Jignasa Journal Of History Of Ideas And Culture Part 02

Author(s): Vibha Upadhyaya and Others
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 99

The Collective Worlds of John Steinbeck, Anantha Murthy and Raja Rao
40. The Collective Worlds of John Steinbeck, Anantha Murthy and Raja Rao
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Aruna Pandey
History shows that human development lies in a collectivity of sorts and resides within the boundaries of various challenges and the changes caused by these at a level that affects the masses rather than the individual. These points become the markers for a human evolution vis-a-vis society, in fact, a global society that exemplifies how patterns of human struggle and achievement undergo a similarity. The vision of an ideal society cannot surpass the fact that gross forms of hierarchy have no place in that ideal state of existence and certain strategies that help to do away with such systems become a basic requisite. If human history is to be looked upon as an ongoing process of development along such evolutionary lines, the first half of the twentieth century may be observed as a time when literary writers were seen to grapple with situations and issues that contributed to the creating of social equality and justice. For achieving such goals they adopted new techniques of narrative such as social realism and also experimented with new forms of story-telling. Parallel ongoing processes may be traced from one country to another: America, Europe, Russia, Africa and India. Whereas contextual differences divide writers from one another in an exciting manner, the main contents seem to converge on a common ground as mentioned. The early twentieth century had already witnessed the common man creating a major space for himself as a vital agent of human development. It is with a view to exemplify the theme of collective human struggle for achieving yet another evolutionary milestone that the present discussion is carried out. The discussion takes a new look at John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945) in comparison with Raja Rao's Kanthapura' (1938) and Anantha Murthy's Samskara (1965). The discussion focuses on those distinctive features that help to enhance an understanding of the literary artist's efforts to portray social realities through the art of fiction. It also reveals the writers' readiness to pin-point the evolution of mankind vis-a-vis a common collectivity in situations of social, economic and caste-class struggle. This aspect has been discussed in another article by the same author entitled John Steinbeck and Munshi Premchand: Some Striking Parallels and Contrasts (2007). Here the author compares the similar concerns of John Steinbeck and Munshi Premchand as social critics with reference to their two respective fictions: Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Godaan' (1936). Whereas these two books reveal close similarities, the others have finely wrought but interesting points of convergence.
Godaan was written in 1936 by Munshi Premchand, one of the best-known Hindi writers of the twentieth century who portrayed the social unrest and rapid changes of his times in his wide-ranging