Kanthapura: The Language, the Narrative Style and the Literary Merits’

 

The Language, the Narrative Style and the Literary Merits’ of Kanthapura

 Kanthapura is a successful novel even if it is judged through its narrative style and techniques used by Raja Rao. It was a big challenge for the writer to achieve his goal by writing this novel in English. He had to make some innovations in his narrative style to suit the Indian atmosphere.

 Let’s study this novel in the light of the use of ‘language, the narrative style and the literary merits’ of Kanthapura.

 As we know, it was not an easy task for the writer to narrate a tale of an imaginary village, named Kanthapura, where people had different mindsets and where most of the people were illiterate, following different myths and superstitions. They were the people who were divided on the basis of caste and religion. The writer was to portray them as living beings, clashing with one another to safeguard their personal interests and then to elevate them to unite for the bigger cause of being a part of Gandhiji’s  Movement.

 

 So the first priority for the writer was to mould English language according to the people of Kanthapura in order to express their thoughts and feelings, their dreams, and the harsh reality in which they lived in. The second necessity for the writer was to select a narrative style. For this, he decided to use an age-old ancient style of story-telling, which is very popular in our country.

 

We all have grown up by listening to the tales narrated by our grandmothers in a simple and spontaneous manner. Here, the narrator is Achakka, the village's old grandmother, who narrates the tale of the events that took place long-long ago in Kanthapura. Some of the incidents have become dim in her memory with the passage of time. But whatever she narrates, she narrates wonderfully.

 

Raja Rao himself admits the fact that telling a tale is not an easy job when he was to capture the tempo of Indian life in a foreign language. The novelist was to record the swift movements of thoughts and actions that prevail in an average Indian mind. The novelist has done this successfully in Kanthapura.

 

The writer does not use any flashback that slows down the tempo of the action. Wherever, the writer finds space, we come to know about his viewpoint.  The narrator in one of the people living in Kanthapura and it also lends authentication to the events.

We find word-pictures in plenty. The novelist has described everything that he thought necessary very minutely. Sometimes our senses of sight, sound, and even smell are stirred. In the first chapter, the movements of the bullock carts on the zigzag ‘kachcha’ roads creating a cloud of dust behind them are marvelous. Similar examples abound in the novel.

 

The novelist has also kept in mind the subject matter that is used while speaking by different characters in the novel. They speak in accordance with their education, religious and cultural values they have acquired in their rural background. Raja Rao has also used Indianised words for certain religious ceremonies like  “God’s birth celebration ceremony”, “rice-eating ceremony”, “hair-cutting ceremony”, “death ceremony”, ‘Sankara-Vijaya’,  ‘Sankara-Jayanthi’,‘Harikathas’, etc.

 

Like a modern writer of great eminence, T.S. Eliot, Raja Rao has also used myths in this novel. It makes the narrative of the novel look more Indian. He has used the myths of the goddess Kenchamma, Lord Rama and Sita, Lord Krishna, Brahma, Siva, etc. Under the umbrella of these religious myths and belief, the people of Kanthapura stand united in the leadership of Moorthy to participate in Gandhiji’s freedom struggle.

Thus, we may say that Raja Rao’s narrative style and the literary devices he used in this novel are superb.