The Apprentice (1974) probes deeper into the inner consciousness of individual with a view to explore, what the novelist calls, “that mysterious underworld” on one hand and on the other, he tries to focus on the decaying moral values in society. In this novel, he rendered in a confessional form a telling commentary on the decaying values of a degenerating civilization. It is a story of a young man who out of sheer exhaustion of joblessness and privation is forced to shed honesty and the old world morality of his father to become an ‘apprentice’ to the corrupt civilization. The Apprentice condemns materialistic values but in its own unique way. The novelist has used monologue and narration to a boy who is present throughout in just symbolical fashion. According to World Literature Today:
The novel is cast in a series of Browning –like monologues, to a boy to whom the protagonist ,burdened with sorrow of ‘wasted life’, lays bare the motives ,aspirations, dilemmas and frustrations of his past.
The protagonist in this novel is very simple man who comes to the city with lots of hope to get a good and respected job. Contrary to his expectations, in reality he has to face number of hardships to survive in the city .He is disillusioned in this course of job search. Gradually all his ideals, morals and enthusiasm wane and he started a life full of compromises. Ratan Rathore is a young man whose soul has two distinct aspects- the higher self and the lower self. All through the course of novel, his soul is torn by these conflicting pulls of lower and higher self, between idealism and realism. In fact he is the child of double inheritance. He has taken the patriotic and idealistic values from his father and worldly wisdom from his mother. H...
... middle of paper ...
...e quite wonderfully the writer has suggested that more and more money cannot fetch peace of mind and real happiness for us. In spite of all the luxuries and enjoyments in Bombay,Ratan is not happy. He feels an inner void:The more money I accumulated, the more I was dissatisfied and the more I was determined to “ enjoy” life. And all the time I thought of death. (Joshi 85) The novel commands the value of humility and self-purification. In this sense the novel is a study of the loss and retrieval of one’s soul. As he stated himself:
References:
Joshi,Arun:The Apprentice Delhi :Orient Paperbacks, 1993 Print
Prasad,Hari Mohan:Arun Joshi, Liverpool: Lucas Publication, 1985
Joshi,Arun:The Foreigner, Delhi :Orient Paperbacks, 1993
Joshi,Arun:The Strange case of Billy Biswas, New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 2008
Joshi,Arun:The Last Labyrinth, Delhi :Orient Paperbacks, 1981
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
...the future to see that his life is not ruined by acts of immaturity. And, in “Araby”, we encounter another young man facing a crisis of the spirit who attempts to find a very limiting connection between his religious and his physical and emotional passions. In all of these stories, we encounter boys in the cusp of burgeoning manhood. What we are left with, in each, is the understanding that even if they can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, we can. These stories bind all of us together in their universal messages…youth is something we get over, eventually, and in our own ways, but we cannot help get over it.
It is a coming of age story that outlines a boy’s personal growth and triumphs. Being able to reflect on the significance of the events that have led to his triumphs is critical, as it helps the reader understand their impact on his life and where he is coming from in the decisions he makes in the story. Such reflection is very important; as it makes the situations in the story more clear to the reader, and the story is then more easy and enjoyable to read. First person is the best point of view, in this story, for recounting these events, as it allows for a more personal and thereby more insightful reflection on the importance of the experiences he has. For example, the reader only learns of the importance of Paresh to the main character when he reflects “if I hadn’t tagged along with my family [that] day, I wouldn’t have met him that first time”(109). This indicates to the reader that Paresh will be an important figure in the protagonist’s life, which helps guide the reader’s understanding of the situation. The reader recognizes that Paresh will play a critical role in the main character’s life, and this helps the reader anticipate what may happen
reflects upon the theme of the novel. As it highlights the fact that if people in the society
While “The Wish to Be a Red Indian” and “Rejection” are different in structure but similar in style, they convey the same desire for escape. The two vignette seem to belong in Franz Kafka’s “Meditation” because of they have this conception of escape. After all, to meditate is to escape the physical world in order to look within oneself. Entertainment in general, including the practice of reading novels for enjoyment, is a form of escapism that allows people to relieve themselves from the banal aspects of daily life.
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
This novel is relatively short and is a story about the duality of human nature and how people can get caught up in their inner dark side. Mr. Utterson is a l...
At this point of the story it is reflective of a teenager. A teenager is at a time in life where boundaries and knowledge is merely a challenging thing to test and in some instances hurdled. Where even though you may realize the responsibilities and resources you have, there is still a longing for the more sunny feelings of youth.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
The memoir, This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff, provides a personal description of events surrounding Wolff’s adolescence. The records of events demonstrate the struggle to find freedom in a harsh environment that Wolff faced traveling around northwest United States. Therefore, Wolff proposes the theme of Jack’s longing for self-recreation through detail descriptions of symbols, motifs, and anecdotes.
The fictional life and death of a twelve year old little boy named Robert is vividly articulated in this moving tale by Thomas Wolfe. The reader learns of the boy’s life through four well developed points of view. The reader’s first glimpse into Robert’s character is expressed through a third person narrative. This section takes place on a particularly important afternoon in the boy’s life. The second and third views are memories of the child, through the eyes of his mother and sister. His mother paints the picture of an extraordinary child whom she loved dearly and his sister illustrates the love that the boy had for others. Finally, an account from the narrator is given in the ending. It is in the last section of this work that the narrator attempts to regain his own memories of his lost brother.
... is not at all that he imagined. It is dismal and dark and thrives on the profit motive and the eternal lure its name evokes in men. The boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist except in his imagination. He feels angry and betrayed and realizes his self-deception. He feels he is “a creature driven and derided by vanity” and the vanity is his own (Sample Essays).
The novel starts with Douglas embracing the beauty of summer and his young unrestricted life. Almost immediately, the reader is presented with the idea of the magic of life and childhood wonder. At the beginning of the summer, Douglas proposes that he will write about summer rituals and write down his reflections on those rituals. Douglas’ summer is very eventful. Leo Auffmann, the town jeweler, decides to invent a Happiness Machine. Although he fails, he learns from his failure that his family was Happiness Machine all along. Douglas discovers that adults and children are two different races, and that old people were never children although they have a past. Douglas’ friend Charlie takes John and Douglas to meet Colonel Freeleigh, a very old man whom they call a Time Machine because he tells stories that have the power to transport them back...