CHAPTER-II

MULTI DIMENSINAL THEMES IN R.K.NARAYAN’S THE ENGLISH TEACHER

The English Teacher, one among the best novel of R.K. Narayan, published in 1945, has
multifarious themes in its construction. This chapter attempts to explore all such themes
embedded in the novel, to give a new dimension to its interpretation. The theme of Love is a key
theme in the novel like marital love, motherly love, parental love among which the
Marital love and marital bliss encompass mostly the first three chapters of the novel . There are
autobiographical elements scattered in the novel as it is a testament to the agony of the author
after his beloved wife’s untimely death. Since it is published before Indian Independence,
colonial paranoia is deployed as one of the theme. There is also a psychological discourse as can
be observed in the conversation of spirit and their transformative effect on the narrator’s life.
Apart from these the novel also explores on few minor themes like life in heaven,
communication, child psychology, social issues, Spiritual Manifestation, superstitions and
nature.

R.K.Narayans novels are characterized by simplicity and gentle humour. His fiction forms a
wide canvas with a multi – faceted projection of marriage as the focal point of life. Narayan’s
treatment of love with its beauty and sordidness of human nature and behaviour has delved deep
into the psyche of man-woman relationship. Krishnan’s love for his wife Susila is the most
lyrical treatment of the ecstasy and agony of love. The ecstasy of marital love terminates in the
tragic death of Susila. The cognate theme of marriage receives an equally elaborate treatment in
Narayan’s novels. The English Teacher is, essentially, a love story.

R.K.Narayan’s The English Teacher tells the emotional story of a bereaved Hindu School
teacher in the last years of the imperialistic regime. It has a bipartite structure but there is
coherence in all the parts of the novel. It is the most thematically unified novel of Narayan’s first
period. The novel begins with Krishnan’s life in a hostel away from his family, for the purpose
of his profession. At the outset it is discussed how Krishnan stays apart from his wife, a married
man, yet to enter the second ashrama as a householder. The remaining part of the first half of the
novel takes the concrete shape of a gradual movement towards the grihastha, with the young
couple’s search for a home of their own assuming a central importance. Unfortunately the
premature demise of Susila takes the novel to a different level.

The second part of the novel displays the sorrow of Krishnan. It narrates the difficulties
of a father to rear a small child. The second half of the novel witnesses some autobiographical
elements scattered everywhere. The justification of the above statement comes along with the
following quotation from My Days: “More than any other book The English Teacher is
autobiographical in content, very little part of it being the fiction”(My Days P3). The final part
observes a spiritual manifestation. There is a spiritual communion between Krishnan and
Susila’s spirit. The pages of the text are devoted to the spirit conversations and their
transformative effect on the narrator’s life.

RK Narayan’s The English Teacher came something after The Dark Room as the author
had a tough time with the death of his wife Rajam. This story is an autobiography of Narayan
and has used his pain and travails into the narration. This is a unique love story of an English
Teacher named Krishna .He works in Malgudi’s Albert Mission College. The story starts in the
hostel of Albert Mission College located in Malgudi. Krishna had been a student in the same
college. Now, he is a lecture. He finds his job and life tiresome and filled with boredom. One of
the reasons being that he cannot work on his own poems and intellectual pursuits as teaching
demands its own energy and time. He is uninterested in his students. He adopts teacher centric
method to teach. He is self –critical and compares himself to a “cow” that does nothing but
ruminate on dead grass.

"cow" who is dull and sits around regurgitating much like his own routines,
which are described as fairly mundane and lacklustre. His dry sense of humour
comes to light when mentioning even a "cow might feel hurt at the
comparison"( TET .P)

As an English educated Indian Krishna feels he is "eating, working, speaking, walking,

talking ...to perfection" trying to fit in the Western system and mannerisms as a result constantly
reflecting his own actions and the pretentious life which frustrates him thus creating pessimism.
He is particular about his ways and almost trying too hard to fit himself in a Western mould. This
adds to his frustrations and makes him feel pessimistic about his circumstance. It is a dream to
become a poet even though he struggles to write voraciously. But he has a good sense of humour
and uses it cleverly to always spread cheer in his college and students. Krishna is married to
Susila and has a daughter but he lives away from his family due to his job. Being away from his
family he always misses the sweet company of his loving wife, Susila and younger daughter,
Lela.

One day he gets a letter from his father telling about his wife and daughter. They are
coming to live with him in Malgudi. His mother also comes to stay with them. Krishna is happy,
at least for some time. He seems to get new let out on life. Susila is an exact opposite of Krishna,
in spiritual and impulsive nature. Susila is emblematic of Indian woman, culture and tradition.
That is why when it comes to family life Krishna's character is in contrast to his professional
life .Krishna loves his wife Susila immensely and has great desire to keep her and Leela happy
and feels most comfortable around Susila because he can embrace his tradition through her.
Susila is presented as an immediate contrast to Krishna, being spiritual while he isn't; she is
impulsive pleading recklessly:

"to wash her feet in the river today," Krishna is less so; she yearns for
individuality and originality by wanting "bathroom tiles in her room" (TET P )

While Krishna a lateral thinker finds it hard to see past the fact that bathroom tiles are
usually used in bathrooms. She possesses the economical and house-keeping common sense by
"keeping a watch over every rupee as it arrives and never lets it depart lightly",(TET P ) Krishna
is a poetic dreamer who seems to lack this sense. Nevertheless it is due to Susila and her love
and influence which create important developments in Krishna's character throughout the novel
where he shows increasing ability to connect with other human beings. This is particularly
demonstrated for the deepening love and desire he feels for Susila. From the action of "smelling
his wife's letter before opening it" and an endearing picture of him playing with water with Leela
and building a caring, loving, flirtatious relationship with Susila. Narayan's portrayal of Susila
epitomises the representation of Indian culture and tradition, exemplifying everything in an
Indian woman. Every time Krishna watches Susila or is in her company he feels contended and
in "high spirits" proving that Krishna wants to cling to his tradition in spite of his western
outlook. Although Krishna mocks Susila by calling her a "yogi" for observing prayer ritual each
morning, in his heart he loves her traditional rituals as well as "the indigo sari, jasmine flowers
tied on her long black plait, walking barefooted by the river".

Krishna is by far a very caring and supportive husband to Susila. Unlike other Indian
male protagonists, Krishna is a typical Indian husband. He plays the role of a companion, a
friend and even a nurse to Susila. Far from being an orthodox husband, Krishna has allowed
Susila to take over the financial aspect of his household. He allows Susila to plan the family
budget, showing thus his trust on her. He also uplifts Susila to an equal status and respects her
rights. Instead of treating her as inferior, he manages to make her enjoy her freedom.

Krishna is a dreamer and lacks a grasp of the practical life while Susila exhibits common
sense and practical wisdom. She compliments and fulfils the shortcomings of Krishna. This is
what makes their bond strong and enduring. Krishna starts finding new meaning in his life. His
affection for his wife grows steadfastly with the passage of time. But this bliss of marital life
couldn’t stay for a long time as the tide that turns for the worst. The current house they live
doesn’t suit them hence they look for a new house. While they are on their search, Susila is stung
by an insect and falls sick. She gets typhoid and unfortunately cannot recover. Tragedy strikes
their home and Susila dies due to her illness. The loss of his beloved wife derails Krishna.

Love is a key theme in the novel: marital love, motherly love, parental love among

others. Marital love and marital bliss encompass mostly the first three chapters. RK
Narayan provides a rather detailed description of the short lived marital happiness of Susila and
Krishna. Krishna loves his wife Susila extremely and abundantly. His love is constant, like the
ever-fixed star, constant and eternal. It is deep like the unchartered ocean and sacred like the
starts. It is as deep and true as that of Farhad’s for Shiri and that of Romeo for Juliet. It does not
alter when it alteration finds. When Krishna learns that his wife is coming, he frantically and
widely searches the house, and does not for a long time find any house suitable for his queen-like
wife. He paces towards the station hurriedly, anxiously.

When Susila falls seriously ill, Krishna feels nervously anxious, and becomes her willing
nurse. He serves her day in and day out. Like the Headmaster, he suffers from sleeplessness and
feels nightmarish. He starts from his sleep, and runs to her bedroom to ascertain that everything
is all right. He watches the thermometer with a beating heart and prays for mild fever. When the
fever recorded is high, he feels like breaking the thermometer. He remains sitting in her room
from down to night watching her sleep or telling her tales. He pours into her throat barely water
medicine and glucose. When she suffers from high fever and splitting pain, he endearingly calls
her child and caresses her forehead. Her sickness has brought him even closer to her. He is
stunned at her death.

Krishna feels lonely, desolate, deserted, and uprooted. He suffers the pangs of
excruciating sorrow. He thinks of thousand ways of putting an end to his life. But for his deep
love for his daughter, he would have committed suicide. He begins to communicate with her.
When he communicates successfully he feels exultant, and sings merrily. When he
communicates unsuccessfully, he feels like having fallen into an abyss without the help of a
ladder to come out of it. Ultimately when she comes and sits by him on the bed smiling, he
offers her jasmine flowers. She accepts them and sticks them into her hair. When he exclaims
exultantly that she is there with him, she smiles and says she has always been there with him.
Then before the dawn breaks he accompanies her to heaven.

Krishna’s love for his child is next only to his love for his wife. He does not send the
child even with his mother to the village even though his mother weeps on this account. He
wants to keep the company of his child because she is now to him the only relief. He dares not
contemplate where her grandparents to take her away with them. When one day he reaches his
home so late that he finds her sleeping, he is full of remorse and prays to God to forgive him for
neglecting his child. He determines to spend the whole Sunday with her. He thinks of thousand
ways of committing suicide because he cannot bear and suffer any longer the grief of separation
from his wife. He does not do so only because of his extreme occupation of his life. He cares
for little else. He feels exultant when she makes a toy in school. He feels thrill and pride
whenever he works for her and looks after her. Doing anything for her is for him a noble and
exciting occupation. He keeps her letter in his purse as if it is a rare document.

The grandfather grows fond of the child when the latter reaches the village house. He
remains sitting on the pyol and watches her grand – daughter playing. The grandmother often
comes to Malgudi and finds more occasions to see her daughter-in-law. She loves her so much
that she requests her son repeatedly to send her with her to the village. When her son refuses to
send her, she calls him stubborn, and weeps. Whenever she comes to Malgudi, the first thing she
asks her son is about the welfare of the child. She is swamped by the child. She keeps Susila
free to look after the child. She brings for her a gold chain and slips it over her head. She asks
her son not to be harsh to her. When she takes her to the village she takes her to the pond or the
garden, sleeps with her and fondles her in every possible manner.

Narayan was born and grown up in a period when English education was already
institutionalized in the Indian sub-continent.Hence he depicts the Indian society continually
under change due to the colonial rule. The first part of the novel is light-hearted and humorous
the recounting Krishnan’s early married life with Susila and daughter Leela. After the death of
Susila, the story becomes somber and serious. Krishnan is a teacher of English in Albert Mission
College. Unable to derive a job satisfaction from teaching, he is constantly tormented by a
feeling that he is “doing the wrong work”. Krishnan is deeply rooted in indigenous culture. He
finds English as a language of colonial domination. But he is caught into an old situation that he
has to teach the same language that he hates. Krishnan’s tragic story is the story of the spiritual
agony and anguish of a learned, sensitive and imaginative modern Indian, who is an unhappy
blend of a revolutionary and uncompromising idealist having his roots firmly embedded in native
tradition.

Krishnan is against English-oriented curriculum of college. Language is the fundamental

site for postcolonial discourse because the colonial process itself begins in language. The control
over language by colonizer, whether achieved by displacing native languages, by installing itself
as a standard against other variants which are constituted as impurities, or by planting the
language of empire in a new place, remains the most potent instrument of cultural control.
Language is the significant signifier of culture. Language provides the terms by which reality
may be constituted, it provides the names by which world may be known. Through Krishnan,
Narayan shows his own sensitivity for native language and culture.

However, Krishnan is not ignorant of the aesthetic value of English literature and is not
opposed to teaching it as a matter of pride or principle. Being colonized, his opposition to
English education is a well-informed decision. As Krishnan later tells Mr. Brown, who has been
principal of Albert Mission college for nearly 30 years, that he reveres them (i.e. the English
dramatists and poets) and that he hopes to give them to these children for their delight and
entertainment, but in different measures and in a different manner. Krishnan also knows that Mr.
Brown will not be able to grasp the idea of self – development, inner peace and service in Indian
sense despite living in India for three decades. Mr. Brown’s western mind, classifying, labeling,
departmentalizing etc. are not like Krishnan’s Indian mind. Krishnan, the subjugated native,
understands the western conqueror. Krishna unlike his colleagues he is absolutely dissatisfied
and disgruntled with his profession. In the following extract Brown expresses his irritation at the
mispronunciation of a word by a student :

“ I came across a student of the English Honours, who did not know till this day
that ‘honours’ had to be spelt with a ‘u’?”(TET 6).

Then Mr. Brown, Krishnan’s chief in college, narrates a speech on the importance of
English – “Brown cleared his throat as a signal for further speech and we watched his lips. He
began a lecture on the importance of the English language, and the need for preserving its
purit”(TET 6). Gajapathy, another faculty of English supports Brown and agrees with him. The
confrontation stems up from the beginning itself because Krishnan gets irritated with the
statement. Krishnan retorts:

Mr Gajapathy, there are blacker sins in this world than a dropped vowel. He
stopped on the road and looked up and down. He was aghast I didn’t care. I drove
home the point. Let us be fair. Ask. Mr. Brown if he can say in any of the two
hundred Indian languages:’ The cat chases the rat”. He has spent thirty years in
India (TET6).

The retaliation of Krishnan reveals his high Hindu subjectivity. He is against the,
Anglicized culture being fostered by Mr. Brown and his other co-workers in college. Mr. Brown
and his other co – workers accepts forceful appreciation of British culture. Krishnan has a pro-
Hindu perspective from the beginning of the text. He struggles to enliven his tradition and
culture and so he remarks: “I said the English department existed solely for the dotting the i’s
and crossing the t’s”(TET 7). Krishnan’s attitude against the colonial domination is perhaps
reflected in every change of his body language. He is pragmatic and spontaneously speaks
against his profession. Here one can determine the significance of money, as he is associated
with the job only for material gain and not for any mental satisfaction.

His self- reflexive statement goes in this way :

 I did not do it out of love for them or for Shakespeare but only out of love for
myself. If they paid me the same one hundred rupees for stringing beads together
or tearing up paper bits everyday for few hours, I would perhaps be doing it with
equal fervor (TET 7).

Krishnan’s abhorrence of western education is in reality a realization of self, a

rudimentary feature of Gandhian philosophy of education. Krishnan in his quest for identity
could be specified as a Gandhian character, one who has personal, racial, cultural and national
dimensions.

The realization of Krishnan, that the ultimate objective of every profession, is to earn
money and to sustain one’s family. This realistic approach to life embedded in the sentence
reveals his maturity and consciousness. His simple and casual statements observe the importance
of labour in life for bread and butter. In these statements there is an evocation of the third tenet of
Gandhian economic theory- ‘Sanctity of Labour’. By this tenet Gandhi makes an advocacy of
manual labour for all irrespective of caste, qualification and occupation. In Krishnan’s
occupation mental labour is the only labour which he has to come across. Gandhi not only
preached this principle in his economic theory but also practiced it in his daily life. He wrote in
this connection that he does not know whether he is a karma Yogi or any other yogi. But he
knows that he cannot live without work. He craves to die with his hand at the spinning wheel.

In the first half of the novel there is also a bit of East and West encounter in the
discussion between Krishnan and Gajapathy. According to Meenakshi Mukherjee:

In the novels written during the Gandhian era, we find the East – West theme operating
as the conflict between pre-industrial modes of life and mechanization. (Mukherjee 69).

In a discussion pertaining to East and West, Gajapathy articulates: “The whole of the
West is in a muddle owing to its political consciousness and what a pity that the East should also
follow suit” (TET 16). The speech indirectly refers to the political turmoil in the west. The novel
was composed in 1945 when the West was undergoing the trauma of Second World War and in
the East, the final war of Independence. In response to the statement of Gajapathy , Kumar
retorts : “ Corporate life marks the beginning of civilized existence and the emergence of
values”(TET 16). The author here reinforces the value of corporate life or western life or life full
of mechanization, away from the agrarian and idyllic life of people. Narayan focuses on the
transformation and modernization of human values which can never be constant but ever
changing with the demands of the society.

The second half of the novel is full of autobiographical elements. In 1939 Narayan’s
wife, Rajam, died of typhoid. Narayan was devastated after her death. In My Days, Narayan
expresses his feeling in these words:

I have described this part of my experience of her sickness and death in The
English Teacher so fully that I do not, perhaps cannot, go over it again. More than
any other book, The English Teacher is autobiographical in content, very little
part of it being fiction… (MD 150).

In The English Teacher, the autobiographical elements are sporadically scattered. In My

Days, the author says: “I was careful with money, never spending more than a rupee a
day”(Narayan 147). The attitude of the author towards money gets reflected in Krishnan’s wife
Susila. In one of the conversation with Krishnan, she utters: “ We must live within our means,
and save enough” (TET 43).

She often declared: “When we are old we must never trouble others for help. And
remember there is a daughter, for whose marriage we must save” (TET 43). Susila is so realistic
and insightful that she does not want to become a spendthrift. In the midst of this
autobiographical discussion there is an overtone of Gandhian economic theory. Gandhi
promulgates the theory of ‘Simple Living and High Thinking’. In the words of Gandhiji during
the freedom struggle use to say that man should relay on self then on others.

Krishnan after marriage due to situational pressure stays away from his wife. During his
separate existence he communicates frequently with his wife through letters. In one of his overt
expressions, he articulates:

I smelt my wife’s letter before opening it. It carried with it the fragrance of her
trunk, in which she always kept her stationery- a mild jasmine smell surrounded
her and all her possessions ever since I had known her. I hurriedly glanced
 through her letter. In her uniform rotund hand, she had written a good deal about
the child which made me want to see her at once (TET 20).

The emotional and overwhelming description of Susila’s letters brings out the hidden
feelings of Krishnan which finds a parallel with Narayan also, as he also used to communicate
with his wife through letters. In one such page of My Days Narayan voices out his feelings : “
She always gave me her solemn word that she would drop me a note at least once a week to say
that she and the child were keeping well, but she could never keep this promise”(MD 148). In
Chapter eleven of My Days, Narayan speaks out that:

The English Teacher of the novel, Krishna, is a fictional character in the fictional
city of Malgudi; but he goes through the same experience. I had gone through,
and he calls his wife Susila, and the child is Leela instead of Hema. The toll that
typhoid took and all the desolation that followed with a child to look after, and the
psychic adjustments, are based on my experience (MD 151).

The bereaved husband, Krishnan has a terrific agony at heart after the demise of his wife
Susila. In a pensive mood when he carries the stretcher of Susila’s dead body to the cremation
ground, Krishnan also has the same overwhelming sorrow like Narayan himself. The death of his
wife fills The English Teacher with the belief that death is not the end of everything and that man
has several other planes of existence. It promotes him to undertake psychic communion with the
spirit of his dead wife.

In utter despair and in a helpless state Krishnan utters these lines: “I feel nothing, and see
nothing. All sensations are blurred and vague” (TET 95).

The most challenging part for author and Krishnan is rearing the child, and satisfying the
child with her query about her mother. In one such query Krishnan helplessly replies: “Mother is
being given a bath, and that is why the door is closed…” (TET 101). In another such incident
Leela opens the door of her mother’s room to see whether she is inside the room and finds out
that there is no one and so in terrific fear rushes to her father to disclose the fact “Mother is not
there!” (TET 102). Krishnan nonchalantly moulds the situation in a different way so that she is
not paranoid and sustains her disbelief that she will return one day. The sorrow of Krishnan
merges with the sorrow of Narayan and the author ventilates the pent up feelings in My Days:
 “Perhaps death may not be the end of everything as it seems – personality may
have other structures and other planes of existence, and the decay of the physical
body through disease or senility may mean nothing more than a change of
vehicle” (MD 151).

In the second half of the novel, Krishna encounters two figures who provide him with
possibilities for overcoming his despair: a medium through whose offices he hopes to contact
Susila and a headmaster whose educational thinking challenges colonial norms. The final part of
the novel observes a spiritual connection after normal death or the transition from life to death
and beyond. There is an autobiographical overtone in this part of the text also. The protagonist
Krishnan in The English Teacher initially shows no interest in occult, and indeed expresses his
disgust when his mother – in – law arranges for an exorcist to see her sick daughter.
Nevertheless, both Narayan and his fictional alter-ego Krishnan accepts the offer of an attempt to
communicate with the spirit of the departed through spiritualistic procedures: the medium allows
his hand to write whatever comes into his mind, and these messages are interpreted as attempts
on the spirit’s part to communicate with her sorrow stricken husband. The entire final part of
The English Teacher is dedicated to the spirit conversations and their transformative effect on the
narrator’s life.

The theme of transformation follows other trajectories also in Krishnan’s life. The
Headmaster of Leela’s school eventually brings a massive transformation in his life. The
Headmaster’s progressive educational philosophy, a clear alternative to the rigid British system
eventually moulds him to tender his resignation from the post of a lecturer in Albert Mission
College. Krishnan’s resignation is an attack on the educational curriculum and adding a new
dimension to the text. Krishnan writes:

I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of

education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all
your business and administrative offices”(TET 179).

So the groundwork for Krishnan’s resignation and attack on the educational curriculum
has been prepared by the unconventional ideology and philosophy of the Headmaster. Krishnan
willingly and happily succumbs to the headmaster’s theory of life.
 Narayan describes the child psychology. He expresses the subtle and finer shades of
child life. When her mother tells her that she has selected a big house for her, she says that she
wants a small one which can be put into a trunk. When Krishna awakens from his midday sleep,
she tells him with a feeling of triumph:

“you didn’t know it when I got up and ran away” (TET 89). She gazes at her sleeping
father. When on waking, her father asks her what she was doing, she replies: “I wanted to watch
if any ant or fly was going to get into you through your nose”(TET 102- 3). When she is going
to school she, instead of a book, clasps a catalogue to her little bosom. She follows her father,
and whines for some work.

She takes out some useless toys from the overstuffed box, and goes to throw them away
into the street, and brings them back to put them back into the box, saying they are all important.
She asks her father why he goes to his far away school, why he does not go to a nearer school.
When her father tells her that if she touches the book after washing, Saraswati will be pleased,
and will bless her for reading herself, she says: “ what will you do then she asked as if pitying a
man who would lose his only employment in life” (TET 103). When her father is reading, she
exclaims: Father is reading as if reading” (TET 103). On the part of father is something strange.
Even Surdas would have envied some of these pranks of the child; Narayan is a postmaster in
describing the psychology of the child.

Like Yeats, who gives a vivid description of Byzantium, Narayan inspired by Plato,
Browning and Yeats, gives a vivid and fantastic account of life in heavenly. He describes the
life of heaven through the soul of Susila who communicates with her husband on earth. Life in
heaven is one of thought and experience. Narayan echoes Browning when he says that the life of
heaven is the life of aspiration, striving and joy. The greatest ecstasy is the feeling of the Divine
Light which floods there. Music transports the souls of higher planes. Things in heaven are
more intense than they are on earth.

A melody there establishes a link between the souls and the human beings. The souls are
utterly transformed though they retain their worldly relations. Susila is transformed. Yet she
remains the same so far as her love for her husband, daughter and other relatives is concerned.
Everything in heaven is finer and quicker than it is on earth. There is there no interval between
aspiration and fulfillment as there is on earth. There thought is fulfillment. There is no struggle
in between the two. When a soul aspires for a garment it is on it. When a soul aspires for a
perfume, the perfume pervades. Like Plato, Naryan believes that the phenomenon on earth is
only a pale copy of its idea in heaven. The soul of Susila says to her husband:

You think you saw it (the saree) in that trunk, how can it be there? What you have seen
is its counterpart; the real part of the thing is that which is in thought (TET 132).

Though, like Chaucer and Jane Austen, Narayan is a pure artist, he like them, presents the
social evils unobtrusively, without any zeal for reforming them. He presents several social evils
in The English Teacher.

Narayan flings his irony at the miserable condition of the college hostels. He says that
hostel bathrooms are hell on earth. When God asked his assistant to take a man to hell, he
brought him to the hostel bathroom passage. He could not take him to the bathroom for a long
time because it remained engaged. Later the assistant could not find the man because he was
covered by the growing grass. Narayan carps at the railway authorities who do not make the
railway carriages of safer dimensions. He exposes the businessmen who keeps incorrect
measures and weigh less. Krishna’s mother declares that the measures, including the
government stamped ones, are incorrect and businessman. He humorously presents the joint
family system which causes constant wrangling between the mothers-in-law and the daughters-
in-law.

There is a constant heated exchange between Krishna’s mother and her elder daughter-in-
law. Shankar, the doctor of Susila narrates an incident that a man came to him and requested
him to keep her wife in bed for a fort-night more so that she may remain free from the harshness
of her mother-in-law. Narayan hits hard at the Municipal Chairman and members who always
fight among themselves and do not work at all. But when any important visitor comes they take
him to the top of the municipal building and from there point out with great pride Sarayn cutting
across the northern boundary of the town. The localities like Anderson Lane are cleaned and
washed not by the municipality but by the sun, the rain and the winds.

Narayan takes pleasure in describing some of the superstitions which are a part of lore of
Indian culture. The mother-in-law of Krishna is superstitious. She is convinced that the Evils
Eye has fallen on her daughter and that at the new house a malignant spirit had attacked her. She
believes in exorcism, and invites an exorcist to drive away the evil spirit. Even Shankar, the
doctor of Susila exposes his superstitious nature when he says:

When we understand it exorcism fully… we doctors will be able to give more

complete cares (TET 89).

The Indian villages are the store house of simple superstitions. When Krishna goes to the
bus stand to see his mother off, he comes across a village women steeped in superstition; the
village woman insists upon having a child lifted up and shown to her. She touches the child’s
cheek and cracks her fingers on her temple as an antidote for Evil Eye. Narayan, gets amused
and amuses the readers by finding even educated persons superstitions. When a donkey brays,
he exulted and says: “It is a good sign, they say, the braying of a donkey. So my request is well-
timed” (TET 161).

Narayan, like Wordsworth believes in pantheism. He believes that the mystery of god
can be revealed to us only in the communion of nature. He believes, like Wordsworth, that nature
never did betray the heart that loved her. Here is pure pantheism.

“There are subtle, invisible emotions in nature’s surroundings; with them the
deepest in us merges and harmonizes. I think the highest form of joy and peace
can ever comprehend” (TET 162).

Krishna is impressed by this view of nature when he goes to bathe in the river. He is so
much inspired by nature that he feels like writing poetry. Nature is celestial, spiritual. The
spirits select for communication a spiritual person who lives in the lap of Nature. The selected
person, the Medium man, seeks pantheism in Nature:

This casuarinas and the setting sun and the river create a sort of peace to which I’ve
become more and more addicted. I spend long hours here, and desire nothing better than
to be left here to the peace. It gives one the feeling that it is place which belongs to
Eternity, and that it will not be touched by time, disease or decay (TET 111-112).

Krishna feels ecstatic in such natural surroundings:

 Tall casuarinas trees swayed and murmured over the banks. A crescent moon
peeped behind the foliage. On the bank on our side stood a smile shrine. ( TET)

He is in ecstasy when he sees the following scene of nature’s beauty:

It looked like a green heaven. Acres and acres of trees, shrubs and orchards. Far
off, casuarina leaves murmured . Beyond that casuarinas, would you believe it I
have a lotus pond, and on its bank a temple, the most lovely ruin that you ever
saw!. I was in ecstasy when I found that these delightful things were inclinded in
the lot (TET 109).

Krishna is always fascinated by Nature. When he has gone I search of a house, he is

overwhelmed by the beauty of nature surrounding the selected house:

Fields of corn stretched away in front of the house and far beyond it, a cluster of
huts of the next village and beyond it all stood up the blue outlines of Mempi
Mountains. It was a lovely prospect (TET 60).

He is always fascinated by the beauty of Nature. When he wants to meet the

medium and is anxiously waiting for the Boy, the son of the Medium man, he is
fascinated by the west sky ablaze with the sun below the horizon (TET 108).

Thus, the present novel The English Teacher Narayan with extreme meticulousness and
erudition has assimilated the domestic,political,the psychological,autobiographical and spiritual
theme together in the novel. In this novel he has effectively and artistically inserted all the
literary elements like theme of love, humour, pathos, irony, tragedy etc. Krishna is an
immortal character of the novel. Through the characters he expresses his views on education and
philosophy of life. The next chapter deals with the narrative techniques employed in The English
Teacher. The reunion at the end is in fact the marriage of the ‘lovers’ -all over again; they
achieve now a submergence of psyches: ‘The boundaries of our personalities suddenly
dissolved’. Krishna offers the garland to her spirit: “For you as ever”(TET 96).

Of all the novels of R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher is most spiritual and most
romantic love in the novel is sacred, true and constant; it is less physical and more spiritual. It is
constant because it is sacred and spiritual. The love of Krishna and Susila is no less physical and
more spiritual. Yet there are no voluptuous eruptions, no volcanic passions. All is serene and
calm.

The English Teacher is structurally tight. It expresses in simple, lucid and limpid English
the constant eternal love, its ecstasy and grief and its ultimate blessings. Tightly woven to
expresses humourously, even ironically the social evils and superstitious rampant in Indian
society. It gives the safe place to argue that this novel The English Teacher has the Multi
dimensional themes to explore.

That is the motto of this love story, this Indian story; but a human miracle: the human
spirit is able to embrace life as a whole’, to integrate life, death and he thereafter: as only a
Gunas hero can do.