The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan
R.K.Narayan has said, “More than any other book, The English Teacher is autobiographical in content, very little part of it being fiction.”
In 1939, Narayan’s wife Rajam passed away. Their only child, a daughter, was three years old. This bereavement brought about a permanent change in his life. Narayan remained distressed for a long time, out of grief and concerns of single parenthood.
The wife of the protagonist Krishana dies of typhoid. Her illness, the prognosis, the hopes, despair and death are painted with stokes of delicate detachment. And infinite pain.
Krishnan,undertakes an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey during the course of the novel. At the start of the novel he is an English teacher, living and teaching at the same school where he was once a pupil, and at the end we see him resigning his post, beginning work at a nursery school, and learning to communicate psychically with his dead wife.
Although Krishnan’s journey is unpredictable, a number of themes are being worked out in the course of the novel. These themes might be said to be Krishnan’s progress from predictability to unpredictability, from the academic world to the real world of life and death, from adulthood to childhood, and from a western mentality to an eastern mentality.
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