An Astrologer’s Day -Re-Visited (A Critical Analysis from 21 st Century Perspective)

Abstract

R.K. Narayan’s short story “An Astrologer’s Day” was first published in 1943 in short story collection titled“Cyclone and other stories “. Later on, it was republished in another short story collection “An Astrologer’s Day and other stories”. In the short story, the writer portrays a day’s events in the life of the protagonist, the Astrologer in the imaginary and stereotypical south Indian town of Malgudi, where the standard norms of tradition and superstition apply. The theme of the story is: how an astrologer faces earlier life’s deeds in present day. The story deals with darker side of human nature like shrewdness, revengefulness, selfishness and hypocrisy. Human frailties are depicted in the story. In the end, all ends well. Astrologer who has been running from realities of life faces an adverse situation which he did not want to face. He comes across a person who was thought to be dead comes alive before the astrologer. Astrologer is well versed with “working analysis of mankind’s troubles: marriage, money and tangles of human ties”. The story also exhibits religious mentality, poverty, caste and selfishness of man etc. Setting: The market place. There are three characters in the short story. The Astrologer, Gurunayak and Astrologer’s wife. The author skillfully uses Irony in the story. Mysticism and religious hypocrisy, Identity, guilty, fear, Modernization, tradition and inequality are themes seen in the short story. Symbols used by the author are: The astrologer’s garb and equipment, Market place lightening and lorry. Style: Narayan’s adopts simple style and language. He uses curious mixture of English and Tamil idioms