ShodhPatra: International Journal of Science and Humanities

Family, Freedom and Feminism: Re-reading R. K. Narayan’s The Dark Room

R.K.Narayan’s men and women who populate Malgudi, represent the indigenous and appropriated cultures in India. Almost every major character is seen to be engaged in a quest for indigenous roots and identity and in this way, he/she discovers a distinctive space in the social milieu of Malgudi which as a credible literary universe, reveals the essence of India and of human experience. But apart from being simple chronicles of Indian life and sensibility (as the writer proudly bears the mantle of a ‘storyteller’), Narayan’s novels in particular reserve the potentials for critical analyses in the praxis of attitudes and inferences gained from the postmodern and postcolonial fields of study. In the novel The Dark Room for example, Narayan consciously explores the question of Women’s Liberation and its viability in the context of Indian customs and tradition that are sustained over the ages by the hegemonic forces of patriarchy. In the novel, every stratum of protagonist Savitri’s experience – her quest for an authentic space within her designated role[s] as a mother and wife, -- frets in the blind alley of perpetual indifference and indignity (induced by patriarchy) that turns her world as a woman as it were, into a blighted, claustrophobic sphere, very much like the ‘dark room’ in her house. The present study thoroughly charts Savitri’s courageous struggle that pathetically ending up in despair though, nevertheless testifies to Narayan’s commitment as a realist fiction writer.