarians. It is first
used to force the truth out of the barbarians. When they arrive at the fort after being
captured by Colonel Joll and his men, they are taken to separate rooms and tortured
until they give information that the Colonel wants to hear. Later on in the book
torture is used on the Magistrate to prove a point to the people. He is tortured
physically, mentally, and emotionally. The army wants to show the people the
severity of friendly interaction with the barbarians. After this the barbarians are
tortured again when they are brought into camp with wire through their palms and
mouths and beaten down by not only men but a child as well. Again they are tortured
both physically and emotionally. The final form of torture is the greatest. With this
torture also comes a shift in power. At the beginning of the story, the power was in
the from the oppressors of the civilizations in the fort, but at the end of the book the
power completely switches hands to the barbarians. They torture the fort physically
by burning down their crops. But the worst comes in the form of mental torture the
fort has been the centre of fear for their lives at all times. So they make the fort
members go crazy and turn on each other. They torture the fort members so badly
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that they are afraid to leave their fort and when they do, they leave forever. The
barbarians torture the fort people so badly that they resort to torturing their own
Magistrate and plundering their own city. In the end the barbarians end up with the
power because they are able to torture the best.
4.5.6 Fear and knowledge
Coetzee’s, Waiting for the Barbarians chronicles the internal struggle of the
Magistrate of a small town who is under the dictation of an unjust and cruel Empire.
Through the character of the Magistrate and Colonel Joll, Coetzee establishes the
idea that violence is a manifestation of fear. As the Magistrate and Joll commit
violent acts, Coetzee accurately presents the true nature of the fear that leads to
cruelty and injustice. Fear is created when a person fails to understand himself. It is
this ignorance that causes Joll to torture an elderly man and a young boy. It is this
ignorance that causes the Magistrate to hold the barbarian girl a captive and force his
will upon her.
The repressive regime of the Empire purposefully instills fear in its people to
keep them ignorant and therefore subject to their dictation. The people of the village
are kept under constant fear of a race of people they have never known. By
encouraging this fear through violent campaigns against these barbarians, the Empire
forces the people to rely on them for protection and knowledge rather than upon
themselves.
Coetzee uses the Magistrate to illustrate the journey of learning the true nature
of oneself, and how this ultimately leads to a rebellion against violence. In the
beginning of the novel, the Magistrate does not feel accountable for the actions of his
government in his jurisdiction. He turns a blind eye on the injustice and violence of
the state and allows its men to infiltrate his town in defense against the barbarian
threat. This marks the beginning of his journey to self understanding.
At this time, the Magistrate desires merely to bide his time towards retirement in
hope that the remainder of his service would be peaceful and uneventful. Here
Coetzee demonstrates the passivity and indifference of the people under such
repressive regimes. By forcing the people to rely on them for protection and even
what to think about others, the Empire has caused the people to lack ambition to
improve themselves and the world they live in. Therefore, when the people believe
the Empire is treating someone unjustly, instead of questioning and challenging it,
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the people place more trust in the Empire’s judgment than their own and allow the
cruelty to continue. If the people come to know and understand themselves, they will
be able to trust their own judgment to guide them to overrule the judgment of their
government, when it is against the true sense of justice.
4.5.7 Question of Honour
One of the ideas you can come up with is whether the Magistrate is an honorable
man or not. But is the only person who tries to improve the Empire’s administration.
But on the other hand, it looks that he does not use all the efforts he can to fight with
it.
4.5.8 Power and responsibility
The power theme is another important topic, this novel.
4.5.9 Point of View
John Michael Coetzee is one of the most acclaimed South African authors, who
won the Booker Prize as well as the Nobel Prize. He worked at first as a computer
programmer after moving to South Africa from England. He studied linguistics at the
University of Texas and taught literature at the University of Cape in South Africa.
Various perspectives used in this book involve theoretical aspects with reference to
the post-colonial literary theory. Coetzee changes his tone according to the mood,
action, and situation of the story.
The narration is constructed in the present tense without the names of places, the
names of people and specific duration time. These constraints provide context that
allows for universalism. The story is told from the point of view of the narrator. The
style used is deliberate, deep, and bare. It is deprived of details in some parts while a
great many details abound in the other parts. The main character is isolated from the
rest of the world and hence he speaks in a way that is beneficial for analysis and
reflection. The main narrative voice is thoughtful yet deliberate. Both images of what
occurred as well feelings experienced are analyzed. The changing mood of the story,
where a quiet life is intertwined with the horror of war intensifies with anger mixed
with empathy, the clarity of the tone reverberates throughout, engaging with its tone
of raw simplicity, being at other times full of nuances. The balanced yet reflective
perspective is pervaded by questioning motives and events. Within the world of the
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Magistrate, Colonel Joll and the girl, we can experience permanence, sentiment, and
the simplicity of nature.
4.5.10 Setting
The setting is an unnamed colonial frontier town. The colony belongs to an
unnamed Empire that can be any empire in the world. Except for the new invention
of the sunglasses worn by Colonel Joll nothing indicates the time of the story. Such
setting reminds various places but most likely refers to South Africa.
The town inhabited by the settlers is in constant fear of the barbarians who
threaten the town and the Empire although in reality they are peaceful. As there are
no descriptive terms that would place these events at a certain time and a place, the
setting becomes somewhat fantastic. The place is guarded by gates and walls, while
the soldiers defend the town from the enemy. With no reference to the place or its
surroundings, its outside borders and what is behind them also become unrealistic.
The setting is removed from reality with its attackers being also not so realistic
especially when they never come.
The setting represents the conflict of two cultures that represent different values
and different approaches to life. It is enmeshed in the psychology of the locals as
well as individuals. As we have little knowledge of the town itself that is surrounded
by deserts, it becomes less important. We are immediately immersed in the action
that involves the interaction between the Magistrate and Colonel Joll seen through
the perspective of the Magistrate, who is critical of Joll's superficiality, concern his
about his appearance and comfort. This somewhat illusory place and surroundings
correspond to equally illusory context, as we have no knowledge of the factors that
caused the arrival of Colonel Joll who also doesn't want to reveal them.
4.5.11 Structure
The book is divided into six chapters containing separate episodes in the life of
the Magistrate in a remote frontier town. The first chapter is devoted to the arrival of
Colonel Joll and his inspection of the town in anticipation of the imminent war with
the barbarians. The second chapter describes the Magistrate getting involved with a
barbarian girl. In the third chapter the Magistrate takes her back to her own people.
The fourth chapter, the longest chapter is devoted to the torture of the Magistrate and
his suffering after being accused of treason. Finally released, in the fifth chapter, the
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Magistrate is deprived of everything, and he leads the life of a beggar. The army is
defeated by the barbarians and withdraws from the town looting everything on the
way. The sixth chapter describes the Magistrate who is allowed to regain his old
position after all authorities leave the town and who comes to terms with his
experiences. Each chapter involves a change, similar to seasons and cycles, where
certain transformations occur. From the life of peaceful existence through love and
torture, we are brought back again to a quiet life as if the Magistrate was starting
everything from the beginning- only with lessons learned.
Apart from the division into separate phases and episodes in the life of the
Magistrate, there is a structure throughout the story involving the manner of living in
the colonial past. The routines also impose certain structure, as if everybody was in
suspension, and everybody was waiting.
A) Choose the correct alternative of the following
1. The settlers are distressed experiencing _____ about the barbarians.
a) nightmare b) anxiety c) anger d) helplessness
2. Barbarians can be tortured and killed without a _____ .
a) Execution b) legal charge c) Trial d) exposition
3. When a ______ person is caught doing something wrong, there is public
outcry.
a) virtuous b) notorious c) bad d) famous
4. The barbarians torture the fort members so____ that they are afraid to leave
their fort and when they do they leave forever.
a) severely b) wrongly c) badly d) angrily
B) Answer the following questions in one sentence/phrase/word
1. How many chapters are there in Waiting for the Barbarians?
2. What is the main purpose of the settlers?
3. Why was the Empire afraid of the barbarians?
4. What is a recurring theme of the novel Waiting for the Barbarians?
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C) Fill in the blanks
1. ____ exerted upon the barbarians is always justified.
2. The Magistrate considers ____and____ as being above everybody else.
3. ___ is used to deal with the barbarians.
4. The Empire in Waiting for the Barbarians is irresponsible and ____.
4.6 Explainations:
The Empire : The Empire represents power that doesn't require those who serve
it love others but merely perform duties.
Barbarian Tribes : According to rumors barbarian tribes have been arming and
the Empire would have to employ measures to prevent war.
Square: The square can be seen from the Magistrate's window. He can see
prisoners arriving from there.
Third Bureau : The Third Bureau is described as an unsleeping guardian of the
Empire, being an investigative agency.
The Inn : Colonel Joll stays at the inn, as it is the most comfortable place in
town. When he sleeps there the staff has to tiptoe.
The Lake : Birds that fly from the south circle around the lake near the
marshes.
Terminal lagoon : The expedition stumbles on the bed of an ancient terminal
lagoon.
Poplar wood : The abundance of poplar wood appears near the fire camp.
Foothills : The Magistrate with soldiers reaches the foothills near the bed of dry
stream.
The Oasis : The oasis is the town left by the Magistrateto deliver the girl to her
family.
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4.7 Topics for Discussion
1. ‘Waiting for the Barbarian’ is a struggle between the colonizers and the
colonized. Substantiate your answer.
2. What are the major themes in ‘Waiting for the Barbarian’?
3. How does Magistrate perceive the Empire?
4. What is the meaning of law and justice in the eyes of the Magistrate?
5. When does the Magistrate change his perception on law and justice?
6. Why does the Empire fail to institute justice?
7. What are the motives of the behind Magistrate for caring the barbarian his
girl?
8. What is the purpose of failing to name most of the characters in the book?
9. What external and internal struggles does the Magistrate experience?
Key Answers
4.1.9
A) 1. English in 1960 and Mathematics in 1961
2. Computer stylistic analysis of the works of Samuel Becket
3. “Life and Times of Michael K” (1983) and “Disgrace” (1999)
4. The Order of Mapungubwe.
5. ‘The Vietnam Project’ and ‘The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee’
B) 1. Paul Rayment
2. 2003
3. Life and Times of Michael K
4. Foe
5. 1994
C) 1. Immigrant
2. The state’s apartheid
3. Philippa Jubber
4. United States
5. Adelaide,Australia
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4.2.4
A) 1. England.
2. Constantine P. Cavafy.
3. Magistrate.
4. Mandel
B) 1. c) Apartheid
2. b) Waiting for the Barbarians
3. a) natives
4. a) uprising
5. a) Barbarian
C) 1. Oppressed
2. Third Bureau
3. natives
4. tribe
5. Empire.
4.3.13
A) 1. c) black
2. a) Magistrate
3. c) grandfather
4. a) uprising
5. a) different
B) 1. The third Bureau
2. Colonel was sent to investigate rumours about barbarians uprising.
3. No
4. Because she has no other place to go.
5. Irregularities, relationship with a street woman and making a trip to inform
barbarians about the campaign against them
C) 1. hygiene
2. indifferent
3. her own people
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4. Colonel Joll
4.4.11
A) 1. For those who persecute indigenous people because they considering them
their enemies.
2. Colonel Joll is an expert in extracting evidence under torture
3. Sun glasses
4. Colonel Joll feels pride for his position to assume and reinforce superiority
of the Empire.
5. During the investigation led by colonel Joll
6. Due to her different background and heritage
B) 1. legal
2. injustice
3. pragmatic
4. whims
5. inability
6. indigenous
4.5.12
A) 1. Nightmare
2. Trial
3. Famous
4. badly
B) 1. six
2. to defend the Empire
3. because they suspect that barbarians will attack them
4. torture
C) 1. Violence
2. Justice, law
3. Violence
4. tactless

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Unit-5
Patrick White’s The Tree of Man
Contents
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Subject Matter
5.2.1 Life and Works of Patrick White
 His Life
 His Works
 Check Your Progress
 Glossary and Notes
5.2.2 Introduction to the Novel The Tree of Man
5.2.3 Detailed Summary of The Tree of Man
5.2.4 Major and minor Character/s: Characters in The Tree of Man
 Stan Parker
 Amy Parker
 Thelma
 Madelaine
5.2.5 Themes of The Tree of Man
 Dream and vision of Australian Society
 Search for Spiritual Truth
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 Man-woman Relationship
 Effect of War
5.2.6 Narrative Techniques and Symbolism used in the Novel
 Narrative Technique
 Myths and Symbols in the Novel
5.3 Summary
5.4 Answer to Check your Progress
5.5 Exercises
5.6 Reference to Further Study
5.0 Objectives:
After completing the study of this unit you will:
 know about the life and the works of Patrick White
 know about the plot of The Tree of Man
 learn the character/s in The Tree of Man
 learn the theme/s and narrative technique/s used in The Tree of Man
 be able to answer the questions on The Tree of Man
5.1 Introduction:
This unit discusses the life and works of an Australian novelist, short story
writer, and playwright Patrick White. He is widely regarded as a major English-
language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published twelve
novels, two collections of short-stories and eight plays. He was awarded Nobel
Literature Prize, “for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a
new continent into literature,” in 1973.
This unit further offers the chapter-wise detailed summary of The Tree of Man.
This will help you to understand the plot and the story of the novel. The reading of
this unit will assist you to read the original novel.
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5.2 Subject Matter
5.2.1 Life and Works of Patrick White
 His Life
Patrick Victor Martindale White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to
Australian parents. When he was six months old, his parents moved to Australia and
settled in Sydney. At the age of ten, White was sent to Tudor House School, a
boarding school in the New South Wales highlands. At boarding school, he started to
write plays, even at this early age, about noticeably adult themes. When he was
sixteen years old, he travelled with his parents to Europe, including Scandinavia,
Norway and Switzerland. In this trip he met many literary personalities and was
impressed particularly by Ibsen and Strindberg.
From 1932 to 1935 he studied French and German literatures at King's College,
Cambridge. In 1935 White received his B.A. and settled in London, where he
contributed poems to the London Mercury. His first published novel, Happy Valley
(1939), set in New South Wales, won the Australian Literature Society’s gold medal.
It was followed by The Living and the Dead (1941), set in pre-war London.
At the end of the 1930s, he spent some time in America. During World War II
White served in Royal Air Force Intelligence in Greece and the Middle East. After
the war, White settled in Australia with a Greek friend, Manoly Lascaris. They
bought an old house in Castle Hill, a suburb of Sydney. For the next eighteen years
they lived a farmer’s life, selling flowers, vegetables, milk, and cream.
 His Works
The central purpose of White’s works was to explore the underlying problems of
humanity, the impossibility of building a bridge from one life to another, and the
individual relationship with God. His works are divided into four phases –
The Beginning
The works in this phase are mainly concerned with fundamental issues of
humanity. This phase includes the works like Happy Valley and The Living and the
Dead.
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Happy Valley (1939)
This novel is the product of White's youthful life. It is somewhat ironic story of
a doctor in a mountain township of New South Wales. He uses the stream-of-
consciousness technique to reflect White's attitude that suffering and solitude as
essential elements of the human condition.
The Living and the Dead (1941)
His second novel The Living and the Dead (1941) is set in Bloomsbury. It
explores especially the problems of a Londoner who has tried to "build a cocoon of
experience away from the noises of the street,” and in contrast to it other characters
of the novel accept the life at any level. The theme is also sustained in The Ham
Funeral, a play written in the late 1940s but not performed until 1960.
During the war years White served in the Middle East and Greece in the Royal
Air Force's intelligence section. He returned to Australia in 1948, to settle in Sydney.
Thereafter he is widely acclaimed as one of the committed Australian writers.
The First Phase
The Aunt’s Story (1948) and The Tree of Man (1955) can be considered as the
first phase novels. The novels belonging to this phase emphasize the identity crisis.
The Aunt's Story (1948)
His first Major novel, The Aunt’s Story (1948), is a comic account of travels of a
spinster, Theodora Goodman, caught between two cultures of Britania and Australia.
She travels to France after the death of her mother, and then to America, where she
experiences what is either a gradual mental breakdown or an epiphanic revelation.
It reflects an underlying concern with resistance to the conformity that other
lives impose. The main character is seen first as a thin, sallow child leading a solitary
life in an Australian country town, then in Sydney, where she becomes subordinated
to her mother. Next she is seen as a spinster struggling to reconcile opposing aspects
of her experience abroad. Later, during a journey across America, she decides to
leave the train and cast aside her identity. Finally she is confronted by a hallucinatory
figure who foretells her end in a mental hospital.
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The Tree of Man (1955)
The Tree of Man (1955) was the next in a succession of novels in which White
attempted, in his words, "to discover the extraordinary behind the ordinary, [to
uncover] the mystery and poetry." It is the first novel of White, which won an
international acclaim for him. It traces the lives of a settler and his wife who carve
out a home in the Australian wilderness and see their homestead absorbed within a
settlement and then a wider community. Eventually, their old fulfilling world is
threatened with submergence in soulless Suburbia. The central character's final
vision suggests that fulfillment lies in liberation from the ordinariness of living that is
in transcendence.
The Second Phase
This phase includes the works like Voss (1957) Riders in the Chariot (1961),
The Solid Mandala (1966).
Voss (1957)
Voss (1957) is the fifth published novel of Patrick White. It is based on the life
of the nineteenth-century Prussian explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, who
disappeared whilst on an expedition into the Australian outback. It is primarily a
book about spiritual need.
The novel reveals the story of two characters, Johann Ulrich Voss, a German,
and Laura Trevalyan, a young woman, orphaned and new to the colony of New
South Wales. The novel opens as they meet for the first time in the house of Laura's
uncle and the patron of Voss's expedition, Mr Bonner.
Voss sets out to cross the Australian continent in 1845. After collecting a party
of settlers and two Aboriginals, Voss’s party heads inland from the coast only to
meet endless adversities. The novel unfolds the journey of the explorers a cross the
drought-plagued desert, then water-logged lands until they retreat to a cave where
they lie for weeks waiting for the rain to stop. The story intersperses developments in
the lives of Voss and Laura.
The travelling party splits in two and nearly all members eventually perish. The
story ends some twenty years later at a garden party hosted by Laura's cousin Belle
Radclyffe on the day of the unveiling of a statue of Voss. The party is also attended
by Laura Trevalyan and the one remaining member of Voss's expeditionary party,
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Mr. Judd. The strength of the novel comes not from the physical description of the
events in the story but from the explorers' passion, insight and doom. The novel
draws heavily on the complex character of Voss.
Riders in the Chariot (1961)
Riders in the Chariot is the sixth published novel by White. It was published in
1961 and won the Miles Franklin Award in that year. It also won the 1965 Gold
Medal of the Australian Literature Society. This novel revolves around four
withdrawn or misfit characters in Sydney's Suburbia through whom he tells of the
alienated, tortured consciousness of the human beings.
The novel begins with the wild and mad Miss Hare, awaiting the arrival of a
new maid to assist in the upkeep of her house, Xanadu, a large and sprawling
structure that is slowly falling into decay because of a lack of care.
The climax is a mock crucifixion of an old Jewish refugee (one of the four main
characters) in the courtyard of the factory where he works. The owner of the factory
fears to interfere, and a young aborigine says three times, that he does not know the
victim.
The Solid Mandala (1966)
The Solid Mandala is the seventh novel by White. It was first published in 1966.
It portrays the story of two brothers, Waldo and Arthur Brown, with a focus upon the
facets of their symbiotic relationship. It is set in White's fictional suburb of
Sarsaparilla, a setting he often employed in his other books, such as with Riders in
the Chariot. The book is divided into four chapters; each of them narrates in the
third-person omniscient limited style; by far the largest is the second, which is
limited to Waldo Brown's point of view. Following this is a chapter told through
Arthur Brown's view.
It is about Waldo and Arthur Brown, and highlights the mutually-dependent and
mutually-antagonistic relationship they share. Waldo is cold and supremely rational
in his behaviour while Arthur is more warm-hearted and instinctual, so that together
they represent what White saw as the two conflicting and complementary halves of
human nature.
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The Third Phase:
The phase includes the works like The Vivisector (1970) and The Eye of the
Storm (1973). Both the novels in this phase are dominated by the image of Eye.
The Vivisector (1970)
The Vivisector is the eighth novel by White published in 1970; it depicts the
lifelong creative journey of fictional artist/painter Hurtle Duffield. Hurtle’s
eye/artist’s eye indicates his special instinct which enables him to discern the truth
behind appearance. The book explores universal themes like the suffering of the
artist, the need for truth and the meaning of existence.
With the publication of this novel the critics began taking note of an increasing
bleakness in White's vision and an implied darkening of the novelist's view of his
own efforts. (Vivisection is the practice of cutting into, or dissecting, the body of a
living organism.) This work, however, clinched his status as a major figure in
contemporary literature, and in 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
The Eye of the Storm (1973)
The Eye of the Storm published in 1973 depicts the familial relationship and
pervades the theme of death. Elizabeth Hunter, whose life and death is at its very
centre, is an extraordinary creation, assembled with love and care and anger. And the
most extraordinary thing of all is that it is Elizabeth, flawed, damaged and damaging,
who is vouchsafed the vision of unity in that moment of clarity-the eye of the storm.
Elizabeth does indeed experience the eye of an actual cyclone while on a holiday on
Brumby Island. It is situated at Queensland coast. But in the midst of a hectic and
frantic life, she also experiences an eye, a still moment of meaning.
At the very end, her even more selfish daughter, Dorothy who has married into
the minor European nobility, wonders and fails to understand whether "anything of a
transcendental nature [could] have a illuminated a mind so sensual, mendacious,
materialistic, superficial as Elizabeth Hunter's?" And Basil, Elizabeth's successful
actor-son is only marginally more alert to the possibility that his tyrannical mother
may have had qualities he never fully valued.
Not surprisingly, Elizabeth is surrounded all her life by a cast of remarkable
people and some unremarkable ones whose lives - like those of her solicitor, Arnold
Wyburd - are changed by the impact of hers. The most memorable are the four
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women who care for her in her last years: Sister Mary de Santis, Sister Badgery,
Sister Flora Manhood and Lotte Lippmann, the housekeeper. But her husband,
Alfred ("Bill") and his love of his country properties, especially "Kudjeri", which he
transmits to his city-boy son, Basil is a version of the father who emerges more fully
developed than any other in White's fiction. The wordless, intuitive insight behind
the pale blank eyes is allowed to be recognised.
The Fourth Phase
The phase includes the works like A Fringes of Leaves (1973) and The Twyborn
Affair (1979).
A Fringes of Leaves (1973)
A Fringes of Leaves (1973) is a story of Ellen Roxburgh based on the historical
character Eliza Fraser who was shipwrecked on the Queensland Cost. She was the
only survivor of the aboriginal tribe.
The Twyborn Affair (1979)
This novel focuses on the character of Eddie/ Eudoxia/ Eadith Twyborn who has
a male body and female consciousness and his search for identity. This novel is an
inquiry into bisexuality and sees androgyny as a symbol of wholeness.
 Check your Progress-1
A) Answer in a word/phrase/sentence:
1) What is the name of Patrick White’s first published novel?
2) Which of Patrick White’s novels has won the Miles Franklin award?
3) Name the two brothers of Brown family in The Solid Mandala?
4) Where did Elizabeth Hunter in The Eye of The Storm experience the storm?
5) Where was the Brumby Island situated?
1) In which year was Patrick White awarded the Nobel Prize?
A) 1974 B) 1971 C) 1973 D) 1975
2) Who is the protagonist of The Aunt’s Story?
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A) Elizabeth Hunter B) Theodora Goodman
C) Laura D) Amy
3) When was Voss published?
A) 1957 B) 1961 C) 1966 D) 1955
4) What is setting of The Solid Mandala?
A) Sydney B) Sarsaparilla C) England D) Knightsbridge
5) What is the name of solicitor in The Eye of The Strom?
A) Wyburd B) Basil C) Alfred D) Ramson
 Glossary and Notes:
 Transcendence: [n.] is the quality of being able to go beyond normal limits
or
 Boundary: [n.] The boundary of an area of land is an imaginary line that
separates it from other areas.
 Orphan: [n.] An orphan is a child whose parents are dead.
 Aboriginal: [adj.] Aboriginal means belonging or relating to the Australian
Aborigines.
 Crucifixion: [n.] Crucifixion is a way of killing people which was
common in the Roman Empire, in which they were tied or nailed to a cross
and left to die.
 Omniscient: [adj.] If you describe someone as omniscient, you mean they
know or seem to know everything.
 Cyclone: [n.] A cyclone is a violent tropical storm in which the air goes
round and round.
 Tyrannical: [adj.] If you describe someone as tyrannical, you mean that
they are severe or unfair towards the people that they have authority over.
 Intuitive: [adj.] If you have an intuitive idea or feeling about something,
you feel that it is true although you have no evidence or proof of it.
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 Survivor: [n.] A survivor of a disaster, accident, or illness is someone who
continues to live afterwards in spite of coming close to death.
 Bisexuality: [adj.] Someone who is bisexual is sexually attracted to both
men and women.
 Androgyny: [n.] Androgyny is the state of being neither distinctly
masculine nor distinctly feminine
5.2.2 Introduction to the Novel The Tree of Man
The Tree of Man was first published in 1955 in United States and subsequently
in England. It was the first novel to win international acclaim. When White started to
work with the novel he doubted whether he should write another word after his
books were ignored in Australia. However, this novel immediately established
White's reputation as a major writer and was compared to Thomas Hardy, Leo
Tolstoy, and D. H. Lawrence. The Tree of Man was a family saga, which focused on
ordinary people at the beginning of the 20th century. The novel reveals the story of
protagonists, Stan and Amy, who establish a family and farm in the Australian
wilderness. They have children and grandchildren, but the land is eventually
engulfed by suburb at the end of the novel. It is primarily and consistently concerned
with the relationship of man to God, of God to man. God is God, it seems to
proclaim, because man is man. And equally the reverse. One lives within the being of
the other. One dies with the other too and must be reborn. This is a book about a
mystery. It is also, more strenuously, a wrestling throughout the life of Stan Parker
with the contradictions, the complexities of this relationship.
The Tree of Man is a story of an inner development of Stan against the
background of the development of town. Stan is the founder of the town and his
growth is seen against the sometimes antagonistic development of the town. It can be
read as the story of an individual’s progress towards spiritual truth and a complex
response to economic and social relations in Australia in the first half of the 20th
century.
On the narrative level, it deals with the hardships of a farming couple, Stan and
Amy Parker, in New South Wales. The frame is that of the conventional pioneering
saga, albeit with biblical overtones and associations. Stan is one of White's
characteristic seekers, and his spiritual capacity is set off against Amy's conventional
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attitudes. Stan "respected and accepted her mysteries, as she could never respect and
accept his." The story contains the typical features of Australia's natural trials and
disasters, such as bushfires, drought, and floods, but above all it enacts the
psychological drama of Stan's desire to understand the purposes of God, which "are
made clear to some old women, and nuns and idiots."
1) Who is the founder of the town in the novel The Tree of Man?
2) Which natural disasters responsible for the destruction of New South Wales
are mentioned in the novel The Tree of Man?
3) With whom, White is compared after the publication of The Tree of Man?
4) What is the prime desire of Stan?
5) What are the names of the protagonists of the novel The Tree of Man?
1. When did the novel The Tree of Man first published?
A) 1955 B) 1965 C) 1975 D) 1968
2) The Tree of Man is a complex response to economic and social relations in
Australia in __________.
A) the first half of the 19th Century B) the first half of the 20th Century
C) end of the 19th Century D) end of the20th Century
3) The life depicted in the novel is a life of ________.
A) farmer couple B) business group
C) gypsies D) warriors
4) To whom, according to Stan, the purposes of God are made clear?
A) to Amy and other inhabitants
B) some old women, and nuns and idiots
C) to Stan himself
D) fathers of churches
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5) Where did Stan and Amy Parker live?
A) Old East Wales B) New North Wales
C) New South Wales D) New West Wales
 Glossary and Notes:
 Antagonistic: [adj.] If a person is antagonistic to someone or something,
they show hatred or dislike towards them.
 Pioneer: [n.] Someone who is referred to as a pioneer in a particular area
of activity is one of the first people to be involved in it and develop it.
5.2.3 Detailed Summary of The Tree of Man
The narrative of the novel is divided into four parts. The first part opens with
Stan Parker, the man coming in the cart, where the dominant trees and bushes
thickened the land. Stan first appears as the unnamed man, an anonymous
representative of a future race. He comes with an axe and struck at the side of a hairy
tree and struck still several white chips had fallen. It was the first time, anything like
this, had happened in that part of the bush. His father was a blacksmith and his
mother calls him as ‘Stanley’. She considers it as a respectable sort of name. She
remembered also the name of the explorer which she has heard and it becomes true
in a sense as he attempts to carve a farm out of the bush and explores new place for
him and his community.
The novel further discusses Stan’s acquaintance with Amy Fibbens and their
marriage. Amy is a girl who has no affection for any human being and not yet been
loved except her mother before her meeting with Stan. She was found of Mrs. Erbey,
who has given a copy of Bible to Amy. Stan also doesn’t have any friend. It is their
common aloneness, which attracts Stan and Amy to each other. After marriage, Amy
Parker’s life which had never been a wilderness was becoming one. It was peopled
by her friends. She develops friendship with Mrs. O’Dowd, her neighbour and
Quigley family. Parker’s life at Bangalay is full of hardships. The novel depicts the
landscape of South Wales, its rain, drought, and fire. The peaceful relationship
between Amy and her yellow cow is very significant. Her womanly instincts are
revealed through her relationship with Julia, a cow and its miserable death.
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Several years, she attempted to have a child and there is incommunicable misery
of her barrenness. At one point she said to her husband, “I don’t think we shall have
our child.” This apprehension of barrenness tortured her lot. Mr. Armstrong, a rich
man builds a country house near Parkers and Stan Parker worked for a time in his
garden. Old German Fritz was bending a hand in those days at Parkers. The natural
disaster of heavy rainfall displaced the people of Bangalay. People go to see the
flood at Wullunya. Mrs. Parker and Mick O’Dowd went to search their men who
were at Wullunya to do rescue work from flood water. Then there is settlement of
new place called Durilgai, meaning fruitful, which is named after the person who
went down to rescue the victims of flood.
The first part offers the depiction of rural community with friendship and mutual
resistance to natural disasters such as fire and flood. A valid social order in which
people work together, shaping their lives with their own hands, is contrasted with the
chaotic situation created by natural disasters.
The second part of the novel opens with the depiction of the village Durilgai.
Mr. Denyer, who comes to Durilgai. After a long apprehension of barrenness, a boy
named Ray and a girl child Thelma was born to her. This part narrates the other
natural disaster of fire. All the part of country to the west of Durilgai through which
the road rose from Bangalay seemed to be under fire that has consumed Island. Tom
Armstrong, a rich man from Glastonbury came from Sydney on hearing the news of
fire to take possession of Madelaine is a beautiful woman, whose husband had been a
sailor that never came back. The biggest flicking fire in the bushes of Durilgai had
disturbed the life of people. It also created the suspicion in Amy’s marital relations.
Stan had saved Madelaine from the fire, so it is expected from male point of view
that Amy had to be content with the bravery of Stan’s act in rescuing the woman
from fire. This part significantly depicts how the development in external events and
activities are important to the interior growth. Outback first becomes settlement, then
village, then town, the man, Stan Parker, grows old. The novel reveals a complex
image of the development of the man trough the myth of Adam and Eve against the
development of the town. The town is developed but its development is doomed in
the end to hardness, atrophy, and final decay.
The third part of the novel delineates the familial relationships of Parkers and
growing of children and simultaneously the development and cultivation of the land.
Thelma’s married life with Mr. Forsdyke who’s other name was Dudley, throws light
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on other married couples in Parker’s family which is developed to focus the man-
woman’s acceptance to understand each other’s mystery. The part ends with Ray’s
departure from the family for his business of selling cars.
The last part of the novel opens at Parker’s cultivated garden which signifies the
cruel township in the south. In this part, the disharmony of the town as well as the
distortion of the human relationships is depicted. It reflects the ruptures in the
various relations like Thelma and her solicitor husband, Ray and Elsie Tarbutt, Stan
and Amy. The narration of Hamlet episode gives new dimension to the relationships.
Hamlet’s hatred for her mother reminds Amy about her son Ray. The whole episode
reflects the emptiness in human relationships and motivates Amy to think over her
relationship with Stan and Ray. Ray’s death at the end reveals another aspect of man-
woman relationship. Ray is victimized in this relationship. In Duralgai after the war
nothing was the same again. The habit of violence exercised on a national scale made
it impossible to restore the collective energy for the social construction. After the
war, ‘things were made to work. But the contrary process of destruction was far more
convincing, once perfected’ (p. 199). The urbanized society towards which Ray and
Thelma are drawn is alienating, but not so totally confusing that the only possible
hope for redemption. The novel ends with the death of Stan but Amy and Stan
throughout their journey of life realizes that in spite of all these ups and down, they
are pleased and they had survived and were surviving.
1) Who has given a copy of Bible to Amy?
2) Who came from Sydney to take possession of Madeline?
3) What is the major cause of the disharmony in Durilgai?
4) Who rescued Madelaine from the fire?
5) What is the name of Thelma’s husband?
1) The Novel is divided into _________ parts.
A) Five B) Four C) Three D) Seven
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2) What is the Profession of Stan’s father?
A) Farmer B) Blacksmith C) Goldsmith D) Gardner
3) Which disaster has displaced the people of Bangalay?
A) Cyclone B) Bushfire C) Earthquake D) Heavy Rainfall
4) What is the name of Shakespearean play depicted in the novel?
A) Hamlet B) Henry IV C) King Lear D) Henry V
5) What is the name of Parker’s Cow?
A) Lenny B) Maggi C) Elsie D) Julia
 Glossary and Notes:
 Blacksmith: [n.] A blacksmith is a person whose job is making things by
hand out of metal that has been heated to a high temperature.
 Explorer: [n.] An explorer is someone who travels to places about which
very little is known, in order to discover what is there.
 Acquaintance: [n.] An acquaintance is someone who you have met and
know slightly, but not well.
 Apprehension: [n.] Apprehension is a feeling of fear
 Atrophy: [v.] If a muscle or other part of the body atrophies, it decreases
in size or strength, often as a result of an illness.
5.2.4 Characters in The Tree of Man
This section discusses the characters, in Patrick White’s The Tree of Man, which
will definitely create an interest in you to turn to the original novel The Tree of Man
as well as some of the other novels of an Australian novelist, Patrick White. The
understanding of the individual character will help us to comprehend the novel in
whole.
Stan Parker
Stan Parker is the protagonist of the novel. In mythological illusion he alludes to
Adam. He is seen busy in Eden with his nervy, cockney Eve. He is a good man, with
the special dignity of those whose work and life is part of the natural rhythm, a
peasant, with the country-worker’s scabby hands, in a land which has never been
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subjected to an aristocracy. He carries the marks and limitations of his life. But his
life was torn between the ‘nostalgia of permanence’ and the ‘fiend of motion’.
Before he dies, Stan comes to experience a sense of harmony with the universe.
He points with his stick at a gob of spittle and says, 'That is God'. The possibility of
epiphany passes to his grandson, who resolves to 'write a poem of life'. In the end
there are the trees, and the boy, 'putting out shoots of green thought. So that, in the
end, there was no end'. There is hope that the boy's poem will reflect something of
what it took his grandfather a lifetime to learn, of the harmony and oneness of the
universe.
Stan's moment of illumination experienced in isolation is undercut by irony.
Seeing epiphany in a gob of spittle should be the supreme moment of his relationship
with God, yet the portentousness of the revelation is followed by the wry comment
from the evangelist who has been trying to convert Stan: 'You met all kinds'. His
retreat into a quest for personal salvation is presented as slightly dubious. As the
novel progresses he comes to believe that such activity is little more than sterile
egoism.
Amy Parker
Amy is the wife of Stan Parker. Her character alludes to Eve in the Old
Testament. Her husband Stan submits himself completely to the land. He accepts the
omnipotence of the Australian distance, whereas she detests the wind, the distance
and the road, and envies them as things she can never possess. She is a wanton,
restless, anxious to grasp and enjoy, a prey always to her own fantasies. Her
sexuality and her sentimentality are not to be separated. She is a fleshy, answering to
the tug of the blood and the fragrance of the heavy blooms. She is drawn towards the
Parker’s bog Irish neighbors, the O’Dowds, who lives the life of the senses, caught
up in present moment and set in their boozy uxuriousness. In her middle-age she was
adulterous having relation with Leo. But her actual adultery in the autumn season is a
last desperate clutching at the life of the senses.
She has a feeling for the productive force of the land, but in her it is shown in a
preference for its fruits, for the cows, the cabbages, and the house. Stan responds
always to what is mysterious and ungoverned in the land, but Amy could sympathize
only with forms that she could understand and control. She was also conscious of and
flayed by some deep deficiency in her relationship with Stan. The love of the two
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was from the beginning flawed by this tension between them, an imperfection which
makes it all the more convincingly human. She longs for the kind of expression that
the man is incapable of.
To relieve a generally alienating urban existence, there are 'exits from confusion'
available, derived not from God or nature but from social forms. For Amy, one exit
from confusion is the insights shared with her friend, Mrs. O’Dowd shares moments
of transcendence with her.
The Parkers' lives are viewed from a variety of perspectives. Sometimes 'the
whole landscape would seem to be built around the woman'. There is a baby coming,
a house being built, and an old cow of which Amy is fond. She seems sometimes to
be struggling to understand her husband, and therefore to dominate him, but she is
also pictured in terms of honey-coloured contentment and light. The rural community
is not idealized: it offers friendship and mutual resistance to natural disasters such as
fire and flood, but sometimes Stan and Amy are bored with it and there seems to be
authorial sympathy for their son Ray when he seeks to escape the 'becalmed virtue' of
the wheelwright's shop where he works, and for Thelma when she looks for music
and society not to be found in Duralgai. Nevertheless, the Parkers are a part of a valid
community based on constructive relationship between people and landscape.
Thelma
Thelma is the daughter of Stan and Amy Parker. She has a self-regarding
daintiness from her earliest years. Her ways are always deliberately genteel in her
adulthood when she marries a correct and colourless solicitor and changes her first
name to Christine. Her characteristics are, in all, an inverted or a degenerate form of
those her parents.
Madelaine
Madelaine, the haughty pale young woman is a house guest at Glastonbury, the
pretentiously named manor house belonging to Armstrong, the wealthy retired
butcher. She is a city-like and substantial figure in the novel. She becomes the focus
of Amy’s romanticism as she rides around the country on a splendid horse. She is the
embodiment of the romantic view. For Amy, she has become a figure out of
medieval or Keatsian romance; a glimmering figure, seductive, alluring, played over
by the wavering colours of Amy’s longings and maginings. She is one of the few
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hardly realized figures in the novel, more an unconvincing gesture than a solid
creation.
5.2.5 Themes of The Tree of Man
A theme is the main idea, moral, or message, of a novel. The message may be
about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal
ideas and may be implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,
setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.
1. The theme of Dream and Vision
Throughout his novels Patrick White explores the emotionally damaged people,
who lead a lonely existence without a lifeline to other lives. He reluctantly portrays
his characters as totally destroyed. In the characters he seeks to find a compensating
value that might gives their life some significance. He reveals the force that
transforms their ruined personal life as a richer life through the imagination. The
character, which cannot attain to a rewarding life, White tends to provide them with a
visionary quality.
Dream is the process of conscious fantasy and it is a universal process.
However, when one’s personal life is especially unsatisfactory, he may need the
richer dreams to occupy a larger part of his existence. Thus, some part of dreaming is
necessary to the outlet of stark reality. Stan and Amy in The Tree of Man are
emotionally hungry. But Amy finds in dreaming some outlet for her frustration,
whereas Stan, similarly frustrated, suppresses his desire to dream. Instead of an
indulgence in a dream life like Amy, he is gifted with a sense of vision by White.
Vision is an experience beyond a human level, something mystical. It is interesting to
note that Stan’s visionary sense is at its highest when his personal life is particularly
empty. His great illuminating vision at the end comes, when his life is at low ebb.
White provides Stan with a visionary sense because Stan cannot dream to any large
degree. The novel is concerned with the relationship of dreams and visions to the
make-up of Amy and Stan. His dreams reveal much about his emotional make-up
which makes him to lead his life more aptly.
In their loneliness, for the first time, Stan and Amy attracts to one another. They
have the problem of communication they cannot easily deal with people and make
themselves socially perfect. Stan and Amy have neither any friend nor felt affection
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for any human being. When Stan walks her home after their first meeting, Amy
wonders whether the town will still be there in a thousand years. This is a speculation
that it shows her proneness to dream. Their thoughts about this speculative future
reveal significant difference between them. Stan’s interest is confined to the non-
emotional process of trees turning to coal, whereas Amy’s interest is centred in an
emotional response. Stan shows strong repression of emotion, while Amy betrays a
vague but deep sense of deprivation. Both Amy and Stan are timid dreams because of
their lack of emotional experience. Stan does not any hope that the world of dreams
may offer him anything positive. On the other hand, Amy continuously dreams but
she too does not believe in any realization of dreams.
In the novel White explores the considerable ambivalence towards the value of
dreaming which makes life bearable. On one hand he is saying that dream is
necessary to give the significance to any one’s life, because it is always
disappointing. On the other hand he says that dreams are bound to disappoint in life
that will not measure up to them. There is bitterness along with the dilemma. If one
does not dream one is left empty and hopeless, and if one does dream one will be
disappointed with the realities of the ordinary life.
White tries to depict Stan and Amy as the frustrated people in their lives and
there is only a partial improvement in their lives through the dreams. Both lack the
emotional and educational experience as a result they do not furnishes their dreams
richly enough, which may compensate to drab from their lives safely. It shows the
bleakness in the lives of people. In order to find an alternative or a supplement to the
harsh reality of ordinary life, these people cannot enter into the life of the
imagination completely. Thus, The Tree of Man is highly successful novel in its
exploitation of the life of the imagination through dreams.
2. Search for Spiritual Truth
White is often associated with a metaphysical tendency, yet he ended his
lifetime's search for meaning with confident proclamation that agency is not lost, that
something can be done on a practical level.
We might trace in his fiction a tension between that facet which seeks after
spiritual truth and an opposing suspicion that to devote oneself exclusively to such
activity might be just a diversion from the difficult task of shaping a just society in a
particular time and place.
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This tension is evident in The Tree of Man, first published in 1955. The novel
can be read as the chart of an individual's progress towards spiritual truth, but we
might also see in the novel a complex response to economic and social relations in
Australia in the first half of the twentieth century.
It is the story of Stan and Amy Parker, who settle in outback Australia at the end
of the nineteenth century, carving a farm out of the bush. Settlement spreads and
encloses the Parkers' formerly isolated homestead. Their children Ray and Thelma
move to the city. The story spans the Parkers' lifetime, ending at a time coinciding
with the novel's production. Urban Australia encroaches: the Parkers in the novel are
dying, and pioneers like them in Australia in the I950s were a dying breed.
A metaphysical tendency to search for a spiritual truth transcendent of social
forms is seen in the novel. In the beginning was Stan, Amy, and primeval wilderness.
They start like Adam and Eve on land which has no prior cultural or material
meaning, as blank as the note-book in which Stan would like to write some
illuminating 'poem or prayer’. Their life on the farm they create brings occasional
fulfillment, but not the atonement Stan seeks.
Other people come: the settlement acquires a name, a Post Office and stores, and
'new patterns of life’ are traced on the landscape. Men are called away to war, they
return and resume life on the land, which is gradually changed by suburbia and a way
of life different from the pioneering one. None of this, however, is as important as
Stan's relationship with God. He carries on yearning for the inexpressible. Where
Aborigines are concerned, he echoes the Great Australian Silence of the period.
3. Man Woman Relationship:
Though The Tree of Man is a long book, it centers on the lives and
circumstances of a man and a woman. It is the ordinariness of Stan and Amy Parker
that causes White to choose them. Here the family is chosen for representation in
which man and woman are deliberately shown as Every-people and their children are
almost anybody's kids. As a subject matter of the novel is the daily experience of
poor humble people, they do not represent, or models of a certain historical type.
Stan and Amy simply live their lives quietly.
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Myth and Symbolism in The Tree of Man
Patrick White’s Tree of Man is a mythical novel and the author establishes a
myth which is concerned with the relationship of man to God, and God to man.
Along with the relationship runs a series of natural conflicts-flood and fire, and we
see human desires are frustrated by non-human powers. Thematically, the novel
follows an old proverb, Man proposes and God disposes. The novel does not focus
on individual woman and man in relation to God, but on women and men in their
social and economic relations in a particular time and place.
Hostile human desires and distorted consciousness make this novel a story of
birth, passion, and defeat by death which is ultimately the results of all human’s
common fate-either good or bad. Patrick White does not give a moral lecture as the
novel sets in a forest where the cultivation of man and nature occur side by side.
The first trait which characterizes Christianity is that it is faith in an event. In
Old Testament, it was the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ, which symbolized
in the novel. This event constitutes an ellipsis of manhood; the intervention of God
not only drastically changes the consciousness of man but also brings a new vision
towards novelty. The agents of both the situations-God and Stan Parker (the
protagonist)-come with their tools, though their tools vary in a sense that one uses
language to break the silence and on the other hand another uses an axe to make a
sound. The similarity between the two remains common on the ground of not what
they do but what they think. Their decisions are straight forward and hence lack
insignificant assertions. Then the man took an axe and struck at the side of a hairy
tree … … … The silence was immense. It was the first time anything like this had
happened in that part of the bush. The break of silence becomes his first
communication with nature especially when nature is so close this young Australian
man. Stan demonstrates his psychical harmony to nature by closing the eyes in night
to sleep and opening them for the daylight. The daily work makes him so tired that
he doesn’t persuade sleep but the natural sleep takes him over. In this mode Stan
works throughout his life and died eventually a peaceful death. it is like an old tree
fall after giving plenty fruits and seeing significant seasons throughout year.
White parodies the biblical linear at the beginning and explores the idea that
landscape is man-made and not pre-ordained. From this alternative perception of
landscape it follows logically that what is made by man continues to be shaped by
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man. The novel is not confident about the proposition of wholeness: it focuses on
man in society, on change and confusion, and on individuality and idiosyncrasy of
character.
The four sections of the book document the four seasons and four phrases of
Stan Parker, and his woman’s four phrases with contemplation on daily duties that
are essential for the survival of the fittest in the wilderness of nature. Stan shows
power to dominate things that need physical strength like the sap raises in the tree.
He lives in a Nietzschean manner as if God were dead or he was the son of god like
Christ, who ultimately knows how to lead his life with contrary situations. The hero
doesn’t believe in any freedom for himself as he knows that he is also a part of larger
ordering. He wants to play the man’s role in the creation. For this reason he is always
ready for hardships as it gives him strength to firth back for the survival cause.
Stan knows that it is to be approached so much by faith as by morality: we can
have no theoretical knowledge of the deity, and the best we can do is act morally, as
though we knew there was a god. Stan doesn’t perplex on the issue whether God
exists or not but internally realizes that the supreme value for life unexpectedly set in
motion the inevitable decline in the idea of value. In keeping with this, as the man’s
power wither and fade so too do the manifestations of a purpose in everything. The
state of the old Parker, blinking into the light, unable to fasten his mind, his last
feeble powers of awareness on anything, certainly proclaims that man is mortal as
Christ was and that he is born to crumble back into dust. Christians believe that the
second person of Trinity became a human being and died for their sins. The force
that works through him must flicker and go out, only the coming of full strength of
another Stan Parker, of other simple good men.
The centrality of Stan and his woman is maintained by the other characters like
Doll Quigley, Ray, Thelma, O’ Dowd and Bub and so on and so forth. This centrality
establishes Stan Parker as the sun among planets. He lives, works, and dies for
another Stan Parker who will restore the radiance. The God-power is lying within
and behind and working out through the efforts of the man. And thus the last
sentence provides evidence for his continuity. The last sentence goes like: So that in
the end there was no end.
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5.3 Technique:
Patrick White has used different types of technique in the novel. He uses the
language which has been criticized for it’s too artful and contrived. However, his
careful usages of the words sharpen the reader’s attention and evoke a more delicate
expectancy. Pedagogically, this polishing of attentiveness must be achieved almost at
once. For this reason the name of the hero is suspended until the end of the second
page. His name is simply given: 'The name of this man was Stan Parker'. In the novel
we feel some controversy about the possibility of later elements which gives a new
meaning to earlier components. It is argued that the earlier element must have always
had that meaning we missed it.
5.4 Answer to check your progress:

 Check Your Progress-1
1. Happy valley
2. Riders in the chariot
3. Waldo and Arthur
4. The Brumby Island
5. Queen’s land Coast
B) Choose the correct alternative
1. 1973
2. Theodora Goodman
3. 1957
4. Sarsaparilla
5. Wyburd
1. Stan
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2. Bushfires, drought, floods
3. Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, and D. H. Lawrence
4. To understand the purposes of God
5. Stan and Amy
1. 1955
2. the first half of the 20th Century
3. farmer couple
4. some old women, and nuns and idiots
5. New South Wales
1. Mrs. Erbey
2. Tom Armstrong
3. The biggest flicking fire
4. Stan Parker
5. Mr. Forsdyke
1. Four
2. Blacksmith
3. Heavy Rainfall
4. Hamlet
5. Julia
5.5 Exercises:
1. Write a detailed note on the major themes of the novel The Tree of Man.
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2. Write an essay on the art of characterization in the novel The Tree of Man.
3. Write a detailed note on the portrayal of the character Stan Parker.
4. The Tree of Man is a story of Spiritual quest and materialistic development.
Discuss.
5. Explain the symbolism of Patrick White in his novel The Tree of Man.
5.6 Reference to further study:

1. During, Simon. Patrick White: Australian Writers. Oxford University
Press, 1996.
2. Dutton, Geoffrey, Patrick White: Australian Writers and Their Works:
3. Lansdowne Press, 1962.
4. Kiernan, Brian. Patrick White. Macmillan, 1980.
5. Scheckter, John. The Australian Novel, 1830-1980: A Thematic
Introduction: P. Lang, 2008.

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Unit-6
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
Contents
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Aravind Adiga: Life and Works
6.3 Plot/Summary of The White Tiger
6.4 Major and Minor Characters in The White Tiger
6.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s in The White Tiger
6.6 Summary
6.8 Exercises
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6.0 Objectives:
 know about the life and works of Aravind Adiga
 know about the plot of the novel The White Tiger
 learn the character/s in the novel The White Tiger
 learn the theme/s and narrative technique/s used in the novel The White
Tiger
 be able to answer the questions on the novel The White Tiger
6.1 Introduction:
This unit begins with the discussion of the life and works of Aravind Adiga. It
also studies his novel The White Tiger in terms of its plot, character/s, theme/s and
narrative technique/s.
5.2 Aravind Adiga: Life and Works

Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on the 23rd of October, 1974
to Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and Usha Adiga, Kannadigas, both of whom hailed from
Mangalore. His paternal grandfather was Late K. Suryanarayana Adiga, former
chairman of Karnataka Bank. He grew up in Mangalore and studied at Canara High
School, then at St. Aloysius High School, where he completed his SSLC in 1990. He
secured first rank in the state in SSLC. Incidentally his elder brother Anand Adiga
secured second rank in SSLC and first rank in PUC in the State. After immigrating to
Sydney, Australia, with his family, Arvind studied at James Ruse Agricultural High
School. He studied English literature at Columbia College, Columbia University in
New York, where he studied with Simon Schama and graduated as salutatorian in
1997. He also studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, where one of his tutors was
Hermione Lee.
Adiga began his journalistic career as a financial journalist, interning at the
Financial Times. In pieces published in the Financial Times and Money, he covered
the stock market and investment, interviewing, among others, Donald Trump. His
review of previous Booker Prize winner Peter Carey's book, ‘Oscar and Lucinda’,
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appeared in The Second Circle, an online literary review. He was subsequently hired
by TIME, where he remained a South Asia correspondent for three years before
going freelance. During his freelance period, he wrote The White Tiger. He currently
lives in Mumbai, India.
It was a great day for Indian literary world to cherish and be jubilant in the year
2008 when Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger won The Man Booker
award. When asked by Stuart Jeffreis why it was compelling for Adiga to tell the
story of Balram Halwai, Adiga had replied.
“I don’t think a novelist should just write about his own experiences. Yes. I am
the son of a doctor. Yes. I had rigorous formal education, but for me the challenge of
a novelist is to write about people who aren`t anything like him” that is Aravind,
Adiga had written a novel of a down-trodden, uneducated son as rickshaw puller
turned amoral entrepreneur and killer. He had written a novel portraying India as a
society by corruption and servitude. He had brought into the light the dark side of
India, an unglamorous portrait of India`s economic miracle. It is the depiction of the
lot of the people over 90% percent. Adiga had felt compelled from within to write
about these people who do not have an access to hospitals that too without doctors,
about the people who are the victims of corrupt politics that is mockery of
democracy. He felt rather happy to exclude 10% of Indians who always depict India
to the West.
He intends not to attack on the country but does what Flaubert, Balzac and
Dickens did in 19th century for their societies that is to highlight the brutal injustices
within the societies. That’s why he calls the novel as the greater process of self-
examination
The novel is epistolary in form in which Balram Halwai, the protagonist is
writing letters to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabano, on the official visit to India and
curious to know about India`s skill to produce entrepreneurs. So Balram presumes to
tell him how to win power and influence people in modern India. Balram`s voice is
not that of old India in which only the saadhus and snake-charmers lived. It is the
voice of emerging superpower. Balram, through his own story a tale of bribery,
corruption, skull-duggery, toxic traffic jams, theft and murder-wants to tell about the
“know how” of the success mantra. Balram is optimistic of the fact that yellow and
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brown men will take over the world from the white man. The novel is a march of
East on to the West.
A) Fill in the blanks
1) Adiga worked as a correspondent to ---------while he worked with TIME
2) The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize in the year ---------
3) Balram Halwai`s father was ----------------
4) Adiga partrays the---------side of India.
5) The novel is ---------in its form
B) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence.
1) In which university did Adiga study English Literature?
2) In which publication did Adiga begin his journalistic career?
3) Whose story did Arvind Adiga narrate in The White Tiger?
4) Whom did Balram write letters to?
5) What is the speculation of Adiga as a novelist about the future of India?
 S.S.L.C.: Secondary School Leaving Certificate
 P.U.C.: Pre University Course
 Kannadigas : Inhabitants of the state of Karnataka.
 TIME: A renowned magazine
 Amoral: lacking morality
 Entrepreneur: a person who is successful in setting up bussiness
 Epistolary novel: A novel written in the form of letters
6.3 Plot Summary of The White Tiger

The White Tiger is a debut novel by an Indian author Aravind Adiga, a son of a
doctor, about the world he has hardly inhabited. The novel was first published in
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2008 and in the same year won prestigious Man Booker prize. Through the narration
of the main character Balram Halwai, the novel gives a dark view of the modern day
life of 95% of India. The main theme of the novel is the contrast between India`s rise
as a modern global economy on the one hand and working class people on the other
hand who live in rotting basements below the glass apartment blocks that are home
to their employers. The other themes include corruption as stigma to the Indian
politics and society. It even deals with familial loyalty versus independence and the
tensions between Hindus and Muslims in this secular country, The novel is prophetic
in its voice that “In 20 years’ time it will just be us, Brown and yellow men at the top
of the pyramid and will rule world” It awakens the world about the emergence of
much heralded economic power home, the “New India”
The White Tiger is an epistolary novel, a series of letters written over the period
of seven nights Balram Halwai, the protagonist or the main character of the novel
writes to Wen Jiabao the premier of the state council of the people`s Republic of
China. The Chinese premier is on the official visit to India to know India`s skill in
making of an entrepreneur and Balram describes his rise from the lowly origin to his
current position as an entrepreneur in Bangalore. While narrating his story, he even
presents his views on the caste system and its political corruption.
The protagonist Balram lived in the village of Laxmangarh, a fictional village in
Bihar (like that of Ramgarh of Sholey). He was born there in northern Indian village,
a tiny hell hole. His parents even did not bother to give him a name. They just called
him “Munna” or a “boy”. He was the son of a rickshaw puller. The economic
condition of the family was so poor that he could not finish his school despite being
brilliant student in the class. He was such a smart lad and was even recognized by
school inspector who praised him as “White Tiger” rarest of animals, the creature
that comes along once in a generation. The school inspector promises to arrange a
scholarship and proper schooling for this young lad but the family takes him out of
school and asks him to work in a tea shop at Dhanbad to support family. His school
teacher Mr. Krishna who was not happy with the name “Munna” which simply
meant “boy” in Hindi, gave him the name Balram the name of the brother of Hindu
god Krishna, His last name Halwai denotes the caste system, the basic foundation of
Indian society.
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While working as a tea boy, he is attracted towards high salaries paid to the
drivers. He learns to drive and becomes successful in getting a break as a chauffeur
with a known rich man from his village. This rich man is known as “The stork” in his
village because of his long nose. Balram drives the stork`s son Mr. Ashok, living in
the city of New Delhi. Mr. Ashok has recently migrated from America and is
learning the ways to cope up with Indian system of administration. New Delhi is the
city that gives an eye opening experience to Balram as he is at the wheel while
driving his master Mr. Ashok and his wife Pinky madam to the shopping malls and
call centres. Balram becomes aware of the immense wealth and opportunities around
him, At the same time he knows well that this world of rich and mighty is not
accessible to him. Balram learns much about this new world through the talks at his
back seat and even realizes that the glitter of that world is at the cost of some crime,
deceit, and corruption. He owes not much to the school he learned than to the streets
he drove. He even says that the streets of India provided him with all the education
he needed. Mr. Ashok has recently returned from America and after having seen the
corruption and hardness of life in India, has gone in conflicting situation further
worsened by the non-acceptance of Pinky Madam, his wife, by his father as he has
married her outside his caste, His marriage to Pinky Madam is not approved by his
father.
Balram broods over his situation and realizes that there is only one way to
become the part of this glamorous new India, that is to murder his employer, Ashok
and escape from his present pathetic state. He always wanted to break away from
what he calls ‘Rooster coop’. He thinks, Indian servants are so honest that they
would never grab any opportunity to take advantage of their masters. Only a pervert
brain, freak would dare to break out of the coop even at the risk of his family getting
destroyed. He knows only the rarest of the rare like him can do that, so he decides to
kill his own master Ashok. One day when Ashok is carrying seven lac rupees in cash
to bribe the politicians in New Delhi, Balram slashes the throat of Ashok and kills
him. He flees to Bangalore with his cousin Dharam. With the rupees gained by
committing a crime, he creates his own taxi company The White Tiger Drivers” and
changes his name to Ashok Sharma. He becomes a wealthy entrepreneur in India’s
new technological society and emerges as a top caste in the Indian society of light.
Thus The White Tiger narrates a thrilling ride of a brilliant boy from dark India into
the India of light.
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Critical Analysis of the novel:
Since its publication and recognition by the most coveted Man Booker prize for
the year 2008,Arvind Adiga’s debut novel ‘The White Tiger’ has been in the lime
light. It has torn down the mask of so called shining India and has exposed the reality
of over 95%of Indians represented by Balaram Halwai, the protagonist of the novel.
It has portrayed the scarred and poverty stricken face of the unsung masses.
The White Tiger depicts the condition of poor people. The politicians feed
themselves on the sweat of the poor, and their helplessness is mistaken as a luster of
India which actually is not that glisten in Indian sun.
The protagonist of the novel, Balram Halwai is born in a poor family in Bihar-
the darkest part of India; but he has an innate ambition to be high and mighty like the
landlords in his village. He realizes that those who have lived in village have
shattered their lives and so strongly feels to flee away breaking family bond and
make his living in the city which would give him ample opportunities to realize his
dream to be rich and mighty . He often compares his village and holy river Ganga
with the darkness. When he moves to the metropolitan city to make his fortunetate,
uncovers the sordid truth lying underneath this glittering city. The posh national
capital Delhi appears stylish and elegant to the West but it has smartly camouflaged
the insignificant slums in this concrete jungle.
The book is like the Satyajeet Ray or Adoor Gopalkrishnan’s movies, which
present no larger than life characters. It does not sound melodramatic. Rather, it
speaks about the inequality between the rich and the poor. All the policies, rules are
formulated by the richer class, bribing the politicians that catalyze the earning
capacity of rich making them richer and poor the poorer.
No doubt in this secular country , which is one of the largest democracies of the
world, it elects, but the policies made for them hardly reach out to them through the
bottle neck of beaurocracy .There is an elaborate network of middlemen who create
a wide gulf between the government and the common masses.
The protagonist’s master Mr. Ashok and his wife Pinky madam are classic
examples of the elite of the city dwelling class. They just do not care for the life of
the people who serene them. They represent the spirit of 5% of modern India with
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whom the time tested values of truth, selfless service, honesty and patriotism are at
extinct.
The narration of the novel by the protagonist Balram Halwai through his letters
proceeds like a snail. The cold blooded murder by the protagonist does not evoke a
sense of fear or instill a chill in the spine. On the contrary, it creates sympathy for the
driver who is killing a big thug of India who corrupts the politicians and gets his
work done to exploit the poor. The novel presents the truth behind the Incredible
India revealing the success mantra that anyone with killer instant can achieve
anything he aspires for.
Selected Critical Reviews
"As Balram’s education expands, he grows more corrupt. Yet the reader’s
sympathy for the former tea- boy never flags. In creating a character that is both
witty and psychopathic, Mr. Adiga has produced a hero almost as memorable as Pip,
proving himself the Charles Dickens of the call-centre generation." - The Economist
"Balram’s violent bid for freedom is shocking. What, we’re left to ask, does it
make him just another thug in India’s urban jungle or a revolutionary and idealist?
It’s a sign of this book’s quality, as well as of its moral seriousness, that it keeps you
guessing to the final page and beyond." - Adrian Turpin, Financial Times.
"With strong, sympathetic characters, a swell of political unrest and an
entertaining plot, the book rattles along at top speed under Balram’s chirpy
navigation." - James Urquhart, Financial Times
"Aravind Adiga's first novel is couched as a cocksure confession from a
deceitful, murderous philosopher runt who has the brass neck to question his lowly
place in the order of things. His disrespect for his elders and betters is shocking --
even Mahatma Gandhi gets the lash of his scornful tongue. (…) Balram has the voice
of what may, or may not, be a new India: quick-witted, half-baked, self-mocking,
and awesomely quick to seize an advantage. (…) There is much to commend in this
novel, a witty parable of India's changing society, yet there is also much to ponder.
(…) My hunch is that this is fundamentally an outsider's view and a superficial one.
There are so many other alternative Indias out there, uncontacted and unheard.
Aravind Adiga is an interesting talent and I hope he will immerse himself deeper into
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that astonishing country, then go on to greater things." - Kevin Rushby, The
Guardian
"As a debut, it marks the arrival of a storyteller who strikes a fine balance
between the sociology of the wretched place he has chosen as home and the twisted
humanism of the outcast. With detached, scatological precision, he surveys the grey
remoteness of an India where the dispossessed and the privileged are not steeped in
the stereotypes of struggle and domination. The ruthlessness of power and survival
assumes a million moral ambiguities in this novel powered by an India where
Bangalore is built on Bihar." - S. Prasannarajan, India Today
"Aravind Adiga's riveting, razor-sharp debut novel explores with wit and insight
the realities of these two Indias, and reveals what happens when the inhabitants of
one collude and then collide with those of the other. (…) The pace, superbly
controlled in the opening and middle sections, begins to flag a bit towards the end.
But this is a minor quibble: Adiga has been gutsy in tackling a complex and urgent
subject. His is a novel that has come not a moment too soon." - Soumya
Bhattacharya, The Independent
"It's a thrilling ride through a rising global power (.....) Adiga's plot is somewhat
predictable -- the murder that is committed is the one that readers will expect
throughout -- but The White Tiger suffers little for this fault. Caught up in Balram's
world -- and his wonderful turn of phrase -- the pages turn themselves. Brimming
with idiosyncrasy, sarcastic, cunning, and often hilarious, Balram is reminiscent of
the endless talkers that populate the novels of the great Czech novelist Bohumil
Hrabal." - David Mattin, Independent on Sunday
"We can’t hear Balram Halwai’s voice here, because the author seems to have
no access to it. The novel has its share of anger at the injustices of the new,
globalised India, and it’s good to hear this among the growing chorus of celebratory
voices. But its central character comes across as a cardboard cut-out. The paradox is
that for many of this novel’s readers, this lack of verisimilitude will not matter
because for them India is and will remain an exotic place. This book adds another
brick to the patronising edifice it wants to tear down." - Sanjay Subramanian, London
Review of Books
"The novel's framing as a seven-part letter to the Chinese prime minister turns
out to be an unexpectedly flexible instrument in Adiga's hands, accommodating
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everything from the helpful explanatory aside to digressions into political polemic.
(…) One might note the distinctive narrative voice, rich with the disconcerting smell
of coarse authenticity. It is simultaneously able to convey the seemingly congenital
servility of the language of the rural poor as well as its potential for knowing
subversion. It sends up the neo-Thatcherite vocabulary of the new rich, their absurd
extravagance and gaudy taste, but manages to do it tenderly and with understanding.
(…) Adiga's style calls to mind the work of Munshi Premchand, that great Hindi
prose stylist and chronicler of the nationalist movement" - Nakul Krishna, New
Statesman
"Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice
and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling." - The
New Yorker
"At once a fascinating glimpse beneath the surface of an Indian economic
"miracle," a heart-stopping psychological tale of a premeditated murder and its
aftermath, and a meticulously conceived allegory of the creative destruction that's
driving globalization. (...) That may sound like a lot to take in, but The White Tiger is
unpretentious and compulsively readable to boot." - Scott Medintz, The New York
Sun
"In bare, unsentimental prose, he strips away the sheen of a self-congratulatory
nation and reveals instead a country where the social compact is being stretched to
the breaking point. There is much talk in this novel of revolution and insurrection:
Balram even justifies his employer’s murder as an act of class warfare. The White
Tiger is a penetrating piece of social commentary, attuned to the inequalities that
persist despite India’s new prosperity. It correctly identifies -- and deflates -- middle-
class India’s collective euphoria. But Adiga, a former correspondent for Time
magazine who lives in Mumbai, is less successful as a novelist." - Akash Kapur, The
New York Times Book Review
"His voice is engaging -- caustic and funny, describing the many injustices of
modern Indian society with well-balanced humour and fury. But there's little new
here -- the blurbs claim it's redressing the misguided and romantic Western view of
India -- but I suspect there are few to whom India's corruption will come as a
surprise. As social commentary, it's disappointing, although as a novel it's good fun."
- Francesca Segal, The Observer
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"I found the book a tedious, unfunny slog (...) The tone of the writing is breezy-
absurd, which means we can’t hold the writer accountable for anything that happens
in the book. (...) There’s no accountability in the breezy-absurd school of literature!
Everything goes! Nothing is real! Lie back and open wide. (...) Echoes of the Indo-
Internationalist club of literature can be heard throughout." - Manjula Padmanabhan,
Outlook India
"Adiga's training as a journalist lends the immediacy of breaking news to his
writing, but it is his richly detailed storytelling that will captivate his audience. (...)
The White Tiger contains passages of startling beauty (...). Adiga never lets the
precision of his language overshadow the realities at hand: No matter how potent his
language one never loses sight of the men and women fighting impossible odds to
survive. (...) The White Tiger succeeds as a book that carefully balances fable and
pure observation." - Lee Thomas, San Francisco Chronicle
"(E)xtraordinary and brilliant (….) Talk of "lessons" should not be taken to
suggest that The White Tiger is a didactic exercise in "issues", like a newspaper
column. For Adiga is a real writer -- that is to say, someone who forges an original
voice and vision." - Adam Lively, Sunday Times
"What Adiga lifts the lid on is also inexorably true: not a single detail in this
novel rings false or feels confected. The White Tiger is an excoriating piece of work,
stripping away the veneer of 'India Rising'. That it also manages to be suffused with
mordant wit, modulating to clear-eyed pathos, means Adiga is going places as a
writer." - Neel Mukherjee, The Telegraph
"It is certain of its mission, and pursues it with an undeviating determination you
wouldn't expect in a first novel. It reads at a tremendous clip. Its caricatures are
sharply and confidently drawn. It is full of barbed wit, if not -- and not trying to be,
so far as I can tell -- actually funny. It won't win any prizes for subtlety. But it hasn't
been nominated for one of those." - Peter Robins, The Telegraph
"Balram's cynical, gleeful voice captures modern India: no nostalgic lyricism
here, only exuberant reality." - Kate Saunders, The Times
"The White Tiger resembles the stories in Murder Weekly. It is quick,
entertaining and full of vividly drawn types: the scheming servant, the corrupt
businessman, the spoilt wife. Its lack of subtlety can be wearying, as can its
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cynicism. But it is a useful counter to optimistic tales of India's roaring economy." -
Sameer Rahim, Times Literary Supplement
"Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger is one of the most powerful books I've read in
decades. No hyperbole. This debut novel from an Indian journalist living in Mumbai
hit me like a kick to the head (.....) This is an amazing and angry novel about
injustice and power" - Deirdre Donahue, USA Today
"Does The White Tiger live up to its own ambitions? There comes a moment in
this book where the narrative has a real chance to leave behind the pop and fluff of
The Nanny Diaries irony and achieve a deep Orwellian insight. (...) Yes it's fresh,
funny, different, and it will please those looking for insights into contemporary India,
but The White Tiger offers something less than it might have achieved." - Tony
D'Souza, The Washington Post
1) The White tiger was awarded the Man Booker prize in the year------
a) 2008 b) 2005 c) 2004 d) 1995
2) The father of Balram Halwai was ___________________
a) a landlord b) Truck driver c) Taxi owner d) Rickshaw puller
3) The narration of the novel is in ___________________
a) The second person b) The first person
c) The third person d) None of the above
4) Balram was made to leave school to become a _______________
a) Shopkeeper b) Rickshaw puller c) Tea boy d) Driver
5) The white Tiger is _______________
a) Picaresque novel c) epistolary novel
b) Historical novel d) Bildungsroman novel
1) Balram addresses his unposted letters to _______________
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2) Balram is called ‘The White Tiger’ by his school inspector because he is
_________
3) Pinky madam is not liked by ‘The Stork’ because __________
4) After murdering Ashok, Balram flees to ________________
5) The White Tiger explores -------- humour.
C) Answer in one word/phrase or a sentence.
1) Who gave Balram his name?
2) What was Mr. Ashok’s father called in his village?
3) What did Balram mean by “Rooster Coop”?
4) Why was Mr. Ashok carrying seven hundred thousand rupees in cash?
5) What is the name of the Company Balram formed?
6.4 Major and Minor Character/s in The White Tiger:

Balram Halwai as an anti-hero:
“….. see, the Muslim have one god, the Christians have three gods. And we
Hindus have 35, 000,000 gods….some believe none of them exist. There is just us
and an ocean of darkness around us. I’m no philosopher or poet how would I know
the truth? It’s true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work much like our
politicians –and yet keep winning re-election to their golden thrones in heaven, year
after year”.
Such is the musing of the protagonist of “The White Tiger”, Balram Halwai. He
is a servant, philosopher (though he doesn’t claim to be one, my emphasis)
entrepreneur and murderer. He represents the India that is post- village, post-caste,
post-religion and an emerging superpower. He is an amoral combination of
cunning and innocence and sadly, by implication, he is also indicative of new India.
“In old India that of new India that is before it got independence the country was
like a clean, well kept, orderly zoo. Everyone in his place”. But on the 15 of August,
1947 the day British left the cages had been let open and the animals had attached
and ripped each other apart and jungle law replaced zoo law” This jungle law has
changed this country in which thousands of castes live into the only two kind of
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people that is- the rich and the poor or in the words of Balram in “The men with Big
Bellies, and men with Small Belllies”.
What can be said of the spirituality? The novel presents religion as an irrelevant
thing. To him, it is uncertain for the prayers of a poor man remaining useless to many
gods. India has emerged into a new religion that is capitalism which is far more
reliable. The miracle of producing entrepreneurs by overcoming hardships is
communicated by Balram to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo, but at the same time he
does not believe that everyone in the world chooses the path he did in order to reach
at the top. He argues that all that he wanted to get a chance to be a man one murder
was enough. He murdered his master Mr. Ashok and stepped up the ladder to the
‘light’.
The novel is darkly humorous, fiercely satirical keeping a finger on the pulse of
changing Indian culture. It is modern India’s gospel to the West. The India of the
future will be of the White Tigers, schooled at Balram’s English Language School
for poor children in Bangalore which he intends to open at the end of the novel .The
India of their White Tigers will be financially lucrative but spiritually bleak.
1) Balram Halwai, the protagonist, represents ------------
a) old India b) ancient India c) new India d) technological India
2) Balram believes that there are ----------
a) four castes b) no castes
c) only two castes : poor and rich d) none of these
3) Balram’s intention is to establish -----------
a) a big bussiness b) a school c) a factory d) a college
4) The India of Balram’s vision will be --------------
a) a poor country b) a super power
c) a country of murderers d) a country of saints
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5) Balram’s vision is to open an English school for ---------
a) rich students b) NRIs c) poor children d) girls
 Musing : thinking, speculating
 Light : here, the world of rich people
 Lucrative: attractive
 Bleak : dark
5.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s in The White Tiger:

The White Tiger: The World of Light & Darkness:
In the novel The White Tiger, Adiga takes a creative approach to narrate
Balram’s story to the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, at least to get his first reader.
The person Balram is writing a series of letters. They have been written over the
period of seven nights to the Chinese Premier who is visiting the city of Bangalore in
which Balram is living.
Why is it compelling for Balram to write and tell his story? It is because he has
something to tell. He can tell the Chinese Premier all about Indian entrepreneurship
which China is missing. He makes comparison between China and India through his
narration but it seems that he wants to unburden himself initially. He wants to take
off something from his chest that is he wants to make a confession of the crime he
has done. He recounts his journey from the world of ‘Darkness’ to the world of
‘Light’ He was a wanted man by police but his extraordinary rise from village
teashop waiter to the present position as an entrepreneur is in the alienated, post
industrial, call centre of Bangalore.
Balram calls him ‘half-baked’ like many other school going boys who are
unlucky that they cannot finish their schooling in this country. He was a smart lad
who had received appreciation by the school inspector as a While Tiger, a rare
animal that comes along once in a generation. Despite the promises made by school
inspector to arrange further schooling to Balram, he was taken out of school and
made to work at teashop.
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Balram’s break from his family upsets an Indian mind, because in India family
system, your association, integrity with the family is always given higher value. In
this context, Adiga says, “This is shameful and dislocating for an Indian to do…. In
India there has never been strong political control, which is probably why the family
is so important. If you are rude to your mother in India, it is a crime as bad as
stealing would be here; but the family ties get broken or at least stretched when
anonymous, un-Indian cities like Bangalore draw people from the villages. These
really are the new tensions of India, but Indians don’t think about them.”
On this background, a world famous sentence like “My mother died yesterday or
day before yesterday, I don’t remember” that appeared in ‘The Outsider’ by Albert
Camus, would be an ignoble feeling for an Indian psyche. But Balram manages to
break away from his family bond and flees to the city to make his fortune. He
manages to take up a job as a driver with the relative of someone from his
hometown. He smartly uses the Indian sense of soft corner for province and localism.
Being a driver for Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam, he gets an access to the city of New
Delhi and comfortably distances away from the demanding family.
The novel throws light on the servitude of Indians. Balram explains why Indian
servants are so honest. He says that they feel comfortable to be in Rooster coop. No
matter what the opportunity an Indian servant gets, he will not take bad advantage of
his master. He will be most loyal to him. A bag containing million dollars can be
entrusted to any servant. Only the man who is prepared to see his family destroyed,
hunted, beaten and burnt alive by the masters – can break out of the coop that would
take no normal human beingn but a freak, a pervert of nature. Balram is one such
person who always wanted to be a man.
Adiga describes the divide between the haves and the have not and how the
servants are treated. He says in one of his interviews, “if we were in India now there
would be servants standing in the corners as this room and I would not notice them
that is what my society is like, that is what the divide is like. He is good on the Indian
corruption, from the vote-rigging of the local elections, where the great socialist
candidate is unoppoasble. The school teacher, who should be an ideal person in the
society, is also not out of it. The teacher steals the money from the school-food
programme and even sells the uniforms meant for students. No one raises voice
against him because he is poor and has not been paid for six months. The system
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works this way. Anyone who is in power, misuses it for his own interests. Finally,
when Balram is a boss himself, he has learnt all the ways to corrupt the people and
serve his own purpose. When Balram is an employee like Ashok, who keeps on
going around the government offices to bribe the politicians, his keen observation as
a driver gives an amusing view of the contemporary Indian conditions. It gives
contrast between poverty and wealth.
Adiga’s Balram says, ‘I’m Tomorrow’; but the question remains unanswered.
What kind of tomorrow? What kind of India he has in his mind? Is it corrupt,
murderous India? If it is so, nothing is new here. He is already living in this kind of
India. That’s why, though Balram receives the sympathy of readers in spite of his
crime, he does not come out as the more convincing character. The question remains:
Does he represent every man? On this question, The White Tiger confuses the
readers to the great extent.
Portrayal of Corruption in Indian Society and Politics:
The novel exposes the corruption in Indian society and politics. There is bribery
between politicians and wealthy top class men. The top class men corrupt the
politicians and make rules, policies to serve their selfish purposes .Ashok takes part
in this by giving big money to the politicians so that during an election, their
campaign and victory will be assured.
“The so-called great socialist party gets elected and re-elected over and over
again. This party has a great influence on the psyche of Indian population which they
can tame to the utmost for their purpose.’’ A handful of men in this country have
trained the remaining 99.9% as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way-to
exist in perpetual servitude ‘’ says Balram. The great socialists offer to bring the
impoverished from the Darkness into the Light, and swear to bring down the current
wealthy elite people of the light. This propaganda benefits the party to gain votes
from the poor every year and allows the great socialists to retain the power year after
year. However, once the elections are over and power is grabbed, they hardly turn
towards these ordinary people .The living situation of their people “of the Darkness”
doesn’t improve and the people of Light continue to live in their ivory towers.
The protectors of law like judiciary and police too are corrupt and they can be
corrupted easily by the rich and powerful. Balram gives the police an envelope
containing rupee notes to smooth over the situation when one of his drivers
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accidently runs over a boy. A child, future of country is crushed under the wheels;
but few rupees given to the police as a bribe can silence everything. The police can
be bribed to do the investigative work. This occurred when Balram gives the police
more than ten thousand rupees in exchange for raiding and disbanding a taxi service
so that Balram could start up his own .These pictures depict India full of systems
made corrupt by money.
The Indian society, by and large, a corrupt society, comes to the light through
Balram’s voice who himself becomes a part of it at the later stage of the novel. His
gleeful and cynical voice captures modern India. We don’t have nostalgic lyricism
here; only exuberant reality. This is no hyperbolic statement. It offers insight into
contemporary India.
1) Balram believes that China is ----------- in entreneuership.
a) good b) missing c) poor d) outstanding
2) Balram’s narration through letters could be seen as --------
a) loud-talk b) confession c) nonsense things d) enlightenment
3) Balram’s journey is seen symbolically as a journey from ----------
a) dark to light b) east to west
c) Dhanbad to Bangalore d) Mumbai to Pune
4) Balram’s later journey in the novel is seen in-----------
a) his naming as a White Tiger b) his mythological name
c) his beraking away from family d) his being a driver
5) Indain servants feel comfortable at-----------
a) being honest b) being paid poorly
c) being poor d) being in Rooster Coop
B) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence:
1) What do you think Balram means by Rooster Coop?
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2) What kind of person would break away from the Rooster Coop?
3) Where did Balram learn about the world of Light?
4) What do you think Balram means by saying, ‘I am tomorrow’?
5) What is the general statement of Balram about Indian Politics and society?
6.5.2 Term to remember:
 World of darkness: world of poor, uneducated, unprivileged people
 Half-baked: a term Balram uses to describe himself meaning, of moderate
learning
 Ivory towers: world of rich people
6.6 Summary:
character/s, theme/s and narrative technique/s.
6.7 Key to check your progress:

6.2.1
A) Fill in the balnks:
1) South Asia
2) 2008
3) rickshaw puller
4) dark
5) epistolary
B) Answer in one word/phrase……
1) Columbia University, New York
2) The Financial Times
3) Balram Halwai
4) The Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabano
5) a superpower
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6.3.1
A) Choose the alternative:
1. 2008
2. a rickshaw puller
3. The first person
4. Tea boy
5. epistolary novel
1) Wen Jiabao
2) exceptional
3) of marriage outside her caste
4) Bangalore
5) Dark
C) Answer in one word/ phrase/ sentence:
1) His teacher Mr. Krishna
2) The stork
3) Confinement in which Indian servants live
4) To corrupt the politicians in New Delhi
5) The White Tiger Drivers
6.4.1
1) New India
2) only two castes, poor and rich
3) a school
4) a superpower
5) poor children
6.5.1
1) missing
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2) his confession
3) dark to the light
4) his breaking away from family
5) being in Rooster Coop
B) Answer in one word/phrase……
1) to be happy at confined place without any ambition
2) one who would like to see his family murdered
3) on the driver’s seat
4) emerging India a superpower
5) by and large corrupt
5.8 Exercises:
A) Write short notes on the following
1. Balram’s distancing himself from his family
2. Adiga’s comments on Indian servitude
3. The Rooster coop mentality of Indian servants
4. Pinky madam
5. Narrative technique of the novel
B) Essay type questions:
1. Discuss The White Tiger as a serious comment or corruption in India.
2. Comment on Balram’s Journey from the ‘Darkness’ to the ‘light’
3. “In old days there were one thousand castes in India… These days there are
only two castes”. Comment.
4. The White Tiger is a satire on ‘India Shining’.- Discuss.
5. The White Tiger is compelling, angry and darkly humorous’ analyse
Critically.

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Unit-7
MAXIM GORKY
Contents
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Maxim Gorky: Life and Works
7.3 Plot/Summary of the Novel
7.4 Major and Minor Characters
7.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s
7.6 Summary
7.8 Exercises
7.9 Further Reading
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7.0 Objectives:
 Know about the life and works of Maxim Gorky
 Know about the plot of the novel Mother
 Learn the characters in the novel Mother
 Learn the themes and narrative techniques used in the novel Mother
 Be able to answer the questions on the novel Mother
7.1 Introduction:
During the Tsarist regime in Russia the peasants and the workers were deprived
of the right to education. This unit begins with the discussion of the life and works of
one of the greatest Russian writers Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). The unit focuses on
one of his famous novels Mother in terms of its plot, character/s, theme/s, and
narrative technique/s.
7.2 Maxim Gorky: Life and Works

The peasants and workers in Russia under the Tsarist regime were deprived of
the right to education, the right to develop the mind and rightfully ask the
bourgeoisie to improve upon their standards of living and the working surroundings.
The schools were meant to produce obedient servants of capitalist bourgeoisie. The
slogans for educating people were hollow and the claims of national literacy and
progress were false since the government kept the huge masses of labourers split on
the issues of race, region and religion. Maxim Gorky lived and wrote during such a
period of Russian history that was characterized by political turmoil and the
galloping capitalist urge of the bourgeoisie which was recklessly feeding on the
blood and flesh of the proletariat (the working classes) of the country. In Mother he
delineates all the facets of human life, its dynamism, its passion for righteousness
and struggle, life based on the principle of equality, equanimity and social justice.
Through Mother Gorky has wrought in us the feeling of actual life. Every detail
in the novel invokes within us a sense of Russian locale, its people, social mores and
mannerism, and its geography wrapped in splendid grandeur. He makes us feel the
Russian life as it is. We feel as if we live by it and experience it, not just read about
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it. Gorky’s marvelous art and narrative strategy produces within us the exact picture
of the people moving around, the places and, the seasons and the monochromatic life
therein. Gorky is the most competent, the most direct and accurate and moving
delineator of the socio-reality of his times. He, by depicting harrowing experiences
of his characters tells about the life as it was and not as it might have been. There is
no place and space for romantic imagination and day dreaming. His characters are
terribly realistic and haunted with a passion to overcome the problems they face
while realizing their dream of socialist rule and the emancipation of the working
classes. Men in his fiction have the instincts, feelings, incongruities, inconsistencies,
illogicalities and curiosities as the people from real life. In his art of characterization
he does not follow any European model. His characters do incongruous things, get
irritated suddenly and also pacified easily, forgetting bad patches in the realm of
interpersonal relationships. They are subject to all kinds of follies, foibles and human
frailties and do not hesitate to admit the same without hesitation. They are always
ready to accept life as it is and face all the challenges by it and ready to face them
with humility and courage.
Maxim Gorky is one of the most popular Russian novelists. He is also a
dramatist, short story-writer, autobiographer, a diarist, a poet and above all a political
activist. Gorky is recognized as one of the earliest exponents of socialist realism in
literature. He is known for his sympathy and apathy for the poor and the working
classes as he portrays their agony in his fiction. His literary work touched the
imagination of the Russian people. He was born on March 28th 1868 with the name
Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov in Nizhniy Novgorod, part of Soviet Empire. His
parents died when he was only ten and he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
He was often harshly treated by his grandfather but his grandmother, who was very
fond of literature, took care of her little orphaned grandson. At the age of thirteen, he
ran away from Nizhniy Novgorod, and lived as a tramp, wandering from one job to
the next. He was frequently beaten by his employers. He also suffered a lot on
account of hunger and shelter. Thus he became aware of the squalid side of Russian
life. Gorky was perhaps the first Russian writer to write sympathetically of such
characters like tramps and thieves, emphasizing their daily struggles against
overwhelming odds like starvation, poverty, ill-clothing and others. Frustrated by all
this, Gorky even attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest at the
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age of nineteen. This event became a turning point in his life and changed his attitude
to life and made him an optimist and he could rise from despair to hope.
Gorky wrote short stories, plays, memoires and novels. His life was deeply
interwoven with the tumultuous revolutionary period of his own country. He began
using the pseudonym ‘Gorky’ in 1892 while working in newspaper The Caucasus.
The literal meaning of the word ‘Gorky’ is ‘bitter’. The name reflected his
simmering anger about life in Russia and a determination to speak the bitter truth.
His career as a writer began with his first book, Essays and Stories which was
published in 1898. His famous novels are The Man Who Was Afraid (1899), Three of
Them (1900), The Mother (1907), The Life of a Useless Man (1907) A Confession
(1908). He produced autobiography in two parts, first being published by the title My
Childhood and the second entitled In the World. The first part was published in 1913-
1914 while the second in 1916.
Gorky’s short stories portray the subjugation of the Russian peasantry and the
suffering of the common lot that included a majority of the have nots and the
working class people, social outcasts, tramps, embezzlers, small time hoods and
downtrodden. Many of his tales come out of his preoccupation with the legends
dealing with the lives of the peasants, their folklores and folk traditions. Tales like “
Makar Chudra” and “Chelkash” are based upon actual peasant legends and folk
allegories. “Malkar Chudra” Gorky’s first short story, originally published in 1892
tells about the life of Loiko Zobar, who falls in love and marries a willful gipsy
woman. The woman tries to enslave him but he retorts and stabs her to death. The
gypsy’s father grieved of his daughter’s murder vindicates it by slaying his son-in-
law. In “Chelkash” Gorky champions the cause of wisdom and self-reliance of his
prototypical vagabond anti-hero while criticizing the brutality and pettiness of the
decaying bourgeoisie. Though a thief, Griska Chelkesh honours the request of his
onetime accomplice Garvira for the share of their ill-gotten loot even after he learns
that this man had planned to kill him and seize all of the spoils. One of the most
accomplished of Gorky’s stories, “Dvadtsaf shest’ I odna” (Twenty six Men and a
Girl) published in 1902 details the pitiful lives of twenty six bakers forced to suffer
in sweatshop in poor working conditions. In an effort to transcend this dreary
existence the men focus their attention on a lovely and innocent young seamstress,
Tania, rather than offering them moral enlightenment. Tania disappointingly
succumbs to the seductive advances of a swaggering ex-soldier. Disillusioned by her
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lost puriy, the bakers sink back to their original degraded state. Many of the other
Gorky’s short stories also introduce the topics that he was to explore more fully in
his subsequent novels and plays, although critics observe that he rarely did this with
an equal degree of artistic success. “Konovalov” is still another of his famous tale in
which he describes the life of a superfluous man, a common figure in the nineteenth
and early twentieth century Russian literature.
Gorky considered literature as a moral and political act that would change the
world. He described the lives of people in the lowest strata and on the margins of
society. He not only revealed their hardships, humiliation, and brutalization, but also
their inward spark of humanity. His reputation as a unique literary voice and as a
fervent advocate of Russia’s social, political and cultural transformation made him
one of the most outstanding figures in world literature. He was admired by
intelligentsia as well as by the conscious community of workers. He believed in the
inherent worth and potential of the human being. He was a restless man struggling to
resolve contradictory feelings of faith and skepticism, love for life and disgust at the
vulgarity and pettiness of the human world.
From 1906 to 1913 and from 1921 to 1929, he lived abroad; mostly in Capri
island Italy partly for health reasons and partly to escape the increasing repressive
atmosphere in Russia. After his return to the Soviet Union, he accepted the cultural
policies of the time. He publically opposed the Tsarist regime and was arrested many
times. He befriended many revolutionaries and became Lenin’s personal friend after
meeting him in 1902. He exposed governmental control of the press. His election as
an honorary academician of literature was declared invalid by Nicholas II. Gorky
was again imprisoned in 1901 for his involvement in the opposition movement. Now
a financially-successful writer, he gave financial support to the Russian Social
Democratic Liberal Party (RSDLP). He also supported the liberals’ appeals to the
government for civil rights and social reforms. The revolution of 1905 pushed him
more decisively towards radical solutions. He became staunch supporter of Lenin
and Bolshevik wing of the party.
Recognized as one of the earliest and the foremost exponents of socialist realism
in literature, Gorky in his brutal portrait of Russian life and sympathetic depiction of
the working class, inspired the oppressed people of Russia. He was the voice of the
proletariat. His novel Mother portrays the factory workers as a force destined to
break down the existing order. His stories generally portray the subjugation of the
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Russian peasantry. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given a mansion in
Moscow. One of the central Moscow streets, Tverskaya, was named in his honour as
was the city of his birth. The largest fixed-wing aircraft in the world in the mid
1930s, the Tupolev ANT-20 was also named after Maxim Gorky, which was used for
propaganda. Gorky died of pneumonia in 1936.
i) Maxim Gorky was born in -------------------
a) 1865 b)1863 c)1868 d)1861
ii) He is the pioneer of-----------------
a) magic realism b) realism c) surrealism d) socialist realism
iii) Gorky became an orphan at the age of-------------
a) eight b) ten c) six d) twelve
iv) Gorky died of--------------------
a) pneumonia b) cancer c) cancer d) brain tumour
v) Gorky was honoured with ---------------
a) Order of Stalin b) Order of Lenin
c) Order of Trotsky d) Order of Tsar
i) Maxim Gorky attempted suicide at the age of--------------
ii) He was often harshly treated by his--------------
iii) From 1906-1913,Gorky lived on the island of-------------
iv) Gorky died in June ----------------
v) The pseudonym ‘Gorky’ means----------------
C) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence:
i) What is the birth place of Maxim Gorky?
ii) What was his first name?
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iii) How did Gorky attempt suicide?
iv) What is RSDLP?
v) Which largest fixed-winged aircraft in the mid-1930 was named after
Maxim Gorky?
 tramp: person with no fixed home or occupation
 realism: portrayal of familiar things
 exponent: person that supports a cause
 Tsarist regime: the rule of the Russian King Tsar
 skepticism: expressing doubts
 propaganda: publicity to spnead ideas
7.3 Plot Summary of the Novel

The novel Mother was first published in English translation in “Appleton
Magazine” (New York) in 1906-1907, and in April 1907 which consisted 373 pages.
The novel is divided into two parts consisting 29 chapters each. In Russia, the
publication of Mother coincided with the beginning of the Stolylipin reaction, a reign
of terror that lasted for many years. Actually, Mother was a forbidden book. The
revolutionary readers could not express their opinion on it publicly. The reactionary
critics attacked the book for its alleged lack of artistic merits. Bourgeois critics
declared that “Gorky was finished” after reading only half of the first part the novel
which appeared in two issues of “Znanie”. What had caused his “fall”, and his
“crime” in their opinion was that he had begun to disseminate Marxism in artistic
images and to speak out about the revolutionary proletariat and the awakening
peasantry as forces that promised to achieve a complete liberation of Russia. Mother
has been translated into every language and is being continually re-printed
everywhere. As soon as the Great October Socialist Revolution lifted the censorship
ban on Mother, film adaptations of the novel were made by directors and film
producers of almost every nationality. Maxim Gorky’s landmark novel Mother is
considered as a world classic even today. The interesting side about this novel is this
novel discusses the revolution whose main character is old women. The other
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interesting side is the value given in Mother. This novel was the first novel written
by a Russian author who writes sympathetically of such characters as tramps and
thieves, emphasizing their daily struggles against overwhelming odds and fight
against state’s oppression in Russia.
It is considered to be a novel that depicts the contemporary social reality and
therefore a pioneering work written in the tradition of literary realism i. e. socialist
realism. Part first of the novel was written in the United States while the second was
in Italy.
The novel is about the pre-revolution proletariat of Russia. It is also about the
role women played in the struggle of the Russian working class on the eve of the
revolution of 1905.The protagonist of the novel Mother is Pelagea Nivolvna after
whom the novel is named. Her son is Pavel Mikhailovich. Like many other working
women of Russia, Pelagea works in a factory all the day, comes back to the house by
evening to live a miserable life with her husband Mikhail Vlassov, a bad-tempered
misogynist. Soon he dies. His death saddens none of the folk, especially his wife
Pelagea, who lived miserable life with him for twenty years.
Pavel joins the factory after death of his father. While working there, Pavel
becomes aware of the collective power of the proletariat, i.e. working class people.
After having lived with these people for many days, Pavel realizes that the proletariat
is the real agent of change in society. The book reading sessions were held in his
house, where workers with socialist outlook participated. All these activities of Pavel
and his like-minded friends confuse Pelagea. She notices one thing that all these
young men including her son are not drunkards or men of bad habits of backbiting.
After accepting socialism as his life philosophy, he starts reading the books
forbidden by the Tsarist regime. It makes his mother anxious. She is unable to grasp
the discussions and thoughts of her son and his comrades about socialism. But
anyhow, she feels that she is an inevitable part of this socialist circle.
Sasha, Pavel’s beloved is a landlord’s daughter. Her father was a rural
administrator too. He, according to her, robs the peasants. Sasha is anti-Tsarist in her
approach. She is an activist by nature and was in jail for her participation in anti-
Tsarist politics. One of the memorable incidents in the novel is Sasha’s hunger strike
in jail. She was insulted by the prison warden. She continues her strike until he
apologizes.
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All comrades in the novel love Pelagea Nilovna. Andrei Nakhodka is a close
friend of Pavel to whom the mother calls Khokhol. Andrei addresses Pelagea as
nenko, an affectionate term for ‘mother’ in Ukrainian. Pelagea wants Andrei to live
permanently with her and Pavel because she thinks that Andrei’s stay with Pavel will
support the revolutionary activities. Pavel puts a strong resistance when the factory
authorities decide to deduct one kopek from each rouble paid to workers. This brings
the mother in contact with the functioning of trade unions. Pavel gets arrested after
he leads the workers’ agitation against the factory management. This is the turning
point in the life of the mother. She starts taking the revolutionary literature inside the
factory. Under the guise of a peddler, she begins her life as an activist. The
authorities release Pavel from jail because they see no point in keeping him in jail.
After Khokhol i.e. Andrei asks Pelagea to learn to read, she starts reading in the
silence of the night from her son’s library. Meanwhile the Vlassov household
becomes a centre of revolutionary activities visited by comrades from different
places. Pelagea feels honoured by associated with the workers’ fraternity.
On May Day celebrations, Pavel makes up his mind to lead the march and carry
the banner. Both Sasha and Pelagea express their concern for Pavel. They think that
he may be arrested. But Pavel remaines adamant. During the demonstrations, both
Pavel and Andrei get arrested. The trial is held. Pavel defends himself in a very
impressive way reminding the judges of the workers’ cause and its nobility. He even
warns them that the workers’ revolution is not far away. He says that all of the
comrades are against the society and its anti-proletariat interests and the judges are
defending. The reconciliation between the masters and the slave will be possible only
after the workers win the battle.
The court gives its verdict on Pavel’s case, expels him from his native country
and sends him to Siberia. Pelagea, the mother, does not deter by the court’s order.
She feels proud of her son. All the comrades decide to make the copy of Pavel’s
speech in the court. The mother visits Ludmilla, gets the speech cyclostyled. While
circulating the copies of this speech of Pavel on the railway station, she is finally
arrested by the paramilitary police.
Thus, Mother by Maxim Gorky is considered as a watershed in the Russian
literature. It is the first Russian novel to portray the factory worker as a force
destined to break down the existing order of society. The May Day Demonstrations
of workers in Sormovo in 1902 and the subsequent trial of its members are the major
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events in the novel. The novel was dramatized by Bertolt Brecht. Gorky, according
to some scholars, is one of the most insightful observers of both the promises and
moral dangers of revolution in Russia. He is appreciated by readers for his complex
moral perspective on modern Russian life. The greatest thinker, Vladimir Lenin
described the novel as a book of the utmost importance. To quote Lenin, ‘It is a book
of the uttermost importance; many workers, who have joined the revolutionary
movement impulsively, without properly understanding why, will begin to
comprehend after reading Mother’. The novel dramatizes the nightmarish political
turmoil, the long drawn out struggle of Russian people against the old regime. For
almost one hundred years it filled the jails, kept busy the executioner and official
torturer, peopled Siberia and shook the governing class with incessant alarms. More
than 8,00,000 political exiles passed through one gateway into Siberia. It is a matter
of great concern for writers, like Gorky who, through his tireless writings, threw bare
this reality and strove to educate people for a better future.
i) Mother was published in-------------------
a) 1907 b) 1904 c) 1909 d) 1905
ii) The novel was dramatized by -----------------
a) Henriek Ibsen b) Tom Stoppard
c) Bertolt Brecht d) Oscar Wilde
iii) After the trial, the court decides to send Pavel to-------------
a) Chechnya b) Siberia c) Ukraine d) Sormovo
iv) Natasha is the daughter of a --------------------
a) landlord b) politician c) soldier d) businessman
v) Comrade Nikolai Ivanovich’s sister is ---------------
a) Natasha b) Sophia c) Sasha d) Ludmilla
i) The protagonist of the novel is --------------
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ii) The second part of Mother was written in --------------
iii) The novel is bout -------------
iv) Andrei Nakhodka is Pavel’s ----------------
v) Andrei Nakhodka affectionately calls the mother by the name -------------
C) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence:
i) Who is the hero of the novel?
ii) What was the original Russian title of the novel?
iii) Who was Mikhail Vlassov?
iv) Who is Khokhol in the novel?
v) What does Pavel do after death of his father?
 world classic: a great work of literary art
 social realism: literature that dericts class struggle
 proletariat: class of workers who do not own the means of production
 misogynist: person who hates women
 anti-Tsarist: person working against the Tsar regime
7.4 Major and Minor Character/s:

Pelagea Nivolvna:
Pelagea Nivolvna is the central figure in the novel. The novel is named after her
motherhood. Her role as a mother to Pavel, her son who becomes a revolutionary to
save the nation and the way she inspires him at the cost of her love for him renders
the novel such a height that it becomes a masterpiece in the literary history of
Russian Literature. Having not much of formal education to her credit she succeeds
in understanding the complex political situation and the need for a drastic change for
the welfare of the society at large that could not have been brought out without
revolution and helps the revolutionaries to attain the end of Tsarist regime and usher
in an era of peace, prosperity and fulfillment. She is an idol of motherhood,
womanhood sustaining and enduring the injuries inflicted upon her body and self by
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the so-called patriarchal hegemony and the senseless exploitation and the reckless
malice of her husband, Mr. Mikhail Vlassov, an irrational husband and a bad-
tempered misogynist whose death is hardly lamented by anybody. She has a divine
gift of merry smile. Although she is old, the moment the spirit of revolution touches
her she is charged with an extraordinary enthusiasm and an uncommon courage and
is prepared to undergo wrath of the gendarmes. She resolves to help the
revolutionaries and remains faithful to the decision until the last of her breath hoping
with each awakening dawn for the drastic change. She is a flawless prototype of a
mother, a figure symbolizing the whole Russia as an independent nation. At the very
first suggestion of revolt she prepares to struggle against the Tzar, against the
commands of heaven and prepares mentally to sacrifice her only son for the cause of
the nation. She remains balanced even in the event of the possibility of her being
booked and executed by the gendarmes and says,
“You can hand me over to the gendarmes if you want to; but I don’t think you
will”. She, at the time of the trial of her son’ remains present in the court with a
bagful of the printed copies of the last speech made by Pavel who is likely to be
headed to Siberia and prepares to distribute them among the masses. One of the spies
accuses her as a thief and her conscience protests against the charge. While
commenting on this scene Gorky writes,” If they only don’t beat me, if they only
don’t beat me!” but at the word “thief” the soul within her starts up in protest; she no
longer trembles, nor fears and says, “ I’m not a thief! You lie!” She shouted with all
the power of her chest; and everything before her jumped and began to whirl in a
whirlwind of revolt, intoxicating her heart with the bitterness of insult.”
Pavel Mikhailovich:
Pavel Mikhailovich is one of the central figures in the novel. He is the only son
of a working class family feted to suffer the harsh reality of the early decade of the
twentieth century in Russia that witnessed an extreme political turmoil under the
oppressive Tsarist regime. Pavel is torn against the contemporary political reality and
dreams to change it for the betterment of the working class. Because of the early
death of his father, he is forced to earn living with rigorous labour in a factory and
behave like a responsible person. It is here that he learns many things and comes to
know about the importance of the unity and the collective power of the proletariat.
He discovers that the working class is the real agent of change in society. With such
an insight, genius and an inherent quality of leadership he unites like-minded youth
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and engages them to study, organize and fight for the causes of the proletariat. Pavel
is influenced by socialism and starts reading extensively, collects books erstwhile
those that were forbidden to be read or possessed and leads his friends with a strong
passion for liberalism, political rights and individual freedom. During the course time
he falls in love with Sasha, a daughter of a rich businessman who own a lot of
property. Pavel is attracted towards her because of her moral conscience and zest for
patriotism. Sasha disowns her father, bids adieu to a comfortable lifestyle and opts
for a fair profession of a teacher-cum-activist. She throws herself into the struggle
against the Tsar and participates actively in the movement courting imprisonment.
Pavel’s preoccupation with the kind of dream he envisaged for the Russian masses is
reflected in the last speech he made before his execution. For the sake of an example
the following excerpt is illustrative of the fact. He said,
“Poverty, hunger, sickness –that’s what work gives to poor people. This order of
thing pushes us to theft and corruption. And over us, satiated and calm, live the
rich. In order that we should obey, the police, the authorities, the soldiers, all are
in their hands; all are against us, everything is against us. We perish all our
lives, day after day in toil, always in filth, in deceit. And others enjoy
themselves and gormandize themselves on our labor; and they hold us like dogs
and chains, in ignorance. We know nothing and in terror we fear everything.
Our life is night, a dark night; it is a terrible dream. They have poisoned us with
strong intoxicating poison, and they drink our blood. They glut themselves to
corpulence, to vomiting--- the servants of the devil of greed. Is it not so?”
The above excerpt thows light on Pavel’s concerns and the way Gorky wanted
to bring out the change in the social and political life of the people of Russia. The
agony and suffering and the saga of the struggle for survival comes alive with all its
force and leaves an indelible print of the same on the mind of the readers.
Minor Characters:
Apart from the major characters as above, there are a few minor characters in
the novel who have been depicted with a variety of roles at various events and
episodes contributing in the action of the novel. Besides the mother many other
courageous and brave women appear on the canvas and enrich the beauty of the
novel. Characters like Natasha, Ludmilla, and Sophia leave their peaceful lives and
join the revolutionary struggle for the restoration of socialist order in the society.
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Among the friends to Pavel characters like Saveli, a young gentleman who has been
victimized and tortured by his employer Nofedov, and finally fired out of his job on
account of his illness i.e. he suffers from tuberculosis. He is robbed of his money out
of which Nofedov, purchases a golden vessel for his concubine. Nofedov never
bothers for his workers and squanders his wealth in indulgence. His tale is moving,
full with pathos and subordination he is forced to undergo and when joins with Pavel
he finds too late since he is just on the verge of his death. The characters like Jokov,
Ignat, Ribin are equally charged with positive thoughts and are always ready to
accept challenges they might have faced during their struggle against atrocious
government. Ribin looks forward to have vengeance upon unjust employers and
dreams to bring out the rule of the proletariat. Jokov is too much sentimental and
having been moved by Saveli’s plight swears to sacrifice his life to restore the
socialist rule, peace, fraternity and equality among the workers of the world.
1. ------ is the protagonist of Mother.
a) Pavel b) Pelagea Nivolvna c) Ludmilla d) Sonia
2. Which one of the following regimes in the novel is known for repression?
a) Leninist b) Fascist c) Tsarist d) Marxist
3. Who among the following women falls in love with Pavel?
a) Sophia b) Natasha c) Sasha d) Sarah
4. Who of the following is known by his nick name ‘khokhol’?
a) Andrei Nahkodka b) Pavel Mikhailovich
c) Vlassov d) Nikolai Ivonvich
5. Nenko, a term from Ukranian language stands for--------
a) Sister b) Mother c) Mother-in-laws d)Niece
1. Pavel’s father Mikhail Vlassov was a --------.
2. -------- is the daughter of a rich businessman.
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3. ----------disguises as a peddler and lives a life of an active socialist worker.
4. ----------get arrested at the May Day demonstration.
5. ------is tortured by his employer.
a. Answer in one word/pharase/sentence:
a. -------delivers an impressive speech in the courtroom.
b. --------visits secretly the house of the printer.
c. ----------disowns her father’s house and joins the revolutionaries.
d. Mother is based on the actual events, the May Day demonstrations of
workers in-----.
e. A series of book reading sessions were held in the house of------------.
7.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s:

Mother is a famous novel written by Gorky about one hundred years ago. The
novel is based on the social reality of the proletariat class during the pre-revolution
period in Russia. It focuses on the role played by women during the struggle of
Russian working class on the eve of the revolution of 1905. Maxim Gorky was
persecuted by the Tsarist government and was forced to live abroad for his ties with
the Bolshevik Party. He was moved by the tragic plight of the working classes of the
day and the brutal social and economic disparity that existed in the Russian society
during the Tsarist government.
The major theme of the novel is that of revolution the group of youngsters
dream to bring out and expel the Tsarist regime which was based on tyranny,
exploitation and repression of common masses of Russia. The two central figures in
the novel are the mother and her son Pavel who realize the importance of individual
freedom and thereby the significance of political rights, particularly the right to
expression. The novel is all about pathetic lives of the working classes and their
repression at the hands of their employees. Pavel organizes his friends and leads
them to protest against inequality and tyranny of the Tsar who never attended to the
causes of the people and kept them away from their basic rights.
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The protagonist of the novel is the mother who realized the importance of social
change and supports her son Pavel in every respect and capacity and encourages him
to walk on the way although she is aware of the dangers Pavel might have to face and
perhaps lose his life. The place of human being and his fellow feeling, his humanness
led Gorky to Leninism and he created such a work of art like Mother. The very
central theme of the novel is the socialist communism for which the hero of the novel
strives for and keeps his struggle ongoing in the wake of all kinds of adversities. It is
the figure of the mother that dominates the whole course of action and remains
undeterred even at end of the novel wherein she is fully convinced that the spirit of
freedom’ unity of thought will remain immortal and win the battle at the end.
Humanist activism and an intense passion for political reform by means of revolution
of the working class and to establish the monarchy of the proletariat are at core of the
novel. It is a historical novel based on the real incidents in the Russian politics. The
characters of Pelagea Nivolvna and Pavel are drawn after the great revolutionaries
who lived in history i. e. Anna Kirlovna and Pyotra Zolomov her son who was
punished by the Tsar of Russia for he had led the historical demonstrations in
Sormovo known as May Day demonstrations on 1902 that resulted in the Russian
Revolution of 1917 bringing an end to the regime of Tsar of Russia. Pyotra was
exiled to Siberia in 1903.
The narrative technique used in the novel is third person narrative. The
characters take recourse to first person narrative while telling their tales to the group
of audience. The structure of the novel is episodic and appears to be loose at times
but the way incidents are linked with the passage of time and space is wonderful and
thus the unity of the structure remains intact. There are two sections each of which is
divided into 29 chapters. Despite the narrative span as it appears to be rather stretchy,
the writer succeeds in maintaining his grip over the readers. The language is lucid,
touchy and full with metaphors that have been drawn from everyday life and
peasantry.
1. The major event on which the novel is based is ------
i) May Day demonstrations ii) The mutiny of worsova
iii) The arrest of the Bolshevik party leaders. iv) the exile order of Pavel.
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2. ---------is the narrative technique used in Mother.
i) first person narrative ii) third person narrative
iii) loose and episodic iv) Decorative
3. The novel is divided into -----Sections.
i) two ii) four iii) six iv) eight.
 persecution: torture
 Leninism: ideas and views expressed by Lenin
 Humanism: a system of beliefs that concentrates on common human needs
are seeks rational ways of solving human problems.
 Socialism: ownership of land and other resources controlled by the whole
community or by the state.
7.6 Summary:
character/s, theme/s and narrative technique/s of Gorky’s Mother.

7.2.1
A) i) 1868
ii) socialist realism
iii) ten
iv) pneumonia
v) Order of Lenin
B) i) nineteen
ii) Grandfather
iii) Capri
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iv) 1936
v) Maxim the Bitter
C) i) Nizhniy Novgorod
ii) Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov
iii) by shooting himself in the chest
iv) Russian Socialist Democratic Liberal Party
v) The Tupelov-ANT-20
7.3.1
A) i) 1907
ii) Bertolt Brecht
iii) Siberia
iv) businessman
v) Sophia
B) i) Pelagea Nilovna
ii) Italy
iii) the pre-revolution proletariat
iv) close friend
v) nenko
C) i) Pavel Mikhailovich
ii) Mat
iii) Pavel’s father
iv) Andrei Nakhodka
v) joins the factory
7.4.1
A) 1. Pelagea Nivolvna
2. Tsarist
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3. Sasha
4. Andrei Nahkodka
5. Mother
B) 1. misogynist
2. Naasha
3. Pelagea Nivolvna
4. Pavel and Andrei
5. Saveli
C) 1. Pavel
2. The mother
3. Natasha
4. Somorov
5. Vlassovs
7.5.1
A) 1. May Day demonstrations
2. third person narrative
3. two
7.8 Exercises:
1. Consider Mother as a critique on the contemporary political crisis under the
Tsarist regime.
2. Discuss Mother as a landmark in the hierarchy of world literature
articulating the voices of the proletariat and the philosophy of socialism.
3. Comment on the major theme/s as reflected in Mother.
4. Write a detailed note on the art of characterization in Mother.
5. What narrative strategies does the writer make use of in Mother?
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Write Short Notes:
1. The art of characterization
2. The treatment of history
3. Stylistic devices
4. The Use of Locale
5. The treatment of women
6. The spirit of comradeship
7. Patriotism

Vaksberg, Arkady. The Murder of Maxim Gorky A Secret Execution. New York:
Enigma Books, 2007.
Dillon, Emile Joseph. Maxim Gorky: His Life and Writings. BiblioBazaar, 2010.
Wettlin, Margaret. Maxim Gorky’s Mother. Read Books, 2008.
Morris, Paul D. Representation and the twentieth-century novel: studies in Gorky,
Joyce and Pynchon. Königshausen & Neumann, 2005.

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Unit-8
John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
Contents
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 John Steinbeck: Life and Works
8.3 Introduction to Grapes of Wrath
8.4 Plot/Summary of the Novel The Grapes of Wrath
8.5 Major and Minor Characters in The Grapes of Wrath
8.6 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s in The Grapes of Wrath
8.7 Summary
8.9 Exercises
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8.0 Objectives:
 know about the life and works of John Steinbeck
 know about the plot of the novel The Grapes of Wrath
 learn about the character/s in the novel The Grapes of Wrath
 learn the theme/s and narrative technique/s used in the novel The Grapes of
Wrath
 be able to answer the questions on the novel The Grapes of Wrath
8.1 Introduction:
This unit begins with the discussion of the life and works of John Steinbeck. It
also studies his novel The Grapes of Wrath in terms of its plot, character/s, theme/s
and narrative technique/s.
8.2 John Steinbeck: Life and Works

John Ernst Steinbeck was born at Salinas California in Monterey where he
lived as a young man brought him. He came there in contact with many laboring men
and poor families. Seeing their plight, he was moved and that aroused in him the
great sympathy for their lives and also gave a valuable background to the novels he
wrote. The setting of the novels endorses the youthful experiences he had been
through. His youthful rambling in and out of many odd jobs, manual labour instilled
in him a lifelong spirit of humility. This sense of humility was seen in his talk while
accepting the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962.
Steinback began his writing with the romantic novels which were not so
successful but after a few years he established himself with Tortilla flat (1935) a
novel about poor Mexican American farmers in California. It was propaganda for the
far left. His more remarkable novels outside The Grapes of Wrath was Of Mice
and Men, a magnificent piece of literature, published in 1937. The dramatic form of
this novel gave recognition to Steinbeck as a great artist. The Broadway production
was a instant hit. The Grapes of Wrath came in 1939, a sensational bestseller that
epitomized the name of Steinbeck as the great novelist.
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Steinbeck`s later novels have ranged in a wide variety of setting, themes, and
styles. Their acceptance by critics and public has been similarly varied. It is true that
certain Steinbeck novels have shortcomings but no one disputes his greatness. He
may be the best of America`s emotional novelists in the first half of the 20 th century.
That is why he finds a place among the best 100 great American novelists.
A] Choose the correct alternative:
1) Steinbeck was born at --------------
a) Salinas b) Oklhama c) Great Britain d) Egypt
2) Seeing the poor families, the feeling of ----------- aroused in Stenbeck.
a) Love b) hatred c) sympathy d) anger
3) The spirit of humility was instilled in Steinbeck because of the ----------
a) Nobel Prize b) Manual labour c) rich background d)
4) Steinbeck was honoured by Nobel Prize for Literature in the year ----------
a) 1950 b) 1962 c) 1974 d) 2008
5) The novel Tortilla Flat dealt with---------
a) English people b) Aristocrats
c) Black Americans d) Mexican American Farmers
B] Fill in the blanks
1) Grapes of wrath was published in the year----
2) Of Mice and Men was published in the year ----------
3) Tortilla Flat upheld the principles of the--------
4) Steinbeck’s name as a novelist mainly rests with ------------
5) Steinbeck finds a place among the best ------------- novelists.
8.3 Introduction to Grapes of Wrath:

Published in the year 1939 The Grapes of Wrath is a sensational best seller
about migrant farmers fleeing from the dustbowl stales of Oklahoma and Arkansas to
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seek greener pastures in California. Their flight did not prove to be beneficial
because the imagined land of plenty that is California too failed to be worthy of their
troubles they had undertaken to reach there. This novel is one of the best constructed
American novels and incorporates poetic and subjective passages that could be
expected only from the pen of the greatest novelists. The novel is also a skillful essay
in propaganda of the economic crisis, the political condition, the greed of corporates
and banking elites during the Great Depression.
The novel has background of the Great Depression and it focuses on the family
of share-croppers, the Joads. They are driven from their Oklahoma home by drought,
economic hardship and change in the agriculture industry. They (Joads) set out for
California along with thousands of others who are displaced because of the Dust
Bowl in search of land, jobs and dignity. All these okies are making their way to the
promised land of California where they feel they would get good jobs and wages.
The novel illustrates the hardships and oppression suffered by migrant labourers. The
novel also describes the collective action by lower classes against the individualistic
self interest represented by corporate, bank elites who have sole aim of maximizing
their profit even at the cost of starvation of the poor formers.
A] Choose the correct alternative
1) The Grapes of Wrath is about the life of--------
a) Business tycoons b) Thief
c) Lovers d) Farmers
2) The promising land for the fleeing farmers is ---------
a) India b) California c) Oklahoma d) Arkansas
3) The migration of the farmers proved to be---------
a) Worthy b) Useless c) Unfulfilling d) disgusting
4) The Novel is set during the period of ----------
a) World War I b) World War II
c) Eng of 19th Century d) Great Depression
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5) The corporate symbolizes the--------
a) Oppression b) Sympathy c) Love d) Compassion
8.3.2 Terms to remember:
 Great Depression : A period of economic crisis in America.
 Dust bowl: Natural Calamity often seen at the Oklahoma.
 Okies: Derogatory term used by California’s people for the farmers of
Oklahoma
 Collective Action: Action taken in the interest of many people
 elite: Rich, snobish, moneyed people.
8.4 Plot Summary of the Novel The Grapes of Wrath

The novel begins with the description of the Dust Bowl in which poor farmers
Of Oklahoma have got their crops ruined. In the beginning Steinbeck does not give
rise to any specific character in order to make his narrative larger in social context.
However, he relates us to the Joad family that is more specific in the larger social
context.
Tom Joad, a man not yet thirty, is released on parole from prison in Oklahoma
after serving 4 years of 7 year sentence for killing a man, In the hot summer he starts
walking to the farm where his father works as a share cropper. He gets ride in a truck
and the driver is surprised that Tom expects to find his family still on the farm. The
Dust Bowl has almost rained everything in the land and the farmers have vacated the
place…. Drought and dust storms have made the land untenable for the small farmer
and thousands of them are deserting their unprofitable lands heading to the west.
On his travel to home, Tom meets his former preacher, Jim Casy, a talkative
man confused about religion, his own teachings and even the presence of sin. He has
given up the preaching after having illicit sexual relations with the women in his
congregation. Casy holds the view that what is holy in human beings comes not from
a distant god but from the people themselves. He is the moral voice of the novel and
its religious center. He is a religious icon, a philosopher and a prophet. His initials
(J.C.) represent Jesus Christ and give us Steinbeck`s interpretation of religious
doctrine. Who embodies Steinbeck’s interpretation of religious doctrine. The strict
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moral code, rules and regulations of Christian teachings are too confining and are not
applicable to actual life situations according to casy so his final conclusion is that all
men and women are the Holy Spirit connected by one common soul.
Steinbeck contrasts Tom`s return with the arrival of bank representatives to evict
the tenant farmers and the rectors of farm the land. He fears the possibility of
working class insurrection, but is unable to find an effective solution for collection
action.
Casy and Tom reach Joad home and find it deserted. To Casy, it looks like the
arm of the Lord. Seeing the gates unhooked, Tom realizes that Ma isn’t there because
she would never leave the gate so. While they are thinking over it, the family has left.
They find Muley Graves approaching them. Muley Graves is short, lean old man
with the look of an ordinary child. He tells Tom that his mother was worrying about
him and his family has moved on with Uncle John Muley`s own family to find a
work in California but he himself has decided to stay back. Tom tells Muley that he
can`t go to California for the fear of breaking parole on which he is released from the
prison. Tom holds that the prison has not changed him significantly. He thinks that
even at that moment if Herb Furnbull, the man whom he killed comes back again, he
would not hesitate to run his knife through him. He would still hit him with shovel.
Tom and Muley don’t believe in the rehabilitating powers of prison. This
foreshadows the later development of the novel. Muley thinks that the capitalist
system controls the society. Muley tells Tom and Casy that they have to hide in a
cave for that night as they are trespassing the land now owned by the bank and police
might arrest them. Muley thinks that they are like animals to be hunted who cannot
show themselves open.
Tom and Casy leave the place the next morning and walk to uncle John`s farm
where Tom finds his family. They are preparing to head west. They see Pa Joad
fixing the truck. When he sees Tom, he assumes that he broke out of jail. Ma Joad
thinks for a moment that Tom might have gone insane being in jail. Steinbeck
introduces Granma Joad, Grampa and also Tom`s older brother Noah Joad. The
family has a dinner. Pa tells Tom about Al, his sixteen year old brother who is
concerned with only girls and cars. Tom is also told about his sister Rose of Sharon
who is called that Rosasharn and she has got married to Connie Rivers and is
pregnant. They are left with only two hundred dollars for their journey ahead. This is
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followed by a more general description of the sale of items by impoverished families
who intend to leave Oklahoma to California as Joad expects to do.
With the meagre money they get after selling everything, the family intends to
go on. Their last two pigs are slaughtered and Ma cooks the meat and salts it down in
legs. They load the truck to its limit. Casy asks to go along with 13 persons on the
overloaded truck. Grampa is unwilling to leave but the family gives him medicine
that makes him unconscious and they take him with them. Grampa`s refusal to leave
highlights the fact that how important the land is for these people. For him, it is
unimaginable to leave the land with which he was associated in his soul.
In this three generation family of Joads, Grampa is a nominal head. It is the Ma
Joad who is dominating head of the family. She is the moral force of the family
Though Tom Joad is the protagonist, it is Ma Joad who is the moral centre of the
novel. Even Casy has to follow her word to join them in the journey to California.
With the vacating of the farmers, new means of cotton production overtakes the
farms. It is the machines like tractors used by their owners in the farm and this shows
the sharp contrast with the farmers toiling there earlier. The drivers of the tractors do
not have any concern with the land. They are the strangers to the land and have no
relation with it. Steinbeck gives the critique of new means of cotton production. He
perhaps continues to remind the readers that tractors are inhuman. They simply go
home at the end of the day.
Highway 66 is the main road stretching between Mississippi and Bakersfield,
California on which the migrants are travelling. It is the road for refugees who have
been displaced because of Dust Bowl. All these migrants are heading to big
California but not big enough to accommodate and give promising work to their
hands. The migrants are moving in their old cars. They are the most unreliable
vehicles make one anticipate that Joad family too soon will face difficulty with their
vehicle.
The Joads continue their travels. As suggested before, Al remarks that they may
have problem getting over mountains. By now Grampa Joad wakes up and insists
that he is not going with them. They get the account of dismal picture from the gas
station owner that their destination has hardly anything good stored for them. Casy
wonders what the nation is coming to since people seem unable to make a decent
living. He also believes that something more devilish than the devil itself is awaiting
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for them against which they need to fight. The family dog is run over by a car and
dies and on their next stop by night, the Joads meet the Wilsons a family from
Kansas, going to California. Grampa suffers a stroke and dies. Thus the two
members of the Joad family die, the dog and the Grampa. The family decides to bury
Grampa by themselves to save him den from suffering death as a pauper. Both the
families that is Joads and Wilsons decide to help each other on the journey by
spreading out the load between their two cars. The agreement between the Joad`s and
the Wilsons’on the way to California is a significant plot development for it is the
collective interests from which these families find their strength. This is the first
building block in a collectivist scheme and Steinbeck seems to support it as the
working class people come together for their collective interests.
The changes that are taking place in the west coast are a threat to the selfish
interests of the owners. The labour unity, widening strikes behaviour of the
government are some of the changes the owners are scared of. The relationship
between the owners and the working classes is in danger. The owners exploit
individual interest in order to thwart the collective good. The people’s problems
have moved from I to We, which has become major concern for these owners.
Steinbeck considers the definition and functions a man. To him, a man is what
he creates and what work he does. He presents the novel in larger perspective where
collective interest becomes more important than the individual one.
Joads and Wilsons continue their journey. Rose of Sharon discusses with her
mother what they will do when they reach California. She and her husband Connie
want to live in town pursuing their interests. He will possibly take a radio
correspondence course. By the time there is a problem in Wilson car. Sairy Wilson
asks Joads to go ahead without them but Ma Joad refuses saying that they are now
like a family and she won’t desert them in such a condition and she is firm inspite of
everyone’s objection to her. She is not willing to break the family bond even for
small time. Tom and Casy will repair the car. They stay with the car while the family
goes ahead. Al tells Tom that Ma is worried about him that he would do something
that might break up parole. Tom and Al find spare parts for the car in junkyard and
repair the Wilson car. They join the family at a campground not far away. They meet
a man who is returning from California and tells them how the handbills promising
them good work are a fraud. These handbills will draw workers more than required
which ultimately will reduce their wages. The information given by this man agitates
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the proprietor of campground; because the man has exposed the reality to these
workers on their way to California to find good fortune.
One strange thing startes happening with the migrants. During the day their
vehicles, and cars are separate and lonely but when they halt at the campgrounds at
night all the families become one. In a real sense the sense of word we, startes
growing and the leaders emerge. This wisdom and the experience of elders wins
them the leadership.
When Joads reach Arizona, a border guard stops them but eventually they reach
the deserts of California. While washing themselves during a stop, they encounter
some migrant workers who want to return back. They tell Joads how California hates
migrant workers. Major land is owned by the Land and Cattle Company. They are
derogatively called Okies. Noah wants to leave everyone for they don`t care him.
Despite Tom`s protest he leaves them. Granma suffers from delusions. Though they
face many hardships, Ma Joad insists that they must continue as Granma needs
medical attention. When they reach orange garden grove next morning, Ma tells them
that Granma is dead.
The arrival in California is rather anticlimactic. The harsh California deserts, the
loathsome treatment given to workers, leaving of Tom’s brother Noah, the death of
Granma, the contempt of deputies make the journey of Joads more Worse.
A brief account of the history of California is given by Steinbeck. California
belonged to Mexico, but the Americans took over the farming and made it an
industry. They imported Chinese, Japanese Mexican and Filipino workers who
became slaves. The owners of farm became businessmen. The okies are hated
because they could not make profit out of them. But the owners realized that when
property accumulates in to few hands it is taken away and when a majority of the
people are hungry and cold, they will take by force what the Zeed.
Steinbeck predicts that the conclusion of the history of California will be to
overthrow the capitalist owner class. He relies on Marxist – Leninist predictions that
capitalist imperialism creates its demise through its own success, that is to say, the
success of the capitalist imperialism is the beginning of some revolution as
accumulation of wealth at the few hand levels no other alternative than revolt.
The Joads take Granma to the Bakerfield Coroner’s office. They can`t afford
funeral for her. There comes across a crazy man who is mayor. They ask him work.
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The police and the authorities don’t want okies to settle down. They fear that they
might organize and vote. Tom takes a lead and suggests everybody to organize so
that they can dictate higher wages. The police threatens that they can murder migrant
workers, as they have no name and no property and no power.
Coonie Rivers, Husband of Rose of Sharon abandons his pregnant wife. He
thinks that living back 13 Oklahoma would have given him better life. His being with
the Joads has made his life difficult, decides to go away from his pregnant wife for
selfishness. In all such a dismal picture still there is a hope to Joad family when they
come to know that the government camps are safe terrain for them. They would not
be bothered by police and can expect some comfort. In a sudden outbreak of
violence, Jim Casy takes blame of Tom on him. He is spiritual martyr in the novel.
Rose of Sharon wants to wait for her husband to return. The family heads to the north
to the government camp to find some comfort.
The hostility that the migrant workers faced change them. They are united
against their oppressors. This unity makes the little towns of Hoovervilles defend
themselves. There is panic when migrants multiplied on the highways. The
California residents feare them thinking that they are dirty, ignorant, degenerated and
sexual maniacs. The number of migrants causes the wages to go down. The owners
investe new method, they bring canneries and they keep the price of fruit down to
force smaller farmers out. They hardly realize that the line between hunger and anger
is thin.
The Joads reach the government camp where they are surprised to find that there
are toilets and showers and running water.
There is central committee elected by the camp residents that keeps order and
makes rules and the camp even holds dance nights. The next morning two camp
residents give Tom breakfast and tell him about work. When they reach the place of
work, Mr. Thomas the contractor, informs them that he is reducing the wages at the
order of the farmers ‘association which is owned by Bank of the West. The farmers’
association dislikes government camps because the residents of these camps have
human treatment and it becomes difficult for farmers association to handle them in
the same way.
The time of Joad family in the government camp is comparatively smooth one.
For Ruthie and Winfield their childhood comes back. Rose of Sharon focuses on the
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soon to be born child without imagining life with her husband as she used to do
before. Ma Joad has time to introspect at this camp. It was not so in the past. She was
worried about her survival. Now she could at least mourn for the loss of family
members. Despite the needless hardships posed before the migrants by the farmer`s
association, their life in the government camps is reasonably luxurious. The migrant
workers look for amusement wherever they could find and thus make their stay
happy.
There comes a rumor that police are going to break up dance. This was frequent
tactics that police used. The camp members say that Californians hates them because
the migrants might draw relief without paying tax, but they refute this, claiming that
they pay sales tax and tobacco tax. The intruders disturb the dance; however, the
dance goes on without any problems…..
Joad family is living in comfortable position in weedpatch but that must come to
an end as they cannot find work in that area. Tom has only five days of work. Ma is
worried as Rose of Sharon is about deliver her baby. Pa fears that they will have to
leave weedpath on the suggestions of Tom as there is work at Murysville. Ma
decides to go there. They plan to go north where cotton will be ready for harvest. Al
has decided to go on his own and parts away with the family. Rose of Sharon feels
that if Connie hadn’t left her they would have had a house by now. Ma Joad realizes
that the family is breaking down. She has tried to keep the family together but was
not successful the way she wanted to be. She realizes that she is not strong enough to
prevent the gradual disintegration of the Joad household. Al appears ready to
abandon the family. He is more concerned with finding a girl and a steady job and
working with cars than the family.
Their condition at the Hooper Ranch is worse than those at the government
camp. At least they have a roof over their head and enough wages to go on. The
prices are high and they can hardly afford the grocery. The strikes have proved
adverse in raising the prices of the items they need to live on. The strike is another
tragedy for the Joad family. By now, Jim Casy who had been a scapegoat in Tom`s
case unites with him for the labour activities. Casy feels that the starving people
always fight for justice in vain He cites the names of Lincon, Washington and
martyrs of French revolution. But they are confronted by the police. Casy is hit at the
head. Tom fights with the man who hit Casy and eventually wrenches the club from
him and strikes him with it, killing him. Tom immediately flees the scene. He cannot
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sleep that night and tells Ma that he has to hide. Steinbeck makes it clear that these
activists are facing certain doom but it will be indicated very soon. Casy he becomes
who sacrificed his freedom for Tom earlier in the novel, makes a final sacrifice, the
victim of brutal murder at the hands of police. Casy has now been the martyr for the
Joad family and now for the entire class the Joads represent noble sacritice. They
have to leave Hooper Ranch to escape capture from the police. Tom expresses to
leave alone but Ma tries to maintain the unity of family with whatever has been left
and says that all of them will go on a family. They hide Tom from police while they
take back roads to avoid police.
Joads have to stay in box car that stands beside the stream. They are now
involved in picking up cotton. As Tom is hiding from the police, Ma gives him a few
dollars to go away. Tom has been wondering why people can`t work together for
their living and vows to do what Casy has done. He leaves the place with a promise
to return. Eventually it starts raining and causes Rose of Sharon fall ill.
The settlement of Joad family in a box car is narrated. Tom`s decision to leave
the family is inspired by political and spiritual belief. He has started believing that
there is no individual soul, only a collective soul. With the decision to go on the path
of Casy, a sort of transformation is seen in Tom. He wants to work for common
good.
It has been raining like anything and the migrant families wonder how long the rain
would last. The rain has damaged cars and has entered even in tents. The greatest
terror has arrived that no work would be available for three months. Hungry men
stretch their hands to beg for bread. Many people die. There is no work and no food.
Migrants are facing the worst kind of hardships. With the coming of rain is the
end of the harvest season. No government relief is at sight. The life of the human
beings has become worse than the animals.
After the three days of rain they decide to go on. Rose of Sharon goes into
labour pains that`s why Joads can`t leave the boxcar. Pa Joad and the rest of the men
at the camp build up the embarkment to prevent the flooding; but there is no sign of
water getting back. The car could not move on in spite of the efforts made by Pa, Al
and uncle John. When they reach car they find Rose of Sharon had delivered a dead
baby. Uncle John places the dead baby in apple box and floats it into the stream. Al
builds a platform on the top of car. When the flood water rises, the family remains on
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the platform. The family finds a barn a refuse in until the rain stops. On the corner of
the barn there is a starving old man and a boy. Ma and Rose of Sharon realize what
she must do. Ma makes everybody leave and Rose of Sharon gives breast feed to the
dying old man.
The Joad family is found in extremely worst situation. The condition of Rose of
Sharon has made them immobile. They have to stay though the worst flood has
affected the scene. The family ties between the other migrants also are seen. The
collective sense among the migrants comes to the foreground and they show concern
for each other. The birth of a still born child to Rose of Sharon symbolically stands
for the future.
The final scene when Rose of Sharon gives breastfeed to the dying old man, it is
suggestive of a hope. This is selfish sacrifice of Rose for the sake of community
overcoming the individual well being. Rose of Sharon feeds a complete stranger with
the same love that she would have for her own child this epitomizes the selfish love
for the community they belong to. Thus The Grapes of Wrath ends with a heavenly
sense of humanity that human beings should act thoughtfully in distress.
1) Suffering of migrant farmers is due to ---------
a) God`s wrath b) their own mistake
c) misfortune d) Selfish fellow human beings
2) The meeting of Joads and Williams symbolize-------
a) True kinship b) revolt against deputies
c) their interdependence d) their recognitation for each other.
3) The two groups mingle into one another to share their --------
a) Happiness b) victory c) hardships d) Money
4) The Joad family -------- in the hardest moments of life.
a) surrenders b) remains unbroken
c) escapes reality d) looses
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5) The novel focuses on-----------
a) no specific character b) Ma Joad c) Tom Joad d)Al.
B] Fill in the blanks:
1) The land of California originally belonged to-----------
2) Tom realizes that ‘his’ people are---------people.
3) The narrator of the novel is---------
4) Altruism may mean--------
5) The instinct of -------------- is dominating instinct in the novel.
8.5 Major and Minor Character/s in The Grapes of Wrath:

Major Characters
1) Tom Joad: He is the protagonist of the novel, and the second son of Joad
family. He is a recent prison release-clever and able to manipulate the things to
his benefit. He thinks that jail term has not rehabilated him. His present calm
demeanor is deceiving for he can be violent if the time comes, this is indication
of further development of the novel. In an incident when deputy chased floyd
Tom dipped him (Chapter 20) proving that he can be violent. The striking
workers serve as a catalyst for another tragedy of Tom. He reunites with Casy
and finds a new purpose as a labour activist; but as he is on parole he has to
continuously remain away from police. He must leave Hooper Ranch to escape
capture from the police . Though he wishes to go alone, Ma Joad binds family
together. Though young, he leads the family at the later stage of the novel.
2) Ma Joad: Matriarchal figure-practical and warm spirited, heavy woman thick
with a child bearing and work controlled and kind – Her musings that there
might be hope if everybody became angry enough to rise up against the
moneyed interests. She is moral force leads the family –issues the final verdict-
She appears to be principle victim of the move to California. She is ill because
of recent events – she urges and eventually takes a firm step to see that family
remains united. At the time of Granma’s death, Ma takes charge in her hand and
asks Jenovite woman to leave them alone. She comforts the deputies who are the
first example of the contempt towards Okies she is generous and just gives away
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food to starving children, when her own family cannot afford to spare food for
themselves She suffers two deaths and two desertions of the family but at the
government camp gets time at least to keep the family members together. She
realizes that it is breaking apart. She strongly takes the role of Pa Joad and
makes decisions when Tom decides to leave the family; she bids him farewell
and remains the centre of the family. She realizes at times that greater unity of
society workers is more significant than the family and supports Tom with great
affection. She is the lady to accept the changes taking place in their lives with a
womanly courage and compassion that reaches out of their family members and
even to a dying old man when she suggest Rose of Sharon to give breast feed to
that dying man.
3) Pa Joad : Patriarchal or father figure- He is hardworking, share cropper family
man. With the progression of the novel, he becomes a minor character as he
ceases to be the head of the family and Ma Joda, his wife assumes the headship
of family.
4) Jim Casy: A former preacher, a moral voice of the novel and its religious
centre, He is a religions icon, a philosopher and a prophet. His initials J and C
evoke the Christ figure, He represents Steinbeck`s interpretation of religious
doctrine. He finds rules and regulations of Christian teachings too confining and
not applicable to actual situations. He has too many sinful ideas that seem
sensible. He is too often succumbed to temptation having sex with many of the
girls- his congregates. He holds that there is no such thing like sin or virtue and
what is holy is the common good. This feeling makes him think that nation faces
an unconquerable enemy and that the capitalist, system that denies common
people decent living, battle against capitalist system itself is too strenuous than
the battle against devil. Despite his conviction that he no longer believes in
preaching, Casy has to preach on many occasions. the novel seems to indicate
that he is best suited for this role of a preacher In he reiterates his belief that the
people are the source of holiness.
In an unusual, sudden outbreak in which a California deputy opens fire,
Tom trips the deputy while Casy knocks the man unconscious. In this incident
Casy plays significant role and becomes willing a scapegoat. For the crime and
sacrifice himself to save Tom. He plays a role of a spiritual martyr in the novel.
He is taken to jail.
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When released from the jail, he is on the way to California Casy becomes a
crusader for the cause and becomes a labour activist. He has strong conviction
about the justice of his cause. Casy who sacrificed his freedom for Tom earlier
in the novel makes a final sacrifice. He becomes a victim of brutal murder at the
hands of the police. He has been a martyr to the Joad family and now for the
entire class that the Joads represent.
5) Rose of Sharon: Childish and dreamy teenage daughter who becomes a martyr
woman as the plot progresses. She symbolizes re-growth when she breast feeds
the old dying man. She is pregnant in the beginning, but delivers a still born
baby. She is called Rose of Sharon by family members.
Minor Characters :
 Uncle John Joad — Older brother of Pa Joad. He feels responsible for the death
of his young. He ignored her pleas for a doctor because he thought that she had
just a stomachache. Filled with guilt, he is prone to involving booze and
prostitutes.
 Al Joad — The second youngest son who cares mainly for cars and girls; looks
up to Tom, but begins to find his own way.
 Connie Rivers — Rose of Sharon's husband. Young and naive, he is
overwhelmed by the responsibilities of marriage and impending fatherhood and
abandons her shortly after arriving in California. He is stated to be 19 years old
at the time of Tom's first encounter with him and before leaving for California.
 Noah Joad — The oldest son who is the first to willingly leave the family,
choosing to stay by an idyllic river and survives by fishing. Injured at birth,
described as "strange". He may have slight learning difficulties or autistic
spectrum disorder.
 Grampa Joad — Tom's grandfather who expresses his strong desire to stay in
Oklahoma. His full name is given as "William James Joad". Grampa is drugged
by his family with "soothin' syrup" to force him to leave but dies of a stroke
shortly after.
 Granma Joad — the religious wife of Grampa Joad, She seems to lose the will
to live after her husband's death. (and consequently dies while crossing the
desert)
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 Ruthie Joad — the youngest daughter. age twelve.
 Winfield Joad — the youngest male in the family. aged ten. He and Ruthie are
close.
 Muley Graves - A neighbor of the Joads, he is offered to come along to
California with them but refuses. Two of the family dogs are left in his care,
while the third goes along with the family and Casy(and is killed by a car on the
road when they stop for gas).
 Ivy and Sairy Wilson — Kansas folks in a similar predicament, who help
attend the death of Grampa and subsequently share the traveling with the Joads
as far as the California state line. It is implied Sairy is too ill to carry on.
 Mr. Wainwright — the father of Aggie Wainwright and husband of Mrs.
Wainwright worries over his daughter who is sixteen and in his words "growed
up".
 Mrs. Wainwright — Mother to Aggie Wainwright and wife to Mr.
Wainwright. She helps deliver Rose of Sharon's stillborn baby with Ma.
 Aggie Wainwright — Sixteen years of age. Daughter to Mr. and Mrs.
Wainwright. Intends to marry Al. Aggie takes care of Ruthie and Winfield when
Rose of Sharon goes into labor. She has limited interactions with the other
characters. Her real name is Agnes.
 Floyd Knowles-the man at the Hooverville who urges Tom and Casey to join
labor organizations. He agitates against the police and this results in Casy going
to jail.
1) The jail term has --------------Tom Joad
a) refined b) not changed c) angered d) benefited
2) The matriarchal figure in the novel is ------
a) Rose of Sharon b) Ma Joad c) Granma Joad d) Ruthie Joad
3) The moral voice of the novel is represented by------
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a) Ma Joad b) Jim Casy c) Noah Joad d) Tom Joad
4) The Rose of Sheron in the novel symbolizes ---------
a) Destruction b) deliverance c) hope d) tradition
5) Al Joad is interested more in-------
a) Uniting workers b) Church c) girls and cars d) family
B] Fill in the blanks:
1) Tom Joad is free from jail on------
2) The letters J and C evoke -------figure in Jim Casy`s name.
3) According to Jim Casy, the real enemy of the country is ----------
4) Rose of Sheron gives birth to ------------
5) The full name of Grampa Joad is---------
C] Answer in one word/phrase or a sentence
1) Which profession Jim Casy belonged to?
2) Who symbolizes the regrowth and hope?
3) What is the name of the older brother of Pa Joad?
4) What is the name of Rose of Sheron’s husband?
5) How did the death of dog in Joad family occure?
 Reliabilite : help back to normal life
 Verdict: release from the jai on condition
 unenviable: unavoidable
 compassion: pity and concern
 Moral price: Character in novel having moral tone.
 Still born baby: dead child
 growd up: grown up
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8.6 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s The Grapes of Wrath:
Man’s Inhumanity to Man
Steinbeck consistently and woefully points to the fact that the migrants’ great
suffering is caused not by bad weather or by mere misfortune but by their fellow
human beings. Historical, social, and economic circumstances separate people into
rich and poor, landowner and tenant, and the people in the dominant roles struggle
viciously to preserve their positions. In his brief history of California in Chapter 19,
Steinbeck portrays the state as the product of land-hungry squatters who took the
land from Mexicans and, by working it and making it produce, rendered it their own.
Now, generations later, the California landowners see this historical incident as a
threat, since they believe that the influx of migrant farmers might cause history to
repeat itself. In order to protect themselves from such danger, the landowners create
a system in which the migrants are treated like animals, shuffled from one filthy
roadside camp to the next, are denied livable wages, and forced to turn against their
brethren simply to survive. The novel draws a simple line through the population—
one that divides the privileged from the poor and identifies that division as the
primary source of evil and suffering in the world.
The Saving Power of Family and Fellowship
The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the story of two “families”: the Joads and the
collective body of migrant workers. Although the Joads are joined by blood, the text
argues that it is not their genetics but their loyalty and commitment to one another
that establishes their true kinship. In the migrant lifestyle portrayed in the book, the
biological family unit, lacking a home to define its identity, quickly becomes a thing
of the past, as life on the road demands that new connections and new kinships be
formed. The reader witnesses this phenomenon at work when the Joads meet the
Wilsons. In a remarkably short time, the two groups merge into one, sharing one
another’s hardships and committing to one another’s survival. This merging takes
place among the migrant community in general as well: “twenty families became one
family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and
the golden time in the West was one dream.” In the face of adversity, the livelihood
of the migrants depends upon their union. As Tom eventually realizes, “his” people
are all people.
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The Dignity of Wrath
The Joads stand as exemplary figures in their refusal to be broken by the
circumstances that conspire against them. At every turn, Steinbeck seems intent on
showing their dignity and honor; he emphasizes the importance of maintaining self-
respect in order to survive spiritually. Nowhere is this more evident than at the end of
the novel. The Joads have suffered incomparable losses: Noah, Connie, and Tom
have left the family; Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn baby; the family
possesses neither food nor promise of work. Yet it is at this moment (Chapter 30)
that the family manages to rise above hardship to perform an act of unsurpassed
kindness and generosity for the starving man, showing that the Joads have not lost
their sense of the value of human life.
Steinbeck makes a clear connection in his novel between dignity and rage. As
long as people maintain a sense of injustice—a sense of anger against those who seek
to undercut their pride in themselves—they will never lose their dignity. This notion
receives particular reinforcement in Steinbeck’s images of the festering grapes of
wrath (Chapter 25), and in the last of the short, expository chapters (Chapter 29), in
which the worker women, watching their husbands and brothers and sons, know that
these men will remain strong “as long as fear [can] turn to wrath.” The women’s
certainty is based on their understanding that the men’s wrath bespeaks their healthy
sense of self-respect.
The Multiplying Effects of Selfishness and Altruism
According to Steinbeck, many of the evils that plague the Joad family and the
migrants stem from selfishness. Simple self-interest motivates the landowners and
businessmen to sustain a system that sinks thousands of families into poverty. In
contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stands the migrants’
behavior toward one another. Aware that their livelihood and survival depend upon
their devotion to the collective good, the migrants unite—sharing their dreams as
well as their burdens—in order to survive. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck
constantly emphasizes self-interest and altruism as equal and opposite powers,
evenly matched in their conflict with each other. In Chapters 13 and 15, for example,
Steinbeck presents both greed and generosity as self-perpetuating, following cyclical
dynamics. In Chapter 13, we learn that the corporate gas companies have preyed
upon the gas station attendant that the Joads meet. The attendant, in turn, insults the
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Joads and hesitates to help them. Then, after a brief expository chapter, the Joads
immediately happen upon an instance of kindness as similarly self-propagating: Mae,
a waitress, sells bread and sweets to a man and his sons for drastically reduced
prices. Some truckers at the coffee shop see this interchange and leave Mae an extra-
large tip.
Narrative Technique/s:
The narrator of the Grapes of Wrath is an anonymous, all-knowing, historically
aware consciousness that is deeply sympathetic, not only to the migrants but to
workers, the poor, and the dispossessed generally.
The narrative shifts dramatically between different points of view. In some
chapters, the narrator describes events broadly, summarizing the experiences of a
large number of people and providing historical analysis. Frequently, in the same
chapters, the narrator assumes the voice of a typical individual, such as a displaced
farmer or a crooked used-car salesman, expressing that person’s individual concerns.
When the narrator assumes the voice of an anonymous individual, the words
sometimes sound like what an actual person might say, but sometimes they form a
highly poetic representation of the anonymous indiv-idual’s thoughts and soul. The
chapters focusing on the Joad family are narrated primarily from an objective point
of view, representing conversations and interactions without focusing on any
particular character. Here, the characters’ actions are presented as an observer might
witness them, without directly representing the characters’ thoughts and motivations.
At certain points, however, the narrator shifts and presents the Joads from an
omniscient point of view, explaining their psychologies, characters, and motivations
in intimate detail.
A) Answer in one word/phrase or a sentence
1) In what way does Steinbeck describe California in chapter 19?.
2) In what way did Californian landowners see the migration of Okies?
3) What is the ultimate act of Joad family that shows their regard for human
life?
4) What makes many families sink into poverty?
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5) Which major theme in chapters13 and 15 emphasize on?
 Altruism: unselfishness
8.7 Summary:
The five main sections in this unit enable students to know about the plot,
character/s, theme/s and narrative technique/s of The Grapes of Wrath.

8.2.1
(A) Choose the correct alternative
1. Salinas
2. Sympathy
3. Manual labour
4. 1962
5. Mexican American Farmers
(B) Fill in the blanks
1. 1939
2. 1937
3. leftist
4. The Grapes of Wrath
5. Emotional
8.3.1
A) Choose the correct alternative
1. farmers
2. California
3. Unfulfilling
4. Great Depression
5. Oppression
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8.4.1
1. Selfish fellow human beings
2. true kinship
3. hardships
4. remains unbroken
5. no specific character.
1. Mexican farmers
2. all
3. anonymous
4. unselfishness
5. Survival
8.5.1
1. Not changed
2. Ma Joad
3. Jim Casy
4. Hope
5. Girls and cars
1. Parole
2. Christ
3. Capatilism
4. Still born baby
5. William James Joad
C) Ans. in one word/sent.
1. Preaching
2. Rose of Sheron
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3. Uncle John Joad
4. Connie Rivers
5. by accident/vehicle run over the dog.
8.6.1] Ans. in one word
1. Product of land hungry squatters
2. as a threat
3. Rose of Sheron gives breast feeding to a dying old man
4. Selfish interest of landowners
5. greed and generosity
8.9 Exercises:-
A) Write Short Notes:
1. Sketch the character of Jim Casy
2. The title The Grapes of Wrath
3. Beginning of the Novel.
4. Ending of the Novel.
5. Joad’s stay at government camps.
B) Essay type Questions:
1. Analyse The Grapes of Wrath as an epic written during the Great
Depression on the migrant labourers.
2. “The Grapes of Wrath endorses the importance of common good over the
individual good” Comment.
3. Steinbeck wrote, “I want to put tag of shame on the greedy bastards who
are responsible for the Great Depression and its effects”. Give your critical
comments.
4. Narrate how the novel The Grapes of Wrath evokes sympathy for ordinary
working class people and for the workers’ movement.

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Unit-9
V. S. Naipaul’s A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS
Contents
9.0 Objectives
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Subject Matter
9.2.1 V. S. Naipaul: Life and Works
9.2.2 Plot of the Novel:
9.2.3 Detailed Summary:
9.2.4 Themes:
9.2.5 Symbolism and imagery:
9.2.6 Style and structure:
9.2.7 Satire and Humour:
9.2.8 House for Mr. Biswas as a Tragicomedy:
9.3 Terms to Remember
9.5 Exercise
9.6 Further Reading
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9.0 Objectives:
 Know about the life and works of V. S. Naipaul.
 Know about the plot of the novel A House for Mr. Biswas.
 Learn the character/s in the novel A House for Mr. Biswas.
 Learn the theme/s and narrative technique/s used in the novel A House for
Mr. Biswas.
 Be able to answer the questions on the novel A House for Mr. Biswas.
9.1 Introduction:
V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas is one of the significant novels which
achieved worldwide acclaim. It is the story of an individual’s search for roots and as
a larger commentary on colonial and postcolonial society. The novel portrays the life
of Mr. Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for his identity.
From the childhood, he is supposed to be an unfortunate and his father Raghu’s
miserliness is another story of Indo-Trinidadian. Fate had brought Raghu from India
to Sugar Estate. Mohun’s mother, Bipti, with her three children Prasad, Pratap, and
Dehuti were taking shelter at her mother, Bissondaye’s house. Mohun’s birth is
considered as inauspicious to the family as he was born as a six fingered child with
spaces in teeth. On the occasion of his birth, Pandit prophesizes about him that he
will be lecher and a spendthrift. This prophecy is confirmed with the death of his
father and dissolution of Mr. Biswas's family. His sister, Dehuti, is sent to live with a
wealthy aunt and uncle, Tara and Ajodha, while Mr Biswas, his mother, and two
older brothers go to live with other relatives.
Mr Biswas decides to set out from the home to make his own fortune. He moves
from place to place in search of job. In his journey, he meets to his childhood friend
Alec, who helps him get into the business of sign-writing. While on the job, Mr
Biswas attracted the attention of a client's daughter. But these attempts were taken to
be misinterpreted as a wedding proposal and he is drawn into a marriage. He marries
into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and finally sets the goal of
owning his own house. His journey from Hanuman house to The Chase puts an end
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to his rebellion for all practical purposes and begins his quest for his own house. His
first independent encounter with real life of running a Tulsi shop, at Chase, ends in
failure. Green Vale experience is a disaster because of his incompetence in Labour
management. The onslaught of rain and wind, which blows off the house. His
journalistic stint achieved through his skill of sign writing gives him economic
viability which leads to his final achievement of building of his own house, on the
Skkim Street. V. S. Naipaul drawing some elements from the life of his father, and
develops a sharply-drawn look at life that uses postcolonial perspectives to view a
vanished colonial world. He is oppressed by Tulsi’s at Hanuman house, under the
monarch of Mrs. Tulsi, where Padama’s husband Seth also tortured him.
9.2 Subject Matter

9.2.1 V. S. Naipaul: Life and Works
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is a Trinidadian writer of Indian descent. He
was born in August 1932, at Chaguanas, a small town on the Caribbean island of
Trinidad. He was the grandson of Hindu immigrants from North-East India. His
grandfather migrated to Trinidad to work on the sugar plantation who finally settled
there.
V. S. Naipaul was born and grew up in Trinidad as a part of large Brahmin
family which included five sisters, fifty cousins and a brother Shiva Naipaul, who is
also a novelist. He spent his childhood in a quasi-orthodox environment and learns
all rituals. During his first six years, his family lived in his maternal grandparents’
imposing home, which was known as Lion House and which formed the model for
the Tulsi home in A House for Mr Biswas.
However, the family move from place to place and finally settled in Port of
Spain. He was very close to his journalist father Seepresad Naipaul, who drilled him
in vocabulary and comprehension at home. The irony which appears in Naipaul’s
fictional world is inherited from his father. In his academic career he won a
scholarship to Queen’s Royal College at Port of Spain. At the age of eighteen he won
another government scholarship and went abroad for his further study. His father
died when he was in England. He earned his degree in English literature in 1954
from Oxford University with Honours. After graduating he remained in England to
pursue a writing career. He supported himself by working as a freelance writer and
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editor for the BBC radio program, which was broadcasted to the West Indies. During
this time, he wrote short stories set in Trinidad. The stories were later published in
Miguel Street.
In 1955 he married to an English woman Patricia Hale. They both share a close
relationship and even Patricia worked as an unofficial editor for his most of works.
She also worked as a school teacher. In 1996, Patricia died due to the cancer. Prior to
Patricia’s death, Naipaul proposed to Nadira, a divorced Pakistani journalist. They
were married two months after Patricia’s death.
1. His Works:
V. S. Naipaul is a prolific writer, who wrote many novels, short-stories, and
non-fictional works. Naipaul spent much of his life travelling and always returning to
London as he finds it a good place to be lost. He never felts at home in Trinidad and
feels as a rootless man. He tries to give an expression to his feelings of insecurity, in
the hostile world, from his writing. Most of his fictions explore the feelings of a
rootless man who is trapped into an alien universe.
The Mystic Masseur (1957):
In his first novel, The Mystic Masseur, he gives an expression to his childhood
feelings. It is a tale of Indian Trinidadian narrated in satirical and detached tone. The
protagonist of the novel Ganesh Ramsumair is a frustrated writer of Indian descent.
The novel traces the journey Ganesh from poverty on the back of his dubious talent
as a 'mystic masseur’ and a successful colonial politician.
The Suffrage of Elvira (1958):
In his next novel, The Suffrage of Elvira, he describes the slapstick
circumstances surrounding a local election in one of the districts of Trinidad. It is a
satire of the democratic process and the consequences of political change. It also
delves into the multiculturalism of Trinidad, showing the effects of the election on
various ethnic groups, including Muslims, Hindus, and Europeans.
Miguel Street (1959):
Miguel Street presents a series of separate episodes of childhood experience of
an unnamed narrator. His all happening are in and around Miguel Street, a street in
western Port of Spain. The book contains a number of idiosyncratic characters,
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including Mr. Popo, the poet B. Wordsworth and Man-Man. The book narrates the
story of great ambitions.
An Area of Darkness (1964):
An Area of Darkness is an anecdotal and descriptive travelogue which deals
with the author’s traveling through India in the decade of 1960s. It is also a part of
Naipaul's acclaimed Indian trilogy which includes India: A Wounded Civilization and
India: A Million Mutinies Now. The Novel is known as a deeply pessimistic work
which conveys the acute sense of disillusionment that the author experiences on his
first visit to his native land.
A Flag on the Island (1967):
A Flag on the Island is a collection of short stories, including outtakes from
previous novels. In a Free State is published in 1971 as one of three short stories
within a book of the same name. Surrounding them is the narrator's tale. The work is
symphonic with different movements working towards an overriding theme.
The Loss of El Dorado (1969):
The Loss of El Dorado, is a history book deals with the issues of Venezuela and
Trinidad. The title of the novel refers to the legend of El Dorado. The novel reveals
the story about the obsessive quest for gold which found typical in the first
Europeans who explores the region. The protagonist of the novel is Sir Walter
Raleigh and the focus of the novel is on his voyages with a psychological depth. The
second part of the novel is set in Trinidad which was under British rule from the end
of the eighteenth century.
Guerrillas (1975):
Guerrillas is set on an un-named, remote Caribbean island. It narrates the story
of Jane and Roche. Both have recently arrived on the island. Roche is engaged with
helping the poor on the Island. Jane is naive and entertains fantasies about the non-
white islanders. She also entertains sexual fantasies regarding Jimmy.
India: A Wounded Civilization (1977):
This is the second book of his "India" trilogy, after An Area of Darkness, and
before India: A Million Mutinies Now. The narrative body of the novel reveals
Naipaul’s third visit to India. The Emergency of 1975 provides a take off point for
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this novel. In this novel he is more analytical while recapturing and probing the
feelings arouse in him by the mysterious and agonized continent of India. His
observations leads him towards his conviction that India, wounded by many
centuries of foreign rule, has not yet found an ideology of regeneration.
A Bend in the River (1979):
A Bend in the River is set in an unnamed African country after independence.
The story is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim. Though born and raised
in another country, Salim observes the rapid changes in his homeland with an
outsider's distance.He never identifies the country where he lives.
The Enigma of Arrival (1987):
The Enigma of Arrival is an autobiographical novel which narrates the growing
familiarity and changing perceptions of Naipaul upon his arrival in various countries.
Most of the action of the novel takes place in England where Naipaul has rented a
cottage in the countryside. On first arriving, he sees the area surrounding his cottage
as a frozen piece of history, unchanged for hundreds of years.
India: A Million Mutinies Now (1999):
It is also a travelogue written during the author's journey in his native land India.
It is also a part of his acclaimed Indian trilogy which includes An Area of Darkness
and India: A Wounded Civilization. His narrative style of anecdotal is also continued
in it. Naipaul expresses serious misgivings about Indian attitudes and the Indian way
of life. He delineates in it the economic growth and its associated emancipation of
the various peoples of India. The title of the novel makes an analogy between the
emancipation of millions and the Mutiny of 1857. But in it his pessimistic attitude
towards India somewhat becomes optimistic.
Half a Life (2001):
Half a Life is set in India, Africa and Europe. It narrates the story of Somerset
Chandran, a son of a Brahmin father and a Dalit mother. He leads a life as a poor
immigrant and later he writes a book of short stories and manages to publish it.
 Check Your Progress-1
1. Mr. Popo is a character from _________.
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a. A Bend in River b. Miguel Street
c. Guerrillas d. Half a Life
2. What was Nadira’s Profession?
a. Teacher b. Painter c. Journalist d. Doctor
3. Who is the narrator of A Bend in River?
a. Salim b. Ganesh c. Popo d. Somerset Chandran
4. What is the name of Tara’s husband?
a. Bhandat b. Ajodha c. Alec d. Mr. Seth
5. Where did Mr. Mohun Biswas go after his stay at Hanuman House?
a. Green Vale b. The Chase
c. Tara’s garage d. Pagote
B) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence: (5)
1. What did Pandit prophesize about Mohun after his birth?
2. What was Roche’s activity on the island in Naipaul’s Guerrillas?
3. Name Mr. Mohan Biswas’s two elder brothers.
4. Why did Mr. Biswas go to Hanuman House for the first time?
5. Which three continents are referred in Half a Life?
9.2.2 Plot of the Novel:

Mr. Biswas is born in rural Trinidad to parents of Indian origin. His birth is
supposed to be ominous as he was born in the wrong way with six fingers. When he
was born a pundit forecasts his fortune as he will be a ‘lecher’ and ‘a spendthrift’. He
also predicts that he will be a liar and will eat up his mother and father. The pundit
advises to keep the boy away from trees and water. A few years later, Mohun leads a
neighbour Dhari’s calf to water. He has never seen the water in its natural form.
When he reaches to the stream, he becomes distracted by watching the fish. He
allows the calf to wander off which is lost finally. Mohun hides in fear of
punishment. His father supposing his son to be in the water drowns in an attempt to
save him and dies.
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This incident results in the dissolution of Mr Biswas's family. Bipti sells her
house and the land to Dhari. His sister, Dehuti is sent to live with a wealthy aunt and
uncle, Tara and Ajodha, while Mr Biswas, and his mother go to Pagotes and two
elder brothers go to distant relatives at Felicity to live. Tara withdraws him
prematurely from the school and sends to practice religious rituals to the household
of the Pundit Jairam. But after eight months he is accused on bad terms and taken
away from his religious practice. Tara then puts him in the care of her alcoholic and
abusive brother-in-law Bhandat. Mr. Biswas works there in his rum shop. But soon
he is dismissed from the shop and charged with stealing.
Mr Biswas now decides to set out to make his own fortune. He moves from
place to place in search of job. In his journey, he meets to his childhood friend, Alec
who helps him get into the business of sign-writing. While on the job, Mr Biswas
attempts to develop a romatic relationship with client's daughter, Shama. But his
advances are taken to be misinterpreted as a wedding proposal and he is dragged into
a marriage and becomes a member of the Tulsidom. Biswas’s relationship with the
Tulsi clan goes a long way in defining his struggle for selfhood.
Mr Biswas becomes very unhappy with Tulsi family. No dowry is offered to
him and he is forced to work with other son-in-laws in the household of Tulsi family.
He struggles for an economic independence in the oppressive Tulsi household. But
without any money or position he finds himself dependent on the Tulsi household.
Mr Biswas is offered a place in the Tulsi household from which the
advancement is possible. But Mr Biswas rejects that. He suffers a mental breakdown.
He leaves the Tulsi and goes to stay with his sister in Port of Spain. He joins the
Sentinel newspaper as a journalist and this leads to reconciliation with the Tulsi. He
also takes an interest in the education of his son Anand. Meanwhile, Tulsi family
move to an estate at Shorthills and Mr. Biswas is also forced to join them. But after
his quarrel with Owad and Mrs. Tulsi, he moves to his own house at Sikkim Street
where he dies. His quest to exist as something in his own right, to build something he
can call his own is fulfilled at the end of his life. He becomes obsessed with the
notion of owning his own house and it becomes a symbol of his independence and
merit. He dies in his own house with the satisfaction. But rest of the life he lives as a
wanderer from place to place in search of his real identity.
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9.2.3 Detailed Summary:
The novel opens with the prologue in which we are told about the dismissal of
Mr. Biswas from his job in the Sentinel. He is unable to pay the mortgage on the
house. However, he is satisfied with his wife’s effort to help him and her loyalty to
him and her concerns for children after leaving the Hanuman House. There is a sense
of satisfaction as he has his own house. He feels secure there. Behind closed doors of
his own house, he hears only the noise of his family to wander freely from room to
room, instead of being condemned as before. His desire of having his own house is
fulfilled. He buys the house from a corrupt solicitor's clerk. The clerk deceives him
by providing him defective house in its structure and layout. But Mr. Biswas
becomes familiar with the house and on his first return from hospital he finds a warm
welcoming and ready-made world waiting for him. And everything by which he is
surrounded is rediscovered. Every relationship, every possession is rediscovered.
1. Pastoral: Mr. Biswas’s Early Life
At the beginning of first chapter we are told about the birth of Mr. Biswas. He is
born in the hut of his grandmother Bissoondaye at rural Trinidad to parents of Indian
origin. His birth is considered as ominous as he was born in the wrong way at
midnight, with an extra finger. Such a birth is supposed to be an ill-luck and disaster
to the family according to Hindu beliefs. The pundit forecasts his fortune as he will
be a lecher and a spendthrift. A few years later, Mr. Biswas leads a neighbour's calf
to water. He has never seen the water in its natural form before. When he reaches to
the stream, he becomes distracted by watching the fish. He allows the calf to wander
off. Mr. Biswas hides himself in the fear of punishment. His father supposing his son
to be, in the water, drowns in an attempt to save him and dies. Tara, his mother’s
sister controls the family of Bipti. Her childlessness attracts her to Mohun.
2. Before the Tulsis: Destruction of the Family:
After his father’s death, the family leaves the place and moves to Pagotes. His
sister, Dehuti, is sent to work as a servant in a wealthy family of his aunt and uncle,
Tara and Ajodha. His mother, Bipti, leaves her village after her garden is ransacked
by some neighbours. They suppose that her husband, who is thought to be the richest
man in the village, has buried bags of money there.
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The two brothers are sent to Felicity to work on the sugar estates. As a result Mr
Biswas feels isolation and alienation in his house. No traces remain of Mr Biswas's
birthplace. It becomes a garden city of oil yields and the swamp region. Even his
birth certificate has to be invented and drawn up by a Muslim solicitor, F. Z. Ghany.
Mr. Biswas is sent to the mission school and he is taught by Lal, a converted Hindu.
However, Mr Biswas is not happy there and he feels it is a temporary arrangement.
He learns there many ineffectual facts. Tara withdraws him prematurely from the
school and sends him to practice religious rituals to the household of the Pundit
Jairam. Now he feels disconnected from his family and only sees his sister at Tara’s
house in the rituals. He goes there to read That Body of Yours for Ajodha. After
eight months he is accused of stealing two bananas from Pundit’s house and taken
away from his religious practice. Tara then puts him with her brother-in-low
Bhandat. Mr. Biswas works there in his rum shop. Bhandat is a kind of suspicious
person. Mr. Biswas rebels against him by spitting on the rum. But soon he is
dismissed on the report of stealing money from the shop.
3. The Tulsis: Arrival at Hanuman House:
As a young man Mr Biswas decides to set out to make his own fortune. He
moves from place to place in search of job. In his journey, he meets to his sister and
her husband but now he feels detached from them. However, he becomes impressed
with their way of living. Then he meets to his childhood friend Alec, who helps him
get into the business of sign-writing. He escapes into the novels in search of romance
and identifies himself with the heroes of Samuel Smiles. He arrives at Hanuman
House to sign a board. It is owned by Tulsi, a reputed family among Hindus.
Hanuman House is situated at High Street at Arwacas. They are respected, though
little is known about them. While on the job, Mr Biswas attempts to romance Tulsi’s
daughter. He passes a note to Shama which is found by Mrs. Tulsi. His advances are
taken to be misinterpreted as a wedding proposal. He is called for an interview and
accepted as a suitable boy for Shama. He is drawn into a marriage and becomes a
member of the Tulsi household. After the ceremony he tries to escape from Tulsi’s
house but he is compelled to live there and compelled to become Tulsi and in this
way he gets trapped at Hanuman house.
At Hanuman House there is a dominance of matriarch Mrs. Tulsi, Mr. Seth, her
brother-in-law who manages the Tulsi estate, his wife Padma, the two sons of Mrs.
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Tulsi namely Shekhar and Owad, Govind and Chinta and the Tuttles. He is being
turned into a puppet of deterministic forces. His resistance to being totally absorbed
by the Tulsis and his desire to maintain some difference between them and himself
takes a variety of forms. His speaking Creole English is a deliberate act. He is very
good at nicknaming the people also. He refers Mrs. Tulsi as ‘old queen’, ‘old hen’,
‘old cow’. Shekhar and Owad’s as ‘little Gods’; and Mr. Seth as ‘big boss’. He
struggles against the oppressive rules of Tulsi family. He satirizes Tulsis for being
false Hindus. He mocks at Tulsis for sending their sons to the Roman Catholic
College and forgetting their own tradition. He refuses to attend the pooja and spills at
the plateful food on Shama’s brother Owad. His activities set the quarrel in the house
between him and Govind and results in his move to a village named Chase.
4. The Chase:
The Chase is a long settlement of mud huts in the heart of Sugarcane Area. Mr
Biswas moves to the isolated settlement to manage a shop which is short. He sees the
business to be very risky as there are large numbers of such shops. He feels it as a
temporary settlement which is not possible for real life. The shop is Tulsi property;
the house is blessed by brother-in-law Hari at Shama's insistence. Even his daughter,
Savi, is named by Seth and Hari, and is seen as a Tulsi. At Chase, Mr. Biswas tries to
regain the lost credit through the corrupt lawyer, Seebaran. As a result the business
declines and he himself gets into debt. He lives there six years and finds his life as
boredom. He finds his life as a futile; there is a fear in his mind for his blank future.
However, he remains optimistic that something will console his soul. He develops
the habit of possession and leaving mark. He consoles himself with religion and
philosophy, painting foreign landscapes and indulging in eccentric habits.
A son is born and his family spends more time away at Hanuman House. A
place is offered to him in the Tulsi house from which the advancement is possible.
He wins acceptance with his wit and argument. He looks for the shelter in the
Hanuman House from the impersonal outer world. At the same time he dislikes its
hold over his family. When Shama declares that she wants to return to Hanuman
House for good, he quarrels with her and sometimes also hits her. He does not see
her until their third child is born, when he too leaves The Chase and joins her at
Hanuman House. He stays there until he is given work on the estate at Green Vale.
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5. Green Vale:
At Green Vale he lives in a small room in the barracks. As soon as he sees the
barracks, Mr. Biswas decides that the time has come for him to build his own house,
by whatever means. He is unaware about the work of sugar cane and estate work. He
is scorned by the labourers who only fears Seth. He wishes to move to his own
house, but Seth promises him to manage a new house. He becomes frustrated by the
environment and he also fears the workers. He abuses Tulsis to Shama who again
returns to the Hanuman House leaving him alone. Shortly after Christmas he visits
his children. He brings a large doll's house to Savi. This Doll’s House episode is
symbolic one. But Shama destroys that doll’s house to avoid disruption and jealousy
in the family. He takes Savi to Green Vale for a week to claim on her. After a short
period Shama returns to him but again retires to Hanuman House as she becomes
pregnant. He employs a carpenter to build a house despite having little money to
finance it. However, he becomes disturbed and restless. He finds the objects in his
room which threaten him. Shama visits him but he beats her accusing; she and Tulsis
are trying to kill him.
Shama returns to Hanuman House leaving her son Anand with his father. Mr.
Biswas moves to one of the finished rooms with his son. However, at night the fire is
set in the house which results in the destruction of Mr. Biswas. He returns to
Hanuman House. He comes to know that the fire was set by the labourers. Gradually
he recovers from his past memories. But he realizes his place in the house as a
subordinate. He determines to establish his independence and feels that his fortune is
still waiting for him.
6. Amazing Scenes: Search for Identity:
When Mr Biswas leaves Hanuman house and his wife and four children, his
main concern is to find a place to pass night and finally he goes to stay with his sister
in Port of Spain. Mr Biswas suffers a mental breakdown. He feels stimulated and
excited by the city. But his excitements soon fade away and he worries about his
freedom. A feeling of fear enters in his mind.
After an abortive visit to a medical specialist he recognizes that he has to
accept the past as a vital part of himself. He restores the wholeness of his mind. He
also recognizes that the spasms of fear on seeing people were caused by regret,
envy, and despair, rather than fear. He acts decisively and gains a job at the Sentinel
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newspaper as a journalist under Mr. Burnett. At Sentinel he gains an expression for
his talent and fantasy. He becomes a reporter and establishes contact with various
peoples. He also reunites with his family and sees his fourth child. He develops close
relationship with Owad. He gets one room in the Tulsis house at Port of Spain. He
establishes closer relationship with his children and involves himself in their
education. He even completes a short course of journalism and writes imaginative
stories. He plants rose-bushes in the garden and begins to think of the house as his
own. However, the routine becomes disturbed with Owad’s departure to England to
study medicine.
Disaffections spread at Hanuman House. Again the house becomes empty and
frequent quarrels are broken as Mrs. Tulsi fails to control the situation. His job also
comes in danger as the new editorial policy demands a strict adherence to fact. He
fears for his job and feels that his work is average. The food quality declines and the
prices rise with the impact of the war. His imaginative life of city and sense of
expectations soon distract and he finds himself trapped in the previous situation. The
destruction of the rose garden by Seth provokes a scene of violence in the house in
which Mr Biswas damages some of the furniture in the house.
7. The Shorthills Adventure: Destruction of Hanuman House:
Tulsi’s family move to an estate at Shorthills and Mr. Biswas is also forced to
join them. Mr. Biswas promises to Mrs. Tulsi to move there. He is also attracted by
the idea of building his own house. However, Tulsis lose their cohesive power of
virtue with the death of Padama and Hari. Mr. Biswas decides to build his new house
and calls his mother to visit the place. She helps him to clear the ground for the firing
which sets the fire in his third house. Mr. Biswas moves to the Port of Spain to the
house of Tulsi. There begins a rivalry between Mr. Biswas and Tuttles, another
brother-in-law. A comic rivalry ensues over possessions, and the crowds and noise,
increased by Basdai’s schoolchildren boarders from Shorthills. The frustrating
environment of his house alienates him from the family and makes him find solace in
his office. He feels he is excluded from the growing prosperity in the island. He fears
about the future of his son Anand as he is still dependant on others. He is appointed
as an investigator for the Deserving Destitute Fund, but is constantly exposed to the
failure and misery and seeks help from the widow of Bhandat. He continues to visit
Ajodha and becomes friendly with Jagdat, Bhandat’s son. But there is much hostility
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between Ajodha and his two nephews. The internal rivalries in the house preoccupy
him, including that between Anand and Vidiadhar, who are both in the exhibition
class.
Mr. Biswas involves himself in Anand’s education and helps him in his
examination, which he passes with great success. Mr Biswas’s mother dies, and he
dedicates her embarrassingly emotional prose poem. He writes a long letter to the
doctor who delayed in signing her death certificate, and is rewarded by his letter
being sent back and so acknowledged. Mr Biswas involves himself closely in
Anand’s work at the college. He looks to his son increasingly as embodying his
hopes for the future. He even loses his hope of possessing his own house again and
feels much despaired. He accepts a new job in a governmental social welfare
department which gives him a fresh interest and a sense of security. He now spends a
fabulous life and feels that his fortune is good at last. The Tuttles leave for their own
house and Mrs. Tulsi returns to her son Owad as he gets back from England. Mr.
Biswas also temporarily moves to Hanuman House.
8. The House: Fulfilment of his Wish:
Owad is now the new head of the family. But a strong rivalry develops between
Owad and Anand which leads to the quarrel between Mr. Biswas and Tulsis. Mr.
Biswas meets to the solicitor’s clerk and visits to the house in Sikkim Street. It is
impossible for him to buy a house at that time so he sells his house at Shorthills for
five thousand dollars He borrows four thousand dollars from Ajodha and purchases
the house. His quest to exist as something in his own right, to build something he can
call his own is fulfilled at the end of his life. He becomes obsessed with the notion of
owning his own house and it becomes a symbol of his independence and merit. He
dies in his own house with satisfaction. But the rest of the life he lives as a wanderer
from place to place in search of his real identity. The house puts him into the trouble
as the clerk deceives him. The Tuttles visit tthe house and are impressed by the
house.
Owad marries Presbyterian cousin and establishes a private practice at San
Fernando. Mr. Biswas returns to The Sentinel, but finds the work tedious. There is a
constant burden about the debts in his mind. Suddenly he suffers from a heart-attack
and spends a month in the hospital. Savi returns to see her father but Anand cannot.
His death is reported in the newspaper and Shama’s sisters visit for the cremation
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ceremony. Shama and her children are left in the empty house. Thus, Mr. Biswas
dies with the sense of contentment.
A) Choose the correct alternative: (5)
1. Who helps Mr. Biswas in getting the job of a sign painter?
a. Bhandat b. Alec c. Ramcharan d. Ajodha
2. What is the name of Mr. Seth’s wife?
a. Padma b. Nalini c. Shama d. Urmila
3. Who manages the Tulsi estate?
a. Mr. Seth b. Mr. Owad c. Ajodha d. Shekhar
4. Where did Dehuti send to live after the dissolution of Biswas family?
a. at Chase b. at Pagote c. at Green Vale d. at Tara’s house
5. Whom did Mr. Mohun’s mother sell her land and hut?
a. Tara b. Dhari c. Mr. Seth d. Pandit Jairam
B) Answer in one word/phrase/sentence: (5)
1. Which funny names were given by Mohun to Mrs. Tulsi?
2. Where did Mr. Biswas build his final house?
3. Name Mrs. Tulsi’s two sons.
4. What advice did Pandit Jairam give to Mohun’s parents?
5. Where was Hanuman House situated?
9.2.3 Major and Minor Character/s:
1. Mr. Biswas:
Mr. Biswas is an unfortunate person from his childhood. He moves from place
to place in search of his roots. All his attempts to establish his own identity are
fruitless. However, he is a person of high optimism. He fights with each and every
obstacle to become a successful man. Despite the sense of despair and
disillusionment, he believes on his future and achieves his own house.
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From the childhood he suffers a lot. After leaving his school, he learns Hindu
rituals but is trapped in the malpractice which costs on him heavily. Later he workes
in the rum shop where he is treated very badly. After leaving his house he tries to
earn his job as a painter of signs but is trapped into a marriage. He is a person of
sense of humour and wit. He mocks at Tulsi household for their exclusive family
loyalties and mixed religious affinities. He calls Mrs. Tulsi as an ‘old hen’.
He always lives with the feeling of insecurity. He finds himself a rootless man
and wants to live in his own house. He rebels against the Tulsi household but is
unable to find a background support. Several quarrels take place at the household
because of him. At the last part of the novel he leaves Tulsi house to find his own
way and goes to Port of Spain. There he works as a journalist in the newspaper
sentiment. At the end of the novel he dies with the satisfaction that he has his own
house, his own identity.
2. Shama:
Shama is the daughter of Mrs. Tulsi with whom Mr. Biswas marries. At the
beginning of the novel, like other daughters she also follows her mother’s rule. She
even leaves her husband and goes to her mother’s house whenever she finds the
problem. But at the end of the novel she lives with Mr. Biswas in his difficulty.
Shama shows genuine concern when he is obviously under extreme stress and not
well at all solicitously enquiring about his well-being. Mr. Biswas is moved by the
loyalty of Shama to him and their children at the end, during his illness. Because of
her support, he is able to fulfil his wish to build his own house.
3. Mrs. Tulsi:
Mrs. Tulsi is the widow of reputed Pundit. After Pundit she runs the household.
Mr. Biswas feels humiliated in her household and tries to reject the matriarchal rule
of Mrs. Tulsi. She is a monarch of Tulsidom. When someone tries to step out of
home she faints and retires to the Rose Room where she is served by her daughters.
She remains there until the rebelled son-in-law apologies her. She always tries to
harmonize the house. She changes her mood according to the situation to disharm her
opponents and Mr. Biswas is good at nicknaming her as per the situation, such as –
‘old queen’, ‘old hen’, ‘old cow’, etc. Many times Mr. Biswas feels that he is
possessed by her. She admits her sons to the Roman Catholic College for their bright
future. When Owad goes abroad to his further study she loses her interest in the
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household. However she has still an ability to control the household. When she
moves to city from the Shorthills, she commands the life of her daughters. Thus,
Tulsi is the character for whom the reader feels little sympathy. She is the source of
humour and satire in the novel.
4. Mr. Seth:
Mr. Seth is another minor character in the novel that plays an important role in
the Tulsi household. Mr. Biswas nicknames him as ‘Big Boss’. He is the husband of
Padma, sister of Mrs. Tulsi. He is dressed in a muddy boots and a stained khaki
topee. He shows contempt for those who are not prepared to work on the land. He
treats Mr. Biswas in a bullying manner. Mr. Biswas nicknames him as a ‘big thug’.
He criticizes and ridicules Mr. Seth for his misdeeds. He names Mr. Biswas as ‘the
paddler’ and refers the house being turned into a republic with a serpent in its midst.
However he has some good qualities also. He sometimes addresses Mr. Biswas as
Mohun and he also rescues him from the trouble of police. Seth’s disaffection for
Tulsi family beings when he quarrels with Shekhar. He begins to be an outsider in
the family. We feel sympathy for his disgrace at the end of the novel.
5. Owad:
Owad is a younger son of Mrs. Tulsi. He is very short-tempered person. He
confronts Mr. Biswas directly and wants him to apologie his mother for calling her
names. He calls Mr. Biswas as a Christian as he rejects to offer a pooja. He also
urges Govind to kill Mr. Biswas at their quarrel. However, the conflict is forgotten
when they form a friendship while living at the house at Port of Spain. They both
share the mutual understanding and when Owad moves abroad he becomes upset.
After his return from abroad we find a change in his character. He objects to the
disgrace of Indians and refuses to return to India.
6. Shekhar:
Shekhar is another son of Mrs. Tulsi. He marries with a Presbyterian girl and
becomes a wealthy businessman. He breaks the tradition of Hindu customs and goes
to live with the family of his wife. Like Owad he becomes distant from the Tulsi
family as he becomes a sophisticated person. He runs cinema as a part of his
business. He even involves himself in the social welfare but soon withdraws himself
267
as his party is defeated in the election. Thus, like Owad he becomes a western man
who forgets his tradition.
1. What is the name of Padma’s husband?
a. Mr. Seth b. Shekhar c. Owad d. Ramcharan
2. Who urges Govind to kill Mr. Biswas?
a. Owad b. Mrs. Tulsi c. Mr. Seth d. Bhandat
3. Who runs cinema as a part of the business?
a. Mr. Biswas b. Shekhar c. Ajodha d. Alec
4. Whom did Mr. Biswas refer as ‘the paddler’?
a. Govind b. Mrs. Tulsi c. Ajodha d. Mr. Seth
5. What does special room of Mrs. Tulsi called?
a. Rose Room b. Doll’s House c. Lily Room d. Ashiyana
1. Why did Owad go to abroad?
2. Name the newspaper where Mr. Biswas works as a journalist
3. What is the name of Mrs. Tulsi’s sister?
4. Who rescued Mr. Biswas from the trouble of police?
5. Why did Owad calls Mr. Biswas as a Christian?
9.2.4 Themes:
1. Exploration of the contemporary scenario:
The setting of the novel is the Caribbean island of Trinidad, which is part of the
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It covers the period of almost fifty years—the
lifetime of Mohun Biswas—during the first half of the twentieth century. Trinidad is
discovered by Christopher Columbus, during his third voyage, in 1498. At that time,
people speaking the Arawakan and Carib languages already lived there. About two
268
hundred years later, Spanish people began settling in the region. They brought with
them enslaved people from Africa. Spain encouraged Roman Catholic people from
other countries to move to the island. French settlers also greatly influenced its
culture. Britain seized control of Trinidad from Spain in 1797. They brought
labourers from India, China, Lebanon, and Africa and many immigrants from other
areas. As a result of these influences Trinidad became a multicultural land.
Trinidad is affected by its cultural diversity. English is the official language.
However, Spanish, French, and African languages are also spoken along with some
East Indian languages. The island's distinctive steel-band and calypso music have
their roots in African music, and its most popular sport—cricket—was introduced by
the British. Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from Britain in 1962. For
many years previously, Trinidadians had been demanding, and moving toward, self-
government. These years of transition serve as a backdrop for Mr. Biswas's story.
2. Emigrant Experiences:
Mohan Biswas and most of the other characters in the novel are East Indian. In a
part it is the reflection of Naipaul’s own life. Like his family, his characters are
descendants of people who emigrated from one British colony— India—to another
during the 1800s. Around 1840, Indians began arriving in Trinidad as indentured
workers. These were workers whose travel costs were paid by their employers in
return for a set number of years of work, usually on the island’s sugarcane
plantations. Indians also migrated to other countries that lived under British law and
government. Today, the descendants of these indentured Indian workers can be found
in former British colonies in Africa, East Asia, and South America. In these
countries, as in Trinidad and Tobago, Indian culture, religions, and languages have
remained alive.
3. Colonial Experiences and A House for Mr Biswas:
The term, Colonialism, refers to the control of one power over a dependent area
or people. At the beginning of the 15th century, first Spain and Portugal and then
other European countries began to compete for colonies around the world. This
competition led to many wars. Being under colonial rule, the colonized countries
were badly affected by them. After independence they look forward for the
development. V. S. Naipaul portrays this colonialism in his novels. Many readers of
A House for Mr Biswas have seen the novel as a symbolic representation of the
269
colonial experience. According to this view, the Tulsis represent the colonials who
strictly control the colony’s daily life and development. Mr. Biswas would represent
the colonized people. He is economically and psychologically dependent on Mrs.
Tulsi. Mrs. Tulsi embodies Queen Victoria who governs the British rule. Mr.
Bisawas struggles for independence and freedom, but his progress is slow and
difficult. Like many former colonists, Mr. Biswas has not had the opportunity to
learn the skills needed to manage in an independent society. His attempt to run the
store at The Chase is a disaster, and he is ill-suited to oversee the sugarcane workers.
Even his self-identity has been jumbled and his traditional roots disguised.
He does not know the location of the house he lived in as a boy. In other sense,
Tulsi family represents colonial slaveholders. We find similarities between the
Tulsis’ activities and those of the slaveholders of the 1800s. It can also be read as an
account of Naipaul’s father’s struggles to make a life for his family. It is an
autobiographical account of how Naipaul came to be an author and an outcast from
his homeland. It can also be viewed as a personalized account of the experiences of
thousands of Indian immigrants in Trinidad. The novel is enriched by the fact that it
can be read on several different levels.
9.2.5 Symbolism and imagery:
V. S. Naipaul used various symbols and images to give expression to his
feelings.
1. Symbol of House:
It is almost an archetypal symbol. The house is associated with stability,
permanence, economic independence, freedom, home, and a sense of security and
solidity of selfhood. The image of house represents, Mr. Biswas’s search for
freedom. This image relates with image of transgressive father figure symbolizing
creativity rather than authority. House building is also interpreted as connotations of
creativity that is constructing of a novel and becoming a novelist. It is not just
Mohun Biswas creating a space for himself in the world, attempting to overcome
through writing. It is author’s sense of displacement and sense rootlessness, as East
Indian, in Trinidad, as an East Indian in Britain and India, his search of identity,
moving out of the colonies to the metropolis in search of artistic freedom and
intellectual expansion. It is the story of all rootless Trinidadian people and their
Diasporic experiences.
270
2. The Doll’s House:
The example of the doll's house shows the powerful use of symbolism in the
novel. The doll's house, and its destruction, is identified with Mr Biswas himself. The
house emerges to have a human body, with the references to delicate joints and later
to torn skin. In the novel various symbols are linked with places and with people, or
with both.
3. Hanuman House:
Hanuman House is the epitome of the colonised house, dirty, unclean,
disorderly, unhealthy, and most important of all is it is ruled by Mrs. Tulsi, the
monarch. Hanuman house has a feudalistic colonial setup. The description of
Hanuman House as an alien white fortress suggests the foreign nature of the Tulsis
and their Hindu religion in Trinidad. The house becomes a prison to Mr Biswas
against which he must rebel with his own weapons. This could be termed a numerous
symbols since it evokes more than one image. There is the persistent image of the
boy standing outside a house at dusk which Mr Biswas first observes when acting as
a conductor on one of Ajodha's buses. It becomes associated for him with a feeling of
desolation and loneliness. This is linked symbolically with his need for constancy
and a home to give a sense of assurance and protection.
4. Nature and Landscape:
Naipaul also uses images of nature and landscape as symbols. Tulsis landscape
often takes the form of an uncontrolled and decaying jungle. The shop at The Chase
is surrounded by derelict land which promotes nettles and weeds. Green Vale is
surrounded by half-dead leaves. At Shorthills the fertile and productive land is
largely uncultivated and becomes a wilderness. In Mr Biswas's house in Sikkim
Street, however, nature is seen as something beautiful and even lyrical. The coolness
of the laburnum and the scent of the lily comfort Mr Biswas during his final illness.
When he plants a garden at Mrs Tulsi's house in Port of Spain the rose trees flourish;
but as his despair and disillusionment deepen, the roses, untended, grow 'straggly and
hard' and are damaged by a blight. The symbolism in the novel is rarely obtrusive or
heavy-handed, and, like the central symbol of the house itself, the symbols gradually
accumulate additional force and meaning in the course of the novel.
271
5. Winged Ants:
One isolated symbol which deserves comment is the image of the winged ants
which Anand watches during the squall at Green Vale. In this episode we see the
devastation of one type of ant by another more fitted to survive. Anand tries to kill
the black, piercing ants but abandons this as useless when he is suddenly terrified by
their anger and vindictiveness. This episode can be seen as illustrating the empathy
that Anand feels for the sufferer, but also his irritation and anger when he recognises
the uselessness of the weak trying to help the weak. These feelings are resonance in
his relationship with his father, particularly at this moment when Mr Biswas is
clustered on the bed reciting Hindu words, and imagining that 'they' have come to get
him.
9.2.6 Style and structure:
A House for Mr. Biswas is written in third person, told from the point of view of
an omniscient third party narrator, who knows everything. The story is retrospective
told by the narrator. The novel is divided into two parts, a Prologue and an Epilogue.
The plot arrangement is part of a long British novelistic convention as represented by
Charles Dickens. It ponders on the life account of a single protagonist, and traces his
destiny from birth to death. It portrays the accompanying search for self-fulfilment
and gratitude. The novel also traces the rise and fall of the Tulsi family, and the
changes in society over a period of fifty years. It is tricky to date the events in the
novel exactly, but it seems to cover the period between 1905 and 1951. It contains
the two major world wars - the second of which does intrude on the novel with its
economic effects and the growing American influence. Naipaul, however, does not
wholly be conventional to the model defined above. The hero's death, for instance, is
reported in the Prologue, and throughout the novel there is a series of cross-
references and persistent images. A minor example of the latter is the description of
the legs of Pratap and Prasad. On their return from the muddy buffalo pond we find
their legs turned into white that looks like the trees in fire-stations and police-
stations. They looks like washed with white jade up to the middle of their swimsuit.
This is an image which Mr Biswas recalls when he leaves Hanuman House and
Arwacas after his period of convalescence. There he sees the palm trees in the drive
to the police-station. A more notable example is the catalogue of Mr Biswas's
belongings which is used to represent different phases of his life. At each move to
272
another house, the growing list is detailed. After the time at Shorthills, for example,
Mr Biswas has gained only two pieces of furniture: the sleeping bed and Theophile's
bookcase. For the reader, also, each item of furniture becomes overlaid with
particular associations, and so helps to bind the novel together and give it unity. A
feeling of pity is also evoked by the list of these gatherings of a lifetime when they
are exposed for the last time on the move to Sikkim Street and seem unfamiliar and
scruffy and reprehensible. Naipaul shows exactness and clarity, as well as a close
attention to detail. He has an ability to create mood and atmosphere in a realistic and
evocative way. There is always a solidity and concreteness about his descriptions.
The barracks at Green Vale, for example, are described at one point as La Place that
was nowhere, a dot on the map of the island. This abstract comment is then followed
by the observation that dead trees ringed the garrison, a wall of flawless black'.
Naipaul does not flinch from describing unpleasant sights, such as the scabs formed
by the sores. Naipaul never uses exciting or exaggerated language. This sense of
control comes partly from the distance that Naipaul maintains from the material he is
handling. It enables him to evade falsely romanticizing his subject and makes the
material seem realistic and plausible. An example of this is the careful detailing of
Mr. Biswas's breakdown at Green valley. By reporting this process in an impassive
tone, usually in the form of statements, he gives the writing great power and
theatrical effect. When Mr. Biswas moves into his incomplete house, he becomes
obsessed with the tarmac on the roof which melts and looks like a number of snakes.
They even begin to appear in his dreams. He began to regard them as living, and
wondered what it would be like to have one fall and twist on his skin. When this
horror occurs, it is reported in a matter-of-fact way which serves to intensify the
horror far more than a more melodramatic description could have done. 'A snake had
fallen on him. Very thin, and not long. When they looked up they saw the parent
snake, waiting to release some more'. This control in the writing is a difficult
accomplishment for any writer, and is one of Naipaul's great strengths. We
experience the sufferings of Mr Biswas more deeply because of this careful and
delicate contrast between the dreadfulness of a particular event and the contained
way in which it is described. A further example is the destruction of the doll's house
which Mr. Biswas has given his daughter, one of the most traumatic experiences
which he has in the novel. Once again, however, the event is described in a simple
style which allows the reader to imagine the emotions involved vividly. Mr. Biswas
discovers the doll's house thrown against a fence in the yard at Hanuman House: 'A
273
broken door, a ruined window, a staved-in wall, or even roof - he had expected that.
But not this. The doll's house did not exist. He saw only a bundle of firewood. None
of its parts was whole. Its delicate joints were exposed and useless'.
9.2.7 Satire and Humour:
Humour and satire are fundamental in the novel and are often linked. Satire uses
ridicule, irony, and sarcasm to criticize its object. Irony is the leading technique for
creating humor, particularly in the descriptions of the feuds between Mr. Biswas and
the Tulsis. Mr. Biswas comments to Shama at one point, when she is aggressive to
return to Hanuman House after a quarrel, that she will be given some medal at the
monkey house. He invents animal names for the main members of the family. He
refers Mrs Tulsi's sons, as the little gods. These descriptions, though absurd and
ridiculous, also contain some truth and so expand our sympathy. We laugh with Mr
Biswas at the pretensions and petty tyrannies of the Tulsis. Particular incidents at the
Tulsi establishment are also humorous and even border on slapstick, such as the
spilling of a plate of food on Owad's head. The humour is also directed at times
against Mr Biswas himself. This adds to the intricacy and richness of the novel since
it avoids a simplified response in the reader, and also contributes to the picture we
have of Mr Biswas's character. He refers to Hanuman House as being like a blasted
zoo. Shama calls him as barking puppy dog, a description which, again, contains an
element of truth. Mr Biswas is frequently satirized in the novel, and his weaknesses
exposed. The use of the third person - Mr Biswas - creates in itself a distancing effect
for the reader. We see Mr Biswas as essentially a complex and rounded character.
There is humour in his battle for possessions with W. C. Tuttle at the house in Port of
Spain. In that battle he is fully engaged and continues until he finally buys his own
house. A similar rivalry is shown with Govind over clothes. There is a humorous
scene when Mr Biswas dresses up in his expensive new suit and goes to a cricket
match to show it off, only to find that the match is almost over. There are many other
instances of humour in the novel. Owrad's phony conversion to the Russian
Revolution is held up to ridicule. Anand's speedy rejection of his hero's stated artistic
prejudices is treated similarly, though with more sympathy. There is often, however,
a contrasting sense of pathos and even desperation underlying the humor. Mr Biswas
himself suggests this in his response to his quarrels with the Tulsis. These quarrels,
as with the final one which causes him to leave Mrs Tulsi's house, often leave him
with a feeling of humiliation and indignity: 'Mr Biswas's anger had gone stale; it
274
fraught him. Now there was also shame at his behaviour, shame at the whole gross
scene'. A similar point is made by the story of Billy which is recounted gleefully in
the cafe where Mr Biswas has gone with the solicitor's clerk. It is a tale about people
being cheated out of houses and it causes laughter '... but Mr Biswas could take no
part in it'. There is undiluted humour in the novel, but frequently a more sober note is
present and undercuts the comedy.
9.2.8 A House for Mr. Biswas as a Tragicomedy:
A House for Mr Biswas is a tragicomedy as we find the elements of comedy and
tragedy in it. Mr Biswas suffers a lot but his frustrations are often retaliating in a
comic manner with his gestures of rebellion. He sees himself in a rather ironic and
sardonic manner. He compares himself with Hari in their respective positions in the
Tulsi hierarchy. He reflects that he couldn’t see himself as a holy man for long. He
believes that he must live for some noble purpose. He suffers for that cause. He may
sometimes resent acting the role of a clown or buffoon. His inherent wit and
facetiousness make this role inevitable. His small physique and continual indigestion
are also sources of humour. Like the traditional tragic hero, Mr Biswas suffers and
dies. He retains his ideals and vision in the face of opposition, showing great
resilience in the process. He appears absurd and self-deluded at times and it is also
indicated in his final purchase of a house. We admire his patience and sympathize
with his susceptibility. There is also at the end of the novel a sense of resolution and
of something achieved which is more appropriate to comedy than tragedy. Mr
Biswas dies with the comforting knowledge that he is not, like King Lear in
Shakespeare’s tragedy. He has left a bequest to his wife and children in the victorious
acquisition of a house.
1. Who has gifted doll’s house to Savi?
a. Shama b. Mrs. Tulsi c. Govind d. Mr. Biswas
2. What work was assigned to Mr. Biswas at The Chase?
a. to run a shop b. a driver
c. engineer d. accountant
275
3. What is the root of Calypso music?
a. British Music b. African Music
c. Australian Music d. Indian Music
4. Who refers Mrs. Tulsi’s sons as ‘the little gods’?
a. W. C. Tuttle b. Mr. Biswas
c. Miss. Logie d. Shama
5. When did Britain seize control of Trinidad from Spain?
a. 1700 b. 1777 c. 1857 d. 1797
Answer in one word/phrase/sentence:
1. What does the image of boy standing outside a house in A House for Mr.
Biswas signify?
2. What is the setting of the novel A House for Mr. Biswas?
3. Who refers Mr. Biswas as ‘barking puppy dog’?
4. Whom did Mr. Biswas quarrel for the possession of house in Port of Spain?
5. What is the significance of ‘Winged Ants’ in A House for Mr. Biswas?
9.3 Terms to Remember

 Caprices [n.] whims
 Cowed [adj.] intimidated
 Creole [n] in the West Indies, a white person of European descent,
especially Spanish or French
 Debase [v.] to lower in value
 Decrepit [adj.] broken down
 Deference [n.] respect and esteem due to a superior or an elder
 Deprecatory [adj.] apologetic; disapproving
 Duplicity [n.] deceptiveness
 Homilies [n.] short sermons on a moral theme; inspirational catch phrases
276
 Inscrutable [adj.] mysterious
 Lethargy [n.] sluggishness
 Meticulously [adv.] carefully
 Misanthrope [n.] person who hates people
 Morose [adj.] gloomy
 Prolix [adj.] wordy
 Quay [n.] dock
 Seditious [adj.] rebellious
 Squalid [adj.] dirty; repulsive
 Sully [v.] to stain
 Tenuous [adj.] flimsy
 Torpid [adj.] inactive
 Ungainly [adj.] awkward

1. Miguel Street
2. Journalist
3. Salim
4. Ajodha
5. The Chase
1. He will be lecher and spendthrift
2. To help the poor on island.
3. Pratap and Prasad
4. For sign painting
5. Asia, Africa and Europe
277
1. Alec
2. Padma
3. Mr. Seth
4. at Tara’s house
5. Dhari
1. Old queen, old hen, old cow
2. On Sikkim Street
3. Owad and Shekhar
4. To keep him away from trees and water
5. At Arwacas
1. Mr. Seth
2. Owad
3. Shekhar
4. Mr. Seth
5. Rose Room
1. For his further study
2. Sentimental Newspaper
3. Padma
4. Mr. Shaikh
5. As Mr. Biswas rejects to offer a pooja
1. Mr. Biswas
2. to run a shop
278
3. African Music
4. Mr. Biswas
5. 1797
1. Feeling of desolation and loneliness
2. Caribbean Island of Trinidad
3. Shama
4. W. C. Tuttle
5. Destruction of one race by the other
9.5 Exercises:
A) Questions to the ponder
1. Critically analyse the social conflicts of colonial society of Trinidad
presented in A House for Mr Biswas.
2. Discuss the themes of ‘Identity Crises’ and ‘Alienation’ reflected in A
House for Mr Biswas.
3. Bring out the significance of the title A House for Mr Biswas.
4. Attempt a note on Cultural predicament reflected in Naipaul’s A House for
Mr Biswas.
5. Examine the elements of Diaspora in Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas.
B) Short Notes:
1. Significance of Hanuman House
2. Episode of Doll’s House
3. Character sketch of Shama
4. Religious Elements
5. Character of Tara
279
9.6 Further Reading: (List of Reference Books)
HAMNER, R. D. (ED.): Critical Perspectives on V. S. Naipaul, Heinemann,
London, 1967. This contains a variety of essays and interviews with
Naipaul; the two essays by G. Rohlehr and one by M. Warner-Lewis are of
particular interest.
RAMCHAND, K.: An Introduction to the Study of West Indian Literature,
Nelson, London, 1976. This contains some perceptive comments on the
relationship between Mr Biswas and Anand.
THEROUX, p.: V. S. Naipaul, An Introduction to his Work, Deutsch, London,
1972.
WALSH, w.: V. S. Naipaul, Oliver and Boyd, London, 1973. This contains
some interesting comments on the novel.
WHITE, LANDEG: V. S. Naipaul: A Critical Introduction, Macmillan, London,
1975.
PARRY, J. H. and SHERLOCK, P.: A Short History of the West Indies,
Macmillan, London, 1956. This provides a useful, basic introduction to the
West Indies in a historical context.
AUGIER, F. R.: Making of the West Indies, Longman, London, 1960. This also
provides social and economic background information.

280

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H I

Literature in English: Novel

SHIVAJI UNIVERSITY, KOLHAPUR

Prescribed for M. A. Part-I

Copies : 5,000 ISBN-978-81-8486-375-8

l Prof. (Dr.) P. A. Attar l Shri. G. M. Shikalgar,

Author’s Name Unit No

Dr. R. G. Barvekar Shri. J. A. Mhetre

This book contains Self Instructional Material prepared by a

Unit 1, besides the discussion of the rise and development

Other important features of this book are: Objectives,

All the best for your final examination!

Dr. Sunil Sawant

Unit No. Topic Page No.

1. The Novel : General Topics 1

2. Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum 39

3. Emile Zola's Germinal 79

4. J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians 121

5. Patrick White's The Tree of Man 161

6. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger 186

7. Maxim Gorky's Mother 207

8. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath 227

9. V. S. Naipaul's A House For Mr. Biswas 251

Objectives are directive and indicative of :

2. What is expected from you

3. What you are expected to know pertaining to the specific Unit

1.2 Rise and Development of the Novel

1.4 Types of the Novel

1.7 Answers to Check Your Progress:

1.9 Further Readings:

2.2 Life and Works of Gunter Grass

2.3 Plot Summary of the Novel The Tin Drum

2.4 Major and Minor Characters in The Tin Drum

2.7 Answers to check your progress

3.2 Emile Zola: His Life and Works:

3.3 Plot Summery of the Novel Germinal:

3.4 Major and Minor Characters:

4.3 Detailed Summary of the Novel

4.4 Major Characters

5.4 Answer to check your progress:

5.6 Reference to further study:

5.2 Aravind Adiga: Life and Works

6.3 Plot Summary of The White Tiger

6.4 Major and Minor Character/s in The White Tiger:

5.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s in The White Tiger:

6.7 Key to check your progress:

7.2 Maxim Gorky: Life and Works

7.3 Plot Summary of the Novel

7.4 Major and Minor Character/s:

7.5 Theme/s and Narrative Technique/s:

7.7 Answers to Check Your Progress:

7.9 Further Readings:

8.2 John Steinbeck: Life and Works

8.3 Introduction to Grapes of Wrath:

8.4 Plot Summary of the Novel The Grapes of Wrath

8.5 Major and Minor Character/s in The Grapes of Wrath:

8.8 Answers to Check Your Progress:

9.2 Subject Matter

9.2.2 Plot of the Novel: