Narayan, R. K. - Prajapati P. Sah (essay date 1980)

Prajapati P. Sah (essay date 1980)

SOURCE: "R. K. Narayan's 'Gateman's Gift': The Central Theme," in Literary Criterion, Vol. XV, No. 1, 1980, pp. 37-46.

[In the following essay, Sah asserts that the central theme of Gateman's Gift is Govind Singh's role as a socio-economic animal.]

What is the central theme of R. K. Narayan's story "Gateman's Gift"?

In asking this question I assume that a good story is written not purely for entertainment, or for the sake of an interesting and amusing description of an event or a character, but for communicating something to the reader over and above the simple facts of description. By this I do not mean that every good story has a 'message' or a 'moral,' but I do mean that every good story has a perception of reality—be it social or individual, and this is the writer's own perception which he wants to communicate to the reader. The reader of course is at liberty to read the story at any...

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