Critical Appreciation of the Story:
Introduction :
The story entitled 'A Horse and Two Goats' first published in newspaper The Hindu in 1960 , did not achieve a wide international audience until 1970 when it became the title story of R.K. Narayan's seventh collection of short stories , A Horse and two Goats and other stories . It reached an even wider audience in 1985 when it was included in Under the Banyan Tree, Narayan's tenth and best - selling collection. By this time Narayan was well established as one of the most prominent Indian authors writing in English in the 20th century. The story presents a comic dialogue between Muni, a poor Tamil - speaking villager and wealthy English - speaking businessman from New York. They are engaged in a conversation in which neither can understand the other's language. With gentle humour, Narayan explores the conflicts between rich Western cultures. The story is seen as a fine example of Narayan's dexterity in creating engaging characters and humorous dialogues.
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| The Story A Horse and Two Goats by R.K. Narayan: Critical Appreciation |
Plot of the Story:
Exposition:
In the story, the main character Muni has been shown as a poor and old deprived old man who previously passed a life of prosperity, but now he is suffering from utter poverty. Now he lives a half - starved life. As an old man he passes his time with his two goats whereas his wife works in the house of the village headman. Muni depends on the earning of his wife.
Rising Action:
One day, Muni manages to get six drumsticks from the drumstick tree in front of his house and demands his wife to cook them for him in a sauce. She agrees and asks him to get the other ingredients which they do not have in the house. When Muni asks a local shopman to give him the items his wife requires, he is disgraced and dismissed by the shopkeeper. There is nothing else in the house, hence, Muni's wife sends him away telling him to fast till the evening.
Climax:
Muni takes the goats to their usual patch: a grassy spot near the highway. Here, sitting in his favourite place, the shade of the pedestal of a horse and a warrior, Muni observes trucks and buses passing by. As he waits for the time to return home, suddenly he encounters an American who is a New York based businessman. The American presumes that Muni is the owner of the statue and expresses his wish to buy it.
Falling Action:
The American shoves one hundred rupees into Muni's hand and is certain that he has bought the horse and Muni thinks that he has just sold his goats. Muni goes home to give the money to his wife while the American flags down a truck, gets help to break the horse off its pedestal and drives away with his purchase.
Resolution:
Muni's wife does not believe his story. Her suspicion is confirmed when the goats find their way home. Muni's wife starts scolding him for stealing and thinks that the police will arrive soon. She bursts into anger and threatens him to go to her parents’ house. Muni is left in confusing state.
Moral of the Story:
The story shows cultural differences. Both the American and the old man are quite ethnocentric by knowing little of each other's cultural background and both keep talking about different topics, not understanding a word of what the other one is saying. The writer tries to convey that cross - cultural knowledge is important in the world today. We see how different these two people are by what they value. For the wealthy American, the statue is nothing but pretty decoration, and the hundred rupees the American offers the old man is of little value to him. Muni, on the other hand, who only owns copper and nickels, cannot even afford the pretty dream of his because he does not have the small amount of twenty rupees that are needed for this. The statue of the horse is not a decorative object for Muni. As a matter of fact, Muni values it for the spiritual importance of it. This shows how wealthy people are quite materialistic while the poor value the small things.
Setting and Time:
The story takes place in the Indian countryside next to an ancient statue of the horse and a soldier, which is believed to protect the village but seems to be forgotten by the natives.’ But none in the village remembered the splendour as no one noticed its existence. The statue stands in the middle of nowhere at the portals of a very small village, called Kritam. It is so small that it is not ever mentioned in any atlas and in the local survey map it is marked as a tiny do Most of the natives who live there are poor , rare educated farmers and deep rooted in Hindu traditions . Many of them have never left the place, even though or because of that they think this place is the apex of the world. The earth around is dry and the sun is burning. Only some cactus are growing at the point where the story takes place. It seems that the story is placed in the 1960's because of the typical Khaki safari dress the tourist wears and because it was written at around this time.
Appropriateness of the Title:
The title of the story is apt. The major part of the story revolves around the statue of a horse and Muni's two goats. It also deals with the miscommunication that happens between Muni, the protagonist of the story and an American. In the beginning, the title may be confusing to the readers as they are inclined to his assume the story a fable about horse and two goats. However the title reveals its meaning after reading the story. Muni goes to graze his goats at the grassy spot near the highway where he encounters with an American who takes a fancy to the statue of a horse and wants to buy it. He believes that Muni is the owner of the statue. So he talks to Muni about the statue in English, but Muni is unable to understand English. He speaks to him in Tamil. Both are unintelligible to each other. When the American gives Muni a hundred rupee note to buy the statue, Muni accepts the note thinking that the American is interested in his two goats and therefore is giving him hundred rupees. There is confusion in the story about the intention of buying the statue of horse or the two goats but the title is fully justified.
Characterization:
In the story, there are only four characters namely Muni, his wife, the by American and the shopkeeper. Muni is the protagonist of the story. He has been thy presented as an old and desperately poor man. Once he was prosperous with a large flock of sheep and goats, but a series of misfortunes have left him with only two scrawny goats. The whole story revolves around him. Muni's wife is a minor character. She has been shown as old as Muni , but more agile in terms of being able to earn something or the other by doing odd jobs so as to provide Muni with a meal at the end of day . Then there is an American who is only seen at the spot of a statue. As he is fascinated towards the statue, he bargains it knowing Muni its owner. Shopkeeper is another minor character who seems to be a business minded man. He seems to be a practical man who cannot be swayed by any words or actions.
Humorous and Ironical Elements:
Humour is an important element in the story and understanding Narayan's humour is important to understand his world view. Humour which is affectionate and sympathetic to humanity and human foibles is often distinguished from wit which looks more harshly on human fallibility. For Narayan, who looks at the world through the lens of his Hindu faith, weakness and strife are to be accepted and transcended, not railed against. When he creates the comic characters of Muni and the American, he laughs them gently and kindly not critically. Muni who knows only Tamil and the American who knows only English, meet beside the horse statue and converse about various things without understanding what the other person is speaking about. The fun is that they carry on conversing where more than communication, miscommunication is prevalent as Muni thinks that the American is a policeman as he is dressed in Khaki and tries to defend himself against some crime that has happened in the nearby village. The American gets interested in the horse statue and thinks that Muni is the owner of the statue and he therefore plans to buy it from Muni.
The irony of situation is that while both of them are so different, they are similar too. The irony is that they communicate and share a bonding over cigarettes but they fail to understand each other because of not having a common language.
Realistic Approach:
The story is very realistic in portraying the village Kritam as the small village with thirty households and four streets. They are presented in the story in such detail that the readers can draw a mental map of the context where the story is set. R.K. Narayan with his craft is able to finely portray the background within which the character of Muni is blended to manifest to us the picture of rural life. Narayan then describes the character of the American who comes to this village and makes himself a fool in front of Muni when he mistakenly thinks about Muni as the owner of the horse statue and buys it for hundred rupees.
The Use of Symbolism:
The writer employs several elements which have a symbolic role in the story. The horse and the warrior statues symbolise India's glorious past and is present backwardness. Just like the two statues that looked beautifully crafted when they were first made, so was India once a great country. However, in the present, both statues and India are in a state of decay. Muni, the protagonist the story stands for the rural uneducated Indian in a village. The America stands for Western life pattern. He belongs to a developed country and extremely fond of materialistic possessions, pleasures and comforts.
Use of Imagery:
A number of images have been used to beautify the narration of the story. At first colour images are seen in phrases such as: 1. ‘Painted a brilliant yellow and blue all over.’ 2. ' Red -faced foreigner.’ 3. ‘This is a marvelous combination of yellow and indigo.'
Rural imagery has been used when the writer describes in the story bamboo thatch, straw mud houses, mud pot, bullock carts and cattle grazing.
The story also abounds in auditory images:
1. ‘Muni kept cleansing his throat, coughing and sneezing.’ 2. ‘A couple of cronies lounging in the temple corridor hailed him.’ 3. ‘Hardly had these words left his lips when they heard bleating outside.’
The Use of Figures of Speech:
Figure of speech personification has been used in the following : ‘Our pandit discoursed at the temple once how the oceans are going to close over the earth in a huge wave and carry on its back only the good people and kick into the floods the evil ones plenty of them about.’
Figure of speech Simile has been used is the following: "----- though when she came to him her bosoms were large, like mounds of earth on the bank of a dug - up canal. "
Figure of speech Alliteration has been used in many sentences of the story. Some of the phrases are following: 1. map by a microscopic dot. (‘m’) 2. built with brick (‘b’) 3. a flock of forty sheep ( ‘f’ ) 4. A couple of cronies (‘c’).
Some depictions are exaggerated creating hyperbolic metaphors. For instance, the village which objectively is ‘tiny dot’ on local maps becomes ‘the apex of the world’ for locals.
Narration:
The short story ‘A Horse and Two Goats’ is a third person narrative with an implicit omniscient narrator who acts as an observer of the failed interaction between an American tourist and an old Indian man. The narrator's omniscience on the events and the character is hinted at from the very beginning when he describes the way the statues used to look like in ancient times when they were sculpted: ‘Blobs of mud now , before the ravages of sun and rain , they had the sparkle of emerald , ruby and diamond’. Subsequently, the narrator's omniscience is indicated by the fact that he has access to the characters' thoughts -the old man replied nervously, guessing that he was being questioned about a murder in .......’
A Balance between Narration and Dialogues:
The writer has also made a balance between narration and dialogues. Narration is done so as to provide the readers with the background to the whole conversation that happens between Muni and the American whereas the dialogues are used to give authenticity and humour to the conversation. It is through this that the writer is able to express the conflict between East and West. Use of dialogues helps in the story being told without judgment.
The Use of Diction:
In the story, the writer mixes English with some Indian words such as ‘pandit’ to give the text the local colour, but they pose no major difficulties in the overall understanding of the text.