R.K. Narayan’s Social Awareness in The Guide

R. K. Narayan’s The Guide projects Raju, the sinner, as the saint of the people living in the village of Mangal. Narayan deals with the theme of education in this novel at several stages during the development of the plot. Raju’s schooling, his withdrawal from school by his father to run the hut-shop, Raju’s collection and selling of magazines and books after his father’s death, his habit of reading various types of books, even the scraps to broaden his knowledge whenever he got time, his interest in education for the poor children at Mangal speak a volume about the need of literacy and knowledge. The arranged marriage of Marco and Rosie is also based on the theme of education, but Rosie pursued the career of a dancer after Marco’s exit from her life. Marco is presented as an impractical man running after study and research. The lack of literacy among the superstitious villagers at Mangal makes a seducer like Raju, a redeemer. Even the doctors and school masters act like the illiterate ones when Raju was undergoing fasting. In this article all these points are to be scrutinized to analyze the novelist’s treatment of education in The Guide.