NOTE: Remember that
I’ll be gone on Monday due to a dental procedure out of town (ugh). So we’ll
have to reschedule class for Wednesday, at which time we’ll discuss the next
two chapters. If you missed class on Wednesday (before break), I handed out the
second paper assignment, which you can find below. Read it carefully, though I’ll
discuss it again on Wednesday.
Answer TWO of the
following:
Q1: At the end of
Chapter Nine, Rosie says, “I felt all along you were not doing right things.
This is karma. What can we do?” (170). Do you think Narayan agrees with
this? Are all of Raju’s problems due to his karma—or his refusal to follow his
duty? Or does Narayan offer more “Western” reasons for his ultimate failure?
Q2: How does Raju
manage to jumpstart Rosie’s career as a dancer? How might this be linked to his
abilities as a guide and a guru? What glimpse of his character do we get here,
and how might it explain the villagers’ fascination with him in the ‘present’?
Q3: According to
Raju’s family, Rosie is a “saithan,” or she-devil who has possessed him and
made him betray his family. Even Marco, her own husband, dismisses her as an
abomination. How does Narayan want us to view this “modern” woman with her love
of ancient tradition? Is he suggesting that such women have no place in Indian
life? Or is he more sympathetic to her than to Raju himself?
Q4: In Chapter Nine,
Raju reflects that “I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can
be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to
conceal the sun” (156). How might this connect to similiar wisdom in the Tao
te Ching or The Bhagavad Gita. What me he—or Narayan—actually be
saying in this passage?
Q1- I think that Narayan does some what agree with Karma. He seems to show that each person with the right intentions seems to have the right to a happy future. I think he finds that what is internal is what matters. We choose our own destiny and its outcomes by our actions. The reasoning behind those actions is even more so what is going to choose our Karma. Raju became more and more corrupt and turned against everything his culture had taught him was good and right. I think Narayan saw this and not just in an Indian/Eastern way, but also as a Westerner who may have said, "It serves you right!"
ReplyDeleteQ2- Raju knows how to manipulate people by using their interests and finding what they are trying to gain and manipulating those ideas so that his ideas seem like they are theirs. He is extremely clever and observant so he is able to go unnoticed in his true motives. I think that his entire life Raju has done so well at being able to say the right things to have others start to believe what he is telling them even if it is not true. He works as if he has the best interest of others at heart, but he really is a selfish man who is only looking out for himself. No one yet seems to be able to see that except maybe Rosie at the end of it all. She is the only one to realize that what he has done all along is what is best for him and pleases him above all others.
Anna Turlington
Q1 - At this point in the book, I find Rosie peculiar and somehow more interesting. I cannot imagine what drives her, what is going through her head as she dances the snake dance just before Raju is arrested. She seems to be coming to some peace within herself, some resolve that Raju has no inkling or understanding of. By the time she hears what is happening, I think she has already come to some conclusion or some specific plan of action for her (and perhaps their) future. I do not get the impression that she talks of Karma out of any specific mystical or religious fervor, but simply out of a resignation built on other thoughts and decisions that exist just off-stage and outside of the scope of what Raju understands.
ReplyDeleteQ3 - I think Narayan wants us to view Rosie as a puzzle - a mystery hiding just in the periphery of the reader's sight. Something the reader might puzzle out as soon as Raju stops metaphorically jumping up and down demanding attention. She defies all the descriptions given her by other characters in the book - she is not a traditional woman, but neither is she modern. She is not an academic, but neither is she ignorant or base. She is neither a devil nor an angel... She is a person who belongs to no one, and as such, Narayan challenges us to care for her. We can not define her by her relationship to another: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, & etc. How then can we relate to her? How do the other characters relate to her? She manages to be both exactly what and exactly the opposite of whatever people expect her to be... Perhaps she is like The Way. Perhaps how we relate to Rosie, how clearly we see her, is exactly how clearly we are able to see the path to enlightenment?
1. When she says this, I feel as if she is coming to terms with everything she knows about Raju and is trying to help. She fully agrees that karma is against him and wants to help, but truthfully I do not believe in karma. I believe that what he had done, led to that point, and he had to face the consequences of what he had done. (Similar to how karma is, just nothing good for doing good.)
ReplyDelete4. It is cryptic and has a very strong meaning to it, similar to how both the Tao te Ching and the Bhagavad Gita do. Both of these works tell very cryptic things to try and teach us a valuable lesson, as well as get their point across to the reader. Same as Raju, meaning exactly how he says it, "Nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed, like trying to hide the sun with an umbrella." At least, that is how I interpret the phrase being said.
Kendall Sanford
ReplyDeleteQ2. Initially, Raju is Rosie’s outlet for expression in the beginning of their relationship. Raju expresses to Rosie that he enjoys watching her dance and thinks she should do it more often. However, Marco represses Rosie’s desire to dance (due to this repression, I assume it makes Rosie want to dance even more). Rosie sees Raju as her chance to do what she loves and is destined to do. Essentially, Raju is giving Rosie validation in her (while misunderstood) rightful “duty”. While I believe Raju is selfish and his lust for Rosie was his sole purpose for encouraging her to dance for him, I think it is this “happenstance” that sets up Raju’s character for us. While he isn’t a true guide yet, it is his way with words that charms people to take some sort of action. He is already unknowingly guiding people with the wrong intentions. I can only imagine what will happen when he becomes self-aware and begins to guide for the right ones.
Q3. I definitely do not think Narayan is using Rosie as something (values?) to be easily dismissed. It is apparent in the text that India is moving forward in the post-colonial world and is getting more and more modern every day. Perhaps Narayan is utilizing her character to shed light on a dying breed—someone who cherishes the past ways of their culture enough to keep it alive through small manifestations. It is not Rosie the character that possessed Raju to desert his family; Raju’s lust and desire possessed him. Maybe Narayan is saying “strip away the modern views of the ‘she-devil’ and look at what the character embodies.”
Shaynee
ReplyDeleteQ1: Yes I think Narayan agrees with it, I personally believe that all Rauju's karma is kind of what he gets in the end because the way he tricks everyone into thinking he's a God or leader when really he is just a normal person.
Q2: I feel like Raju can make people do anything they want to do or goals they have set for themselves because they believe in him and want someone to look up to, the glimpse of the character we get of him here is the same as we see the whole time I feel like because he's always trying to help people get to where they want
Jaley Brown
ReplyDeleteQ1: I feel like Narayan would agree with this. Our actions and choices we make determine our future. So if karma is true, Raju will have bad karma due to all of his "bad" decisions.
Q4: I think it is saying even if something is hidden, it is still there whether people know it is there or not. Like the saying with the finger and the moon, you can point to the moon but it you're covering the moon with your finger you can't actually see the moon. They are trying to teach you a lesson with this phrase just like they do in "Bhagavad Gita" and the "Tao Te Ching."
Ethan Hays
ReplyDeleteQ1: I think Narayan agrees with it. The decisions we make decide our future and I feel like Raju has some bad karma because he pretended to be something that he was something that he wasn't.
Q4: I think Raju is saying that nothing remains a secret forever. We can try our hardest to keep things from getting out, but eventually it will. When you try to block the sun with an umbrella, you might be successful and have some shade directly around you, but the sun is still shining everywhere else. Just like with keeping secrets, you might be able to keep people close to you from knowing, but eventually someone on the outside will see it.