CBCS Sem-2 "The Guide":Narayan’s use of humour and irony

Narayan’s use of humour and irony in The Guide

Humour and irony, the essential frivolitiesthat enrich and sustain interest in a literary work, pervade the tragi-comic texture of Narayan’s novel The Guide. Unlike the comedy arising from a premeditated situation or an irksome characteras in Jerome. K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, Narayan’s comedy arises from a close and realistic observation of the serious business of life. Further, Narayan’s comedy is an unveiling of the petty follies and foibles of ordinary life and not intended to hurt or harm, nor to mock and satirize. The vein of sympathetic humour runs through his presentation of the life and character of Raju, which is also generally present in the nature of the villagers of Mangal as well as the inhabitants of Malgudi town.

The childhood of Raju and his education is presented with hilarious effect. The first person narrative persona describes how as a child he would often swallow the extra peppermint in order to minimize complications. The idea of arithmetic that the young boy develops out of frustration is comic indeed: “Two and two four; four and three something else.” The father’s principle of a child’s psychology is ironically primitive: “The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned.”

Raju’s career as a guide is almost certain to evoke laughter. The age he ascribed to any particular architecture depended upon ‘his mood’ and ‘the type of person’ he was escorting. He often concocted ‘statistics’ out of his ‘head’. The description of the tourists is equally hilarious. Some of them were ‘passionate photographers’, who would never looked at any object except through their ‘view-finders’; some were hysterically historical and grew ‘ecstatic when they see cracked plaster, broken idols and crumbling bricks.’ There are poets who want to merely watch nature, there are some who want get to get ‘drunk’ in natureand others for whom nature serves asan ‘aphrodisiac’.

Ironic treatment is also meted out to the theme of sainthood, yet the situational irony is revealed by pure humour. Although at first Raju enjoys Velan’s conferring of sainthood upon him, soon he realizes that: “he had no alternative; he must play the role that Velan had given him.” It is in order to impress the villagers that Raju had told Velan’s moronic brother that he would not eat unless the villagers refrained from quarrelling. But by a strange irony of fate the speech is distorted to imply that he would not eat at all until rains arrived in the parched land. The irony is further emphasized by the fact that Raju had himself earlier given the villagers the idea that saints might bring rain by fasting and praying in knee-deep water. The irony develops to its most intense form when he is informed about the villagers’ new belief just when he is dreaming of his favourite dish ‘bonda’.

The fact that Raju remains a ‘lovable rogue’, and never forfeits the readers’ sympathy, in spite of his unreliability to the tourists, defrauding of the trusting Marco, his seducing of another man’s wife and his exploitation of the innocent villagers, is chiefly because of Raju’s sense of humour. One example of Raju’s humorous take on the incidents of life is when he describes his deliberate pretention of a dance master in front of his maternal uncle: “I observed my uncle peep out of the kitchen, and so I made myself more deliberately teacher like. I issued commands and directions to Rosie. My uncle watched my antiques from the kitchen.” Another instance of Raju’s humour is the manner in which he answers his mother’s queries about Rosie.

Humorous and ironic presentation is an essential tool for characterization. A sense of humour is something denied entirely to Marco, for Marco is presented as a comic character who does not have the inner humour to realize that he is the source of comedy. His dressing in the European manner, his excessive concern for billsand his love for the ‘cold, old walls’, as described by Rosie renders him comic. On the other hand one notices that Rosie is never made to appear comic, so that she retains a great degree of respect till the very end.

Thus, the humour and irony in “The Guide’ not only serve as entertainment ‘per-se’, but also as a potent tool for the revaluation of character, and in particular for the purpose of presenting Raju as tragi-comic figure who retains the audience’s sympathy in spite of his roguishness.