LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 3 March 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
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         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

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Socio-cultural Patterns of the Tamil Brahmin Community
in the Novels of R. K. Narayan

Shakeba Jabeen Siddiqui, Ph.D.

Abstract

R. K. Narayan's fiction reflects the Indian traditions and culture, especially traditions of South India. The novelist's locale is Malgudi, an imaginary town somewhere in South India. Traditional concepts of typical Tamil Brahmin families, myths, status of Hindu gods and goddesses are evident in R. K. Narayan's novels. The main characters are linked to these traditions. There are occasional glimpses of other Tamil cultural values, social norms, orthodoxies and superstitions, which are all well protected. The readers may find Malgudi linked between traditional and modern era. Besides conserving the traditions of South Indian heritage, there are also records of latest advancements and new visions in the created world of R. K. Narayan.

Key Words: R.K. Narayan, Malgudi, Socio-culture, Tamil

Vanguard of Indian Writing in English

R. K. Narayan's life spanned the twentieth century, which meant that he belonged both to the old world and the new. During the time of his birth the British Raj was firmly in place and, in his later years, a totally free and independent nation of India was born and flourishing.

The British presence in India had brought with it a large civil service, an educational system, and railways - all of these institutions the people of the subcontinent embraced with enthusiasm. But it had also brought with it a language as well as a literature which that language created. These also proved to be a very productive legacy.

The British brought English to India and Indians clothed it with a literary tradition, which continues to delight and enrich us to this day. R. K. Narayan was one of the chief pillars of this Indian-coined tradition within literature that used English as the medium. Contemporary writers such as Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, or Anita Desai, whose novels have given such pleasure to readers in Europe and North America, stand rooted in a tradition which R. K. Narayan, as one of the early Indian novelists to write in English, did a great deal to establish. Ali (1986) did the stylistic analysis of Narayan's English in The Guide, focusing on the combination of ironic comment and comic manner. He found Indianism in the style of writing. There was a fusion of English syntactic patterns and Tamil speech rhythm, compounding to give an impression of Indian culture.

Nature of the Socio-cultural Contexts in R. K. Narayan's Novels

Through his novels R. K. Narayan portrayed Indian society and culture as he viewed them. Within the Indian society, his primary focus was on the Tamil and South Indian Hindu society. For demonstrating the socio-cultural pattern in the Tamil community (especially the Tamil Brahmin community), he created the world of Tamil atmosphere by giving Tamil and other familiar South Indian names to his characters, like Swami, Purohit, Veena, Pooja, Malathi, Raju, Rajam, Pandit, Nataraj, Sastri, Lakshmi, Saraswathi, etc. The other names are Mani, Vasu, Sampath, Krishnan, Susila, etc. These names show that his focus was especially on Hindu way of life.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Balbir Madhopuri's Changiya Rukh - A Critique of Dalit Identity and Politics | Multiple Nested Triglossic Situation in Pakistan | Problems Encountered by Arab EFL Learners | Language and Nomenclature Imbroglio among the Kukis | Indigenous Language Abandonment in the Religious Domain in Murree - A Family Report Analysis | A Comparative Study of New Woman through the Female Protagonists of Kamala Markandaya and Shashi Deshpande | A Look into the Causes of Language Choice among Female Students in Academic Setting in Pakistan | Census and the Aspects of Growth and Development of Bangla vs. Bangla-Hindi Bilingualism -With Special Focus on West Bengal | Joshi's The Foreigner - Within and Without | To Investigate the Sense of Teacher Efficacy between Male and Female Teachers of Secondary Schools of Wah Cantt. | Comparative Study of Cost Effectiveness of Formal and Non-Formal System of Primary Teacher Certificate Programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) | Sudha Murty's Short Stories as a Motif of Values | Standard English as a 'Fiat Code' and the Dwindling Faith behind It | Effect of the Use of Motivational Techniques on the Academic Achievement of the Teachers at the Higher Education Level in Pakistan | A Critical Analysis of the Function of Mass Media Language as a Tool of Social Oppression | The Use of Films in the Teaching of English in India | A Comparative Study of Effectiveness of Concept Attainment Model and Advance Organizer Model in Teaching of English in Teacher Education Course | The Effect of Cooperative Learning on Academic Achievement of Low Achievers in English | Imagining a Borderless World: A Comparative Study of Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda | Teaching English in Schools: Problems and Solutions - A Case Study from Rajasthan, India | Socio-cultural Patterns of the Tamil Brahmin Community in the Novels of R. K. Narayan | Effects of Multimedia Glosses on Aiding Vocabulary Acquisition in EFL Environment | English Language Teaching in Rural India - Issues and Suggestions | Teaching Paragraph Writing - "Bilingual" Newspapers as Tools | A Study of Teachers' Academic Qualification, Morale and Their Teaching Behaviour | Syllable Onset Clusters and Phonotactics in Pahari | Literary Criticism as a Shared Set of Measurement | Ted Hughes's Poetry - The Problem of the Evil of Self-Consciousness | Travelogue as a Literary Genre | Bim's Unfailing Strength in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day | Impact of Education on Development of Self-Concept in Adults | An Analysis of the Lack of Primary English Language Skills among the Technical Students of Hindi Speaking States | Emergent Literacy Experiences in the Classroom - A Sample Survey in Mysore City | ICT Enabled Language Learning Using Handphones - An Experimental Study | Creative Writing in Language Classes | Business Communication: Techniques and Methods by Om P. Juneja and Aarti Mujumdar (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2010) | Word Formation in Surjapuri | Beatrice Culleton and Her April Rain Tree - Identity Crisis of the People of Mixed Races of Colonization | A PRINT VERSION OF ALL THE PAPERS OF MARCH, 2011 ISSUE IN BOOK FORMAT. This document is better viewed if you open it online and then save it in your computer. After saving it in your computer, you can easily read all the pages from the saved document.

Call for Papers for a Language in India www.languageinindia.com Special Volume on Autobiography and Biography in Indian Writing in English | Call for Papers for a Special Volume on Indian Writing in English - Analysis of Select Novels of 2009-2010 | HOME PAGE of March 2011 Issue | HOME PAGE of Language in India | CONTACT EDITOR languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com

Shakeba Jabeen Siddiqui, Ph.D.
Department of English
M.P. Garg Degree College
Allahabad-211011
Uttar Pradesh, India
shakeba.siddiqui@gmail.com

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