COLLEGE SADHANA Journal for Bloomers of Research,

Vol. 3,

No. 1,

AUGUST 2010

The Quest of an Alienated Hero in Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of Billy Biswas
M.R. Chandran1 and G. Baskaran2
1

Department of English, Saraswathi Narayanan College, Madurai-625 022. regu.mrc@gmail.com 2 Research Centre in English, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar-626 001. rgbaskaran@gmail.com

Abstract : An attempt of reading the alienated self the heroes has been made in this paper in the novel of Arun Joshi. The novel The Strange Case of Billy Biswas brings out the lonely life of Biswas at different stages. The journey of Biswas is highly individualistic and at the same time philosophical.

Arun Joshi, a seminal mind in Indian literature in English examines in his novels the Indian vision of life. His novels unfailingly record the novelist's perception, evaluation, determination and declarations about life. He makes mental exploration into the philosophical questions which engage the thinking man. The novelist makes journeys into the interior of the protagonists so as to achieve an understanding of the self. Joshi's novels in the words of Madhusudan Prasad are singularized by certain existentialist problems and the resultant anger, agony, psychic quest, and the like (51). Joshi's second novel The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, a compelling one about a strange quest shows the tension between the invitation held out to the rational individual and the resistance to any rational quest for answers to the phenomenon of existence. Billy Biswas, the protagonist of the novel is the eponymous subject who has a passion for miraculous knowledge of life. He wants to live life authentically and without the sham imposed by society. Billy Biswas is by training and by his natural aptitude an anthropologist. The subject of studying man is the greatest passion for him. He is an engineer who has the intelligence to construct. He is also an anarchist. To be an anarchist is to be a man courageous and clear in mind (Domodar 62). There is a need for courage to stand up against the foundational certainties of

known structures which are available in society. There is a need for the strength to pull down these structures as an individual when he is convinced of the need for radical overhauling of existing structures. Billy is in possession of right faculties and abilities to undertake the examination of his existential situation. Billy Biswas makes a number of conscious choices within his situation. He makes an effort to try out the many variables available to the individual in one lifetime. Biswas is a curious person and does not conform to the general norms. He likes to make his own choices to fulfill all the demands of himself( Bhatnagar 55). To the majority, he is exasperatingly unorthodox. But Billy strikes with every other person in the civilized world and sees the general response as unheroic even through it is the majority's attitude. Billy finds Harlem, the home of the Black Americans to be an oasis of humanity in the desert of civilization of white American society. He prefers to be human, by which he suggests the need to live life at a more subcutaneous level. His identification with Harlem symbolizes his courage and conviction in choosing to be isolated from the common run of humanity of the civilized society where man is drawn into the world of objects and has lost or is continuously losing(Tillich 142). Billy nurses his preference for jazz music which is symbolic of his tribal aspiration for freedom and liberation from shackling tendencies imposed by the civilized society. He has always been critical of the so-called civilized society for possessing the social order difficult
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COLLEGE SADHANA Journal for Bloomers of Research,

Vol. 3,

No. 1,

AUGUST 2010

to redesign (Sharma 3). Tuula , an American anthropologist and Billy's friend identifies the unique energy a great force, Urkraft a primitive force(23) in Billy. Romi, the narrator and friend of Billy Biswas is scared by the prospect of Billy who is trying to see into the nature of things. He could only conclude with incredulity there were many things that I did not see which Billy saw and which, step by step led him to the only end that awaits those who see too much (39). Romi is to quantify further Billy's powerful vision I discovered that Billy had almost inhumanly sharp eyes (42). Billy chooses not to be doing things others-oriented but oriented inwardly towards the individual. The pursuit of Billy is more in the manner of the ancient ascetics of India where men have experimented with different philosophical schools of thought and different cultural practices. He resembles a Yogi whose pursuit to arrive at a clearer understanding of life is disciplined by the attitude about work and actions. One is not obsessed with the results for the reason that the results are not as much in control of the individual as are the conscious choices of actions. Billy shows courage to bear the demands of such an intellectual examination of his existential position. Billy realizes that he is in a world that conspires towards a philosophy of meaninglessness, boredom, and the absurd (Ghosh 5). But he wants to be a butterfly in search of the nectar of experience in the garden of life. To people like Billy, the world is not one monolithic entity where everybody wants to be like everybody else in a shameless acquiescence to the general order. Only the butterfly in Billy makes him realize that the world is not, as a given, homogenous and satisfactory. Billy with greater commitment to unraveling the meaning and coherence of existence would understand there are worlds at the periphery of this one, above it and below it, and around it, of which we
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know nothing until we are in them (54). The marital relationship between Billy and Meena is doomed to fail for the reason that the individual's freedom is infringed upon by the spouse. Meena occupies a world that is not risktaking. It is a world which insists on social positions and respectability to be maintained at all costs. He finds his wife to be less involved with his life. He realizes that Meena has very little to offer him any succour in his search for meaning. Billy is made of a different-temper. The heroic individual is convinced that the constructions of society can not sustain his search for the meaning of Existence. The society refuses to understand the individual. The individual has the force of his convictions telling him that his being different is a way of setting for the society a model for the future whether it is acceptable or not. Thus the hero emerges as a prophet figure who goes beyond his time and place on the strength of his convictions. Billy records his contempt for civilization whose raison d' etre is making and spending of money. In this dispensation, he is to feel that he is swiftly losing grip on life (98). Deep in the forests, life for Billy is more authentic without the affectation of order, sophistication and decorum. The tribal are people who live a life where there is no schism between the precepts and the practice of life. The forest which is the antithesis of civilization, by appearing to have its own order, an essence, and a purpose, becomes for Billy his destination where he will make his tryst with destiny. His waiting for Bilasia, a tribal girl a dark unresisting energy (Chingre 156) to return from the forest is epiphanic moment when he is able to see clearly the synthesis emerging out of the intellectual evaluation of the civilized society and the tribal society. When Billy meets Bilasia and becomes the possessor of the essence of life [which] can be communicated only in the language of visions (142), his metamorphosis becomes complete.

M.R. Chandran and G. Baskaran - The Quest of an Alienated Hero in Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

One of the most important dialectical operations in the novel is the opposition between the civilized city and the uncivilized jungle. What such a dialectical argument foregrounds towards the end of the novel is the subject of fertility. Regeneration, perpetuation of the generation, and the transmission of vital elements through a continuous flow of life are defining aspects of life in the jungle. The Savage society of the jungle privileges fertility over the functional convenience of the city. Billy, as the City-dweller, is experiencing the first intimations of real fertility through his contact with the forest, of which Bilasia is an essential representative and the element itself. He makes an observation about seeing in the darkness. Naturally, he sees nothing. Billy realizes the vacuousness of the city-lights which have offered him only phantoms and shadows. In contrast, the darkness of the forest, appearing to show nothing, lights up the vacancy of his heart. Thus Joshi's novel The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, which Mathur and Rai observe, represents the universal myth of the primitive in the heart of man ever alienating him from the

superficial and polished qualities of modern civilization. The quality of involvement takes a spiritual and metaphysical dimension from the merely social. The novel confirms Joshi's place among the Indian novelists through the journey of Billy Biswas. REFERENCES
[1]

Bhatnagar, O.P., Art and Vision of Arun Joshi. The Fictional world of Arun Joshi. Ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Classical Publishing Company, 1986. Chingre, C.D. Women in the Novels of Arun Joshi. Feminism and Literature. Ed. Veena Nobel Dass. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1995. Damodar, G. The Outsiderist Tradition in Joshi and Desai. Kakatiya Journal of English Studies 13 (1993) : 59-66 Ghosh, Sasir Kumar. Modern and Otherwise. Delhi: D K Publishing House, 1975. Joshi, Arun. The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. New Delhi: Hind Pocket Books, 1971. Prasad, Madhusudan, ed. Arun Joshi. Indian English Novelists: An Anthology of Critical Essays. New Delhi: Sterling, 1982. Sharma, D.R. The Fictional World of Arun Joshi. Indian P.E.N 43.9-10 (1977) : 1-5. Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be. New Haven: Yale University, 1952.

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