| n, the central character of R. K. Narayan's 'The English | | | | From the academic world to the 'law of life' |
| Teacher', undertakes an emotional, intellectual, and | | | | While these episodes fail to provide Krishnan with |
| spiritual journey during the course of the novel. At the | | | | anything rational to believe in, they do bring him face to |
| start of the novel he is an English teacher, living and | | | | face with the reality of life and death, and confronting |
| teaching at the same school where he was once a | | | | the realities of life without retreating into the safe |
| pupil, and at the end we see him resigning his post, | | | | cerebral world of literature and philosophy is an |
| beginning work at a nursery school, and learning to | | | | important component of his journey. |
| communicate psychically with his dead wife. | | | | In coming to terms with the death of his wife literature, |
| Krishnan's change comes about not as a result of any | | | | philosophy, and rationalism, are no use to him. They are |
| grand plan or ambition, but as a result of a series of | | | | all illusions, and the journey he is on involves leaving |
| challenging circumstances which arise once he begins | | | | illusions behind. The truth Krishnan wants to discover |
| to take steps away from the cloistered and protective | | | | cannot be found in Shakespeare, Carlyle, or Plato, it is |
| environment of his school. | | | | found only among real people leading real lives, it is 'the |
| But although Krishnan's journey is unpredictable, a | | | | law of life'. |
| number of themes are being worked out in the course | | | | From adulthood to childhood |
| of the novel. These themes might be said to be | | | | Children are very much in evidence throughout 'The |
| Krishnan's progress from predictability to | | | | English Teacher', and are important guides for Krishnan |
| unpredictability, from the academic world to the real | | | | on his journey. The children who help to show him the |
| world of life and death, from adulthood to childhood, | | | | way are the younger children, his own daughter, Leela, |
| and from a western mentality to an eastern mentality. | | | | and the children at the nursery school she attends. |
| From predictability to unpredictability. | | | | The most prominent character in the novel, after |
| Krishnan repeatedly finds himself being drawn out of | | | | Krishnan and his family, is the headmaster of Leela's |
| situations which ought to have been predictable and | | | | school. He is a champion of childhood, having devoted |
| ordered by events which are spontaneous and | | | | his life to children since receiving the prediction that he |
| unpredictable, and it is clear that he finds spontaneity | | | | would die, and believes they are angels’, |
| and unpredictability to be stimulating and life-enhancing, | | | | the real gods on earth’, and employs what |
| while predictability and order, although providing a | | | | he calls The Leave Alone System’ in his |
| cushion of comfort and security, is ultimately stifling and | | | | school. |
| deadening | | | | In the second half of the novel Krishnan’s |
| Susila, his wife, brings unpredictability into his life at | | | | discovery of children as an effective countermeasure |
| every turn. For example when they go to look at a | | | | against the curse of adulthood’, and the |
| house she wants to make a long diversion to walk by | | | | opening of his mind that he is experiencing through |
| the river and bathe her feet, where the rational orderly | | | | meditation, pave the way for his resignation from his |
| Krishnan would have naturally taken the most direct | | | | old job and the adoption of a more genuine lifestyle. |
| route, and it is clear that he finds her unpredictable | | | | From west to east |
| behaviour a source of delight and inspiration. | | | | Another component of Krishnan's journey is that he |
| The turning point of the story arises from Susila's | | | | encounters the coexistence of western and native |
| unpredictability. When they go to look at the house we | | | | cultural attitudes, which also represent the attitudes of |
| could not possibly predict that she would go for a walk | | | | Indians of a newer and older generation. For example |
| on her own, get stuck in a contaminated lavatory, and | | | | when Susila is ill she is treated both by a doctor who |
| then become ill. | | | | practises western scientific medicine, and by a Swamiji |
| The futility of clinging to the belief that life can be | | | | who uses mystical methods of healing. The Swamiji is |
| orderly, predictable, and knowable is shown in two | | | | summoned by Susila’s mother, representing an |
| central, and symmetrical, predictions which occupy a | | | | older generation than Krishnan himself, who believes |
| prominent place in the novel. The first is the | | | | the Evil Eye’ has fallen on her daughter, and |
| doctor’s assertion that typhoid, which Susila has | | | | it is notable that Krishnan feels ashamed’ |
| contracted, is the one fever which goes strictly by | | | | that the doctor finds the Swamiji in the house, showing |
| its own rules. It follows a time-table and that Susila | | | | that he is alienated from, and embarrassed by, the |
| will be well in a few weeks. But in spite of his further | | | | native culture of the older generation of his own |
| assurances that her attack is Absolutely normal | | | | country. |
| course. No complications. A perfect typhoid run' Susila | | | | The final stage of Krishnan’s journey takes him |
| dies. | | | | further from the from the western intellectual frame of |
| The other prominent demonstration of the futility of | | | | mind, inherited from the British, in which he was |
| believing that life can be knowable and predictable is | | | | embedded at the opening of the novel, and further |
| seen in the headmaster's belief in a prediction made by | | | | towards native Indian spiritual practices. To reach his |
| an astrologer, 'who can see past present and future | | | | goal of a harmonious existence’ he takes up |
| as one, and give everything its true value' that he will | | | | his deceased wife’s psychically-communicated |
| die on a given date. But although (just as the doctor | | | | challenge, which he receives initially through a medium, |
| had asserted that Susila's typhoid was 'A perfect | | | | to develop his mind sufficiently to communicate with |
| typhoid run') the headmaster has found that his 'life has | | | | her psychically himself, and bridge the gap between life |
| gone precisely as he predicted', the headmaster lives. | | | | and life-after-death. Although initially he had been |
| Both of these episodes show the limitations of | | | | bemused by his wife’s devotional practices, |
| man’s ability to know and predict the world. The | | | | mocking her with Oh! Becoming a yogi!’ he |
| truth is that we cannot know, and cannot predict, and | | | | now relies on her to guide him, from beyond the grave, |
| any view of life, whether deriving from modern | | | | in his self-development’. |
| western science, or ancient eastern mysticism, which | | | | In the final chapter the issues of the novel come to a |
| disregards the unknowable and sees only what is | | | | head with Krishnan’s resignation from his post |
| supposedly known, and supposedly predictable, is | | | | as English teacher and his psychic reunion with his |
| hopelessly inadequate. | | | | wife. |