Narrative technique of the novel "The Guide".

R. K. Narayan, an important Indian English artist, story-teller and novelist is never concerned with elaborate technical experiments or show off of artistic skills. In most of his novels, there is a classical beginning, middle and end with a succession of chronological events without any deep probing into the mind or subconscious. In spite of that, Narayan has, according to E. M. Forster, "the primitive power of keeping the reader in suspense and playing on his curiosity." Like the traditional narrative, his novels are generally written in direct style, without any subplot,  easy flow of words, well contrived structure and narrative technique.



               However, "The Guide" is one among his few works that draws attention to itself for its somewhat unusual narrative technique which at its subtlest. Thus this is a mature work of art, with an intricate technique suited to the story. The narrative of the novel alternates between the past and the present, swinging backward and forward. The novel "The Guide" is divided into two parts,  first of all, Raju's childhood, love affair, imprisonment and second, Raju's growth into a swami. In this two gold narration, Raju is the 1st person narrator who offers a retrospective vision of his past life as he says to Vellan : "My trouble would not have started but for Rosie." And the sections in which Raju assumes the role of Swami and the consequences entailing from it are narrated by the omniscient 3rd person, here the narrator is an astute witness, testifying to the authentic social sense of Malgudi, and by extension of India ---- galvanizing the perception of setting in the characters and simultaneously underscoring the spiritual malaise symbolised by Raju's life story and time.



            The novel begins in the very middle of the story. At the very beginning, Narayan establishes two practices of perception. The opening is a brilliant gambit- --- we are introduced to Raju and Velan, the roles for each defined by the perception of other. The boundary of their social transactions is drawn by measures dialogue and narrative reporting. The use of two locales and two time frames, while being a structural necessity, lends charm to "The Guide". Both parts of the story move side by side with the help of flashbacks, snap - shots taken in time and cinematographic technique.



            When we first encounter Raju, he is about to meet Velan and is seen at this point from an omniscient narrator's perception, "....Raju felt amused and embarrassed...... Raju was sitting cross - legged as if it were a throne, beside an ancient shrine....." Raju then takes once the narrative course, relating his progress to Velan, his chequered journey from a vendor to a jail bird. In between the 3rd person narrator punctuates Raju's narrative by showing Raju as a holy man dealing with the villagers of Mangal. At the end, Raju is no longer a narrator, the 3rd person narrator concludes the story showing Raju is about to achieve transcendence. While not as technically sophisticated as classic modernist works, this flexible narrative mode of the novel is a commendable achievement and is well- wrapped in the story of a man who rises above himself and his unsatisfactory past.



             "The Guide" can also be interpreted as a bildungsroman and a kunstleroman at the same time. Raju' s development from a simple vendor to a holy man or a swami shows the bildungsroman part of the narrative. His movement from "Railway Raju" to a Mahatma is depicted here very vividly with the  help of narration. On the other hand, there is a kunstleroman part also. As in "The Portrait of the Atist as a Young Man", we find the development of Stephen to an artist, here in this novel Rosie's development from a small boundary to a bigger larger world of dance is shown with a lucid narrative. Rosie surpasses the craving for money and she has a belief in performance, thus she raises to the standard of a true and honest artist.



             The conflict of the story intensifies through Raju's contradictory aim of revealing his humanity, while keeping his personal past out of public view because his only means of asserting individuality is his own past. The problematic voice shift in the narrative from the 3rd person to the 1st person emblematizes this dilemma; it highlights the schism between narrator's portrait of the protagonist and the character's assertion of the selfhood  or between Raju's present and past selves.



              At the end of chapter 6, the narrator's voice is monolithic, because the recollection glows like an interior monologue we are privileged to hear. Raju begins his narration with the recollection of his life as Railway vendor, but he is ambitious. Then step by step he tells the story of his life as a tourist Guide, his contact with Marco and Rosie, his life as a prisoner etc. Raju's narration serves as a story within a story and its spell is broken by "the crowing of the cock". The rest of the story is told by the omniscient narrator again.



            The novel is open ended and quite ambiguous. As Prof. Krishna Sen writes, "The denoument is neither a rejection nor a defence of the Hindu faith. It jestures towards the complexity of life ....... It is this ambiguity and open - ended denouement that raises the novel far above the level of a mere moral fable, on a story with the simplistic happy ending." However, the greater part of the novel is concerned with Raju's subjective narration, which as Prof. Krishna Sen says quite significantly, in this book "represents the voice of the modern individual with his desire for self assertion", while the rest of the narration "represents the community and its demand for civic responsibility."