Page 73 - DENG202_ELECTIVE_ENGLISH_III

Elective English—III

Notes Jagan does not lose hope of his son. He is optimistic that Mali will come back to lead a noble and
responsible life. He believes that jail will purify him of all the blemishes. To quote Bruce F.
Macdonald:
Even Mali, who constantly rejects his Indian past and tries to imitate a spurious Americanism,
who lives unmarried with the casteless Grace, and advocates the killing of cows, and who is in
jail when the novel closes, seems capable of being reclaimed into the historic process he has
spurned. Jail may do him good, as his father anticipates, and the indication seems to be that like
his father, he will be imperfect yet acceptable.
Narayan accepts the Hindu worldview and believes in Maya. Through Jagan he proclaims that
there is “that non-aligned human centre which refuses to be committed to anything in the world
of illusion, because absolute commitment or orthodoxy in human society makes sincerity in the
spiritual realms false, as being too strongly identified with maya” (Macdonald 156). Karma is not
escaped in Jagan’s renunciation. “. . . in modern India Narayan feels the ideal of the sanyasi, like
many other historic ideals, is impossible to attain fully, although the motivation may be the
same as in earlier ages” (Macdonald 157).
The Vendor of Sweets is not merely a Hindu fable intended to illustrate man’s passage from one
ashrama to another but a novel set in modern India where individuals strive to make sense of a
complex and fast changing life and how they are caught in clash of ideas and values. “Narayan’s
main discovery is the fact that traditional concepts like the ashramas and purusharthas in various
disguises, distortions and subterfuges survive and continue to influence the lives of the people”.

Task What would you have done and reacted if you were Jagan in the modern day
world? Discuss.

Self Assessment

State whether the following statements are true or false:
1. The Vendor of Sweets was first published in London in 1967 by The Bodley Head Ltd.
2. Malgudi Days was published in 1950.

3. Narayan founded the publication house, Indian Thought Publications in 1942.
4. Nationalism was the major theme of the story.
5. Mali and Grace were the vendors of sweets in the story The Vendor of Sweets.

5.8 Summary

Narayan was commissioned by the government of Karnataka to write a book to promote
tourism in the state. The work was published as part of a larger government publication
in the late 1970s.

The Bodley Head Ltd. first published R K Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets in London in
1967. Its seventeenth reprint appeared in 2006.

R.K Narayan’s The Vendor of Sweets like his other books is composed in simple, lucid
English that can be read and understood without turning and returning the pages after a
single read.

68 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY