Page 175 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 21: Premchand: Godan: Detailed Study of the Text

Synopsis Notes
I will begin with a brief outline of the main narrative elements of the novel. At the centre of the
story is Hori Ram, a farmer in Belari village in Awadh (now Uttar Pradesh), who struggles to get
by in a small household with his wife Dhaniya, their son Gobar, and their two daughters Sona and
Rupa. Like many farmers of the period, Hori longs not so much for material wealth as for social
respectability; he dreams of owning a cow, not only for the economic bounty it would provide, but
also for the respectable status it would confer on his family. By chance, he is given the opportunity
to buy a cow from a widowed milkman named Bhola, who agrees to give the cow to Hori at a
good price if Hori helps him find a suitable wife. Hori is overjoyed, but things turn sour quickly
when Hori’s younger brother Hira, overcome with jealousy at the prospect of Hori’s new
respectability and enhanced status, sneaks into Hori’s house one night and poisons the cow,
which subsequently dies. Hori suspects Hira from the start, but prefers to keep his suspicions
within the family to protect the family’s name; his wife Dhaniya, though, is outraged and publicly
denounces Hira. An investigation of sorts follows—really just a formalistic orchestration of motions
designed to elicit bribes for the police inspector—with Hori’s attempts to cover for Hira undone
once again by Dhaniya’s exposure of the corruption of the inspector and the entire village leadership.
In the meantime, Hori’s son Gobar has fallen for Bhola’s widowed daughter Jhuniya, and made
her pregnant. Bhola is humiliated; Gobar flees; and Jhuniya takes refuge with Hori and Dhaniya.
The village leaders see Gobar’s actions as an affront to the moral fabric of the village, and levy a
heavy fine on Hori.
As Hori sinks further and further into debt, many of the village leaders take advantage of his
precarious situation for their own profit; to make matters worse, the two bullocks he used to
plough his fields are taken away by Bhola as ‘compensation’ for the cow (for which Bhola has
never been paid). Gobar meanwhile has found his way to Lucknow where he has managed to
achieve a certain amount of economic security. He returns to the village, denounces the hypocrisy
of the village leaders at a festival (which he has set up at his own expense), chides his own father
and mother publicly for their behaviour, and then sets out once again for the city, this time taking
his wife Jhuniya and their newborn son Mangal with him. Hori’s situation becomes increasingly
desperate, and when his own daughters Sona and Rupa reach marriageable age, Hori’s repeated
attempts to salvage any sort of respectability all but collapse. He gives his daughter Rupa to a
much-older farmer in exchange for 200 rupees; takes a job as a day laborer in a road construction
project—back-breaking, poorly-paid work during the oppressive heat of summer; and at night he
and Dhaniya make ropes in order to earn whatever extra money they can. Hori literally works
himself to death, and one day he suffers sunstroke. As he is dying, Dhaniya rushes to be by his
side. Hira, who has returned to the village, advises Dhaniya to make a gift of a cow (Godan) to a
Brahmin in order to ensure peace for Hori after he passes. In a gut-wrenching scene of genuine
pathos, Dhaniya takes the twenty annas she has earned making ropes and places them into the
hands of her dead husband. As she does this, she says to Datadin, one of the village leaders (and
a Brahmin): ‘Maharaj, in the house there is neither cow nor calf nor money. These few coins here,
these are his Godan’ (Hindi text p.328/ English text p.437). Dhaniya falls to the ground, unconscious,
and the novel comes to its tragic end.
There is also a subplot that takes place in Lucknow and involves a number of separate characters,
mostly linked by the pivotal figure of Rai Sahib, a zamindar who circulates with equal ease in both
the rural and the urban worlds. In the city we find Mehta, a professor of philosophy; Khanna, a
bank manager and owner/operator of the sugar mill; Malati, a foreign-trained doctor and the
model of the modern, ‘liberated’ woman; and Onkarnath, a newspaper editor, among others. The
interactions between all of these characters, the ideologies they espouse, and the events they set in
motion will now be discussed in the context of a thematic exploration of the relentless acts of
injustice and the palpable sense of outrage that make up the fictional universe of Godan.

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