|
|
|
|
Articles: Literature | A Man of No Consequence
- Dr. Rajeshwar Mittapalli
| |
Ra.Vi.Sastri does not give any details about her [Manorama’s] past or about her family. There lies the beauty of the craftsmanship of the writer. He portrays her only as a human being who empathises with another human being in trouble. It is not necessary to know her past.6
Manorama is fully aware of Subbaiah’s unenviable predicament arising out of both his short-term problems such as the ongoing conflict with Gavaraiah and the long term ones such as his incompatibility with his impolite wife and its adverse psychological impact on him. She understands that Subbaiah has been suffering from inferiority complex and because of that nobody takes him seriously, including himself. Nobody understands him; nobody empathises with him; and nobody loves him. Subbaiah’s wife, children, relatives, colleagues (he has no friends at all) and everybody else in society regard him as a nonentity and unworthy of note.
Only Manorama feels the urge to show some genuine concern for him, befriend him, and finally fall in love with him. Her love instills in him a modicum of confidence, although he continues to be beset with doubts and misgivings, and dogged by indecision and irrational fears.
Critics, including the perceptive R.S. Sudarshanam, have famously misread the novel and hastily concluded that Subbaiah finally overcomes his inferiority complex due primarily to Manorama’s love for him. They seem to have been misled by a passage occurring towards the end of the novel which suggests that Subbaiah experiences a dilemma between the shadows of the past that hold him back, and the light that beckons him towards the future.
With everyone, every minute, it has been “surrender, surrender” so far. Up until this moment life has been spent like that—humbly, meanly, miserably, depravedly and pathetically.
That darkness has been holding him back. This light has been propelling him forward. (189)
| Be first to comment on this Article!
| |
|
|
|
 |
| Advertisements |
|
|
|
|
| Advertisements |
|
