Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The English Teacher was the fourth novel by R. K. Narayan, the third of his Malgudi series that was published in the year 1945. The novel is a tragic love story that eventually leads to self-realization and hence, the major theme of the novels are love and existentialism or self-realization. It is a fictional autobiographical novel in which Narayan expressed his own experiences and love for his wife and daughter and his feelings after the death of his wife in 1939. The other themes of the novel include parental love and educational reforms.
Characters of The English Teacher :
Krishna is the protagonist of the novel. He is an English teacher and lecturer at Albert Mission College. It is a lucrative job but Krishna doesn’t like teaching and would rather prefer to be a poet. He leads a monotonous and uninteresting life until his wife Sushila comes with their daughter Leela to live with him. Krishna is a committed loyal husband who loves his wife. He is a doting father who understands his responsibilities toward his child. Sushila is a caring housewife who is conscious of her family. She is not a submissive woman and takes hold of the family budget while Krishna earns. She is a beautiful lady who cares about her appearance. She is a caring mother. Krishna and Sushila offer shades of autobiographical elements as the character of Krishna is based on Narayan himself while the character of Sushila is based on his wife Rajam who died of typhoid in 1939. The character of Leela is based on Narayan’s daughter Hema. The Headmaster is an eccentric man who runs a private school for young kids. Unlike Krishna, he is very focused on his vocation and loves to teach. He experiments with new ways of education and tries everything possible to make children take more interest in education. He inspires Krishna to reinvent himself and realize what he is meant to do. The Sage is another important yet small character in the novel. He becomes the medium of communication between Krishna and the soul of his dead wife Sushila. Shashtri is a colleague of Krishna at Albert Mission College and Dr. Shankar is the most successful physician of Malgudi.
Summary of The English Teacher :
The novel is divided into eight chapters. The story begins at the hostel of Albert Mission College of Malgudi where Krishna lives. He is a teacher and lecturer of English at the same college from where he completed his education. He is not very social and finds his job and life tiresome and uninteresting. He dreams of becoming a poet but fails to write enough as he would prefer because the job as a teacher also demands a lot of energy and time. He is a dedicated lecturer though he doesn’t like teaching the job is lucrative and he gets a regular salary of Rs 100 per month. However, he is uninterested in his students and is happy to hear the bell ring at the end of the class. He is very academic in nature and prefers his students to cram up the books to pass exams. He is very frustrated by himself and often compares himself with a cow doing nothing but grazing on grass. Despite all his frustrations, he has a good sense of humor and he uses it to spread cheer in college among his students. While the major reason for his frustration is his inability to make his dream of becoming a poet come true, he is also frustrated because he misses his lovely wife Sushila, and daughter Leela who are living in another city with Krishna’s parents. This is so because he doesn’t have enough money to buy a house in Malgudi and his hostel room is too small for his family. One day, he gets a letter from his father informing him that Sushila and Leela are visiting Malgudi to live with him. Sushila and Leela visit Malgudi along with Krishna’s mother and they all start living in a small hostel apartment of Krishna. Despite the lack of space, Krishna is very happy as he is near to his daughter and a loving wife whom he loves too much. Sushila is a very beautiful and intelligent woman. She immediately takes hold of the house and budget and Krishna willingly offers her all the financial management. Sushila starts taking control of his whole salary as she runs the family while Krishna gets more time for his poetry.
On Leela's third birthday, Krishna’s father offers him money to buy his own home in Malgudi so that he may live with his family as he works there. Krishna and Sushila then start looking for a viable home that they can buy in the allocated budget. One of Krishna’s colleagues is Shashtri who is a logic teacher and also works as a builder. He suggests him some ready-to-move houses at Lawley Extension. Sushila is very happy about the prospect of buying her own house. She gets ready to inspect the houses and choose one. She wears her favorite indigo saree and applies some jasmine perfume. Krishna is totally enchanted by her and sees her as if she is a ‘phantom of delight.’ He says that from now on he will call her Jasmine and they will name their house the Jasmine Home. Before visiting Lawley's extension, he takes Sushila to Bombay Anand Bhawan, a restaurant, to take breakfast. Then he takes Sushila to the banks of the Sarayu river to wash their feet before they visit their future adobe. They visit many homes and then they decide on a house that Sushila liked most. As Krishna negotiates with Shashtri about the price of the house, Sushila goes to the backyard of the house where she sees a lavatory. She decides to inspect it too and enters. The lavatory is too filthy and it shocks Sushila. A fly suddenly jumps upon Sushila and stings her. She cries in fear and somehow she locks herself in the lavatory. Krishna reaches for her help and kicks open the door. He finds Sushila very distraught and tries to console her as they go back to the hostel.
Sushila fails to take any food as she cannot forget her experience in the filthy lavatory and soon he falls ill and suffer a high fever. She remains bedridden for 4 days but doesn’t improve. Krishna then consults Dr. Shankar of Krishna Medical Hall. Dr. Shankar inspects Sushila and suspects that she is suffering from Malaria. He offers some medicines but they don’t help. Finally, he takes a blood sample of Sushila and sends it for further inquiry. Soon it is revealed that Sushila is suffering from typhoid and it has been too late. Typhoid is contagious but Krishna is dedicated and optimistic, he continues to serve Sushila and take care of her. Meanwhile, Leela is kept away from Sushila and Krishna’s mother takes care of her. However, Krishna’s optimism fails and Sushila dies leaving him ‘blind, dumb, and dazed.’ She is cremated on the banks of the Saryu river according to Hindu rites.
After Sushila’s death, Krishna is too shocked and grief-ridden. He thinks of committing suicide but then he hears the cries of Leela and decides to take care of her. Sushila’s father asks Krishna to let him take Leela with him to which he denies and says that Leela is the only reason why he is still living. He becomes disenchanted with his job and personal life. His only refuge and reason to live is his baby daughter. Therefore, he spends all his energy and affection on her as she becomes the center of his world.
One day, after his lecture at the college, a student approaches him and gives him a letter. When he sees it, he finds that the writing matches that of Sushila. He is astounded. He asks the student where he got the letter. The student takes him to a Sage. The sage tells Krishna that he can converse with people after their death. He says that Sushila came into his contact and told him to contact Krishna. Krishna is too excited about this as it offers him a chance to be in touch with the woman he loved more than himself. The sage becomes the medium between Sushila and Krishna. Krishna soon becomes too dependent on the sage. Meanwhile, he starts ignoring Leela as his whole focus is on Sushila who is already dead. One day, the sage goes away to visit some other city and Krishna finds himself distraught and lost. Not knowing what to do, he decides to find a way to converse with Sushila directly. As he loiters around the banks of the Sarayu river, he sits down and meditates. Soon the soul of Sushila approaches him and he successfully communicates with her. Sushila reminds him of his duties towards Leela and tells him to get her admitted to a good school. Krishna realizes his mistake and decides to take proper care of Leela. He is no more dependent on the sage or the soul of Sushila.
As he returns home, he finds that Leela is not at home. He searches for her and finds her near the gate of a kid’s school in the neighborhood. He takes Leela inside and talks to the Headmaster. Krishna finds that the headmaster of the school is an eccentric person. When Krishna asks him his name, he says, “Just Headmaster will do...” Krishna observes that the headmaster is very dedicated to his students and enrolls Leela in the same school. Krishna observes that the headmaster has divided the main hall into several rooms with partition screens that are filled with glittering alphabets and pictures made by the students. He sees that the headmaster has turned the process of learning into a fun activity for the students. He gets too impressed by the headmaster and decides to follow a few of his techniques of teaching at his own college. On a Sunday, Leela insists to go to school while it is a holiday of Krishna. As he takes her to the school, he finds that the school is open. When he asks the Headmaster, the headmaster says that he hasn’t taken leave for the last 15 years. The school is open at all times without any timetable and the students can come and go anytime they wish. Leela is too happy in her new school. One day, she asks Krishna why cannot he teach at the same school which is so near to their home while the school where Krishna is currently teaching is so far.
Krishna makes a close friendship with the headmaster. One day, he visits his house and sees that his wife is a quarrelsome lady and his three children are uncouth and wild. The headmaster says that his wife doesn’t allow his children to visit his school. He says, “I could sooner get the Emperor’s children. My school is for all the children except my own.” The headmaster says that he believes in an astrologer his life has gone precisely according to what the astrologer had told him. The astrologer has given the precise date and time of his death, which the headmaster is convinced will turn out to be true. One night, the headmaster visits Krishna’s house and tells him that it is the day he will die. Krishna tells him that he is perfectly fine and nothing will happen to him but the headmaster is adamant. He says that he is going home to spend his last night with his wife and children. The next day, Krishna visits his home and finds that the headmaster never reached his home. Krishna gets deeply disturbed and sad and informs the wife that the headmaster is dead. His wife starts crying but the headmaster appears at the same time. He informs that the prediction of the astrologer proved wrong. He says that the prediction kept him under the burden of fear of death but now, he will live his life freely. He decides to leave his wife and children forever and never visit his home again. He makes teaching kids in innovative ways in his school with utmost dedication. Observing all this, Krishna too feels a change in himself. He decides to resign from his lucrative job at Albert Mission College and joins the headmaster’s expanding school as the new English teacher at a quarter of the salary he was getting in college to seek inner satisfaction.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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