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The Everyday Indian Hero: How R.K. Narayan Shows Middle-Class Life in His Novels
Dr.Nitin R. Nawkhare, HOD department of English, Late Parvatabai Madankar Arts /Com. College. Warthi, (Bhandara)
Pages: 1- 14 | First Published: 05 Jan 2025
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ABSTARCT

            This study explores how R.K. Narayan reconfigures the idea of heroism by situating it within the everyday realities of India’s middle class. Moving beyond early critical views that framed his fiction as merely comic or idyllic the research demonstrates that Narayan’s narratives articulate nuanced moral, cultural, and social dilemmas through ordinary protagonists. Employing a qualitative literary-textual approach, the analysis draws on five major novels and ten representative short stories, supported by over forty secondary sources, to examine recurring motifs of aspiration, failure, resilience, morality, and cultural negotiation. The findings reveal that Narayan’s characters Swami, Margayya, Raju, and Jagan embody a form of “ordinary heroism” defined not by epic sacrifice but by quiet endurance, ethical reflection, and personal transformation. Malgudi, his fictional town, emerges as a symbolic microcosm of India, mediating between colonial legacies, postcolonial anxieties, and modern aspirations while aligning with global realist traditions represented by Chekhov and Dickens. Narayan’s use of humor, far from being superficial, operates as a mode of gentle social critique tempered with empathy, reinforcing the dignity of flawed individuals navigating generational conflict, economic uncertainty, and cultural change. The paper argues that Narayan democratizes Indian English literature by granting moral and literary significance to middle-class lives, thereby universalizing their struggles within a transnational framework. His redefinition of heroism as an ethical quality embedded in everyday existence ensures the continuing relevance of his work to contemporary debates on identity, modernity, and cultural resilience.

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