INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY KNOWLEDGE An Anthology of Short Stories

153 Pages·2014·1.34 MB·English

INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY KNOWLEDGE
An Anthology of Short Stories
© Bridge Center, 2014
BRIDGE CENTER
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First published, 2014

Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României
RAVIYA, HITESH D.
Insights into literary knowledge : an anthology of
short stories / Hitesh D. Raviya. - Buzău : Bridge Center, 2014
ISBN 978-606-93502-1-8
82

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The views and contents of this book are solely of the author. The
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please notify the publisher in writing for corrective action.
HITESH D. RAVIYA
Editor
Associate Professor
Department of English, Faculty of Arts
The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat

INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY KNOWLEDGE
An Anthology of Short Stories

Bridge Center
2014

Contents

PREFACE…………………………………………….…………………………………7

SECTION I: INDIAN PROSE IN ENGLISH

Unit 1. A story and A Song - A. K. Ramanujan……………………………….………………...9
Unit 2. A Snake in the Grass – R. K. Narayan …………………………………………………14
Unit 3. Living or Dead - Rabindranath Tagore …………………………………………..........21
Unit 4. What We Must Learn from the West - Narayana Murthy …………..…………...........36
Unit 5. The Night Train at Deoli - Ruskin Bond…………………….……………………….....43
Unit 6. The Letter - ‘Dhumaketu’ Gaurishankar Govardhandas Josh……….……………...53
Unit 7. Lemon-Yellow and Fig - Manohar Malgonkar……………….………………………..65

SECTION II: ENGLISH PROSE

Unit 1. The Happy Prince – Oscar Wilde ……………………...…………………………….....75
Unit 2. The Wolves of Cernogratz - ‘Saki’ H H Munro …..…………………….……………...91
Unit 3. The Last Leaf - O’ Henry……………………………........…………………………….100
Unit 4. The Fly - Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp………………………………………….110
Unit 5. Lincoln’s Letter to his Son’s Teacher - Abraham Lincoln…………………………….122
Unit 6. The Verger - W Somerset Maugham………………………..………………………...128
Unit 7. A Day’s Wait - Ernest Miller Hemingway…………………………………………..140
Unit 8. The Kid - Charlie Chaplin …………………………………...………………………..147

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6
Preface

INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY KNOWLEDGE: An Anthology of Short
Stories addresses undergraduate students from various disciplines who
intend to develop their skills in English. The four major skills – reading,
writing, speaking and listening – have been taken into account by the
author of this anthology, with the specific purpose of enhancing
students’ ability of accurately and efficiently applying them both in the
academic and more practical, daily context. The selection of the literary
texts aims at exposing students to a variety of pieces of writing in
English, covering diverse geographical and cultural areas. The
heterogeneity of the texts will, therefore, develop the English skills of the
students and their open perception of a diversified cultural background.
Knowledge of English will thus trigger knowledge of perspectives on
life, having in view that students have to develop a fifth skill, namely,
the skill of thinking critically based on the assimilation of multiple
sources of wisdom and life experiences. The exercises that accompany all
units are designed to strengthen students’ accumulated knowledge and
to make them feel comfortable with the newly acquired information and
abilities. Teachers are invited to go beyond the proposed exercises and
develop or use more.
The major objective of the book is to make the students attain an
excellent command of the English language and create the awareness of
a diversity of cultural backgrounds so that they will be able to face all
challenges of the contemporary life.

Hitesh D. Raviya
Editor

7
SECTION II
Indian Prose in English

8
UNIT 1: A Story and a Song
A K Ramanujan

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Attipat Krishnaswamy Ramanujan (1929–93) was born in Mysore and studied
English Literature in the University of Mysore. He went to the United States
and obtained a doctorate in folklore and linguistics from Indiana University. He
taught at the University of Chicago in the department of South Asian
Languages & Civilisations as well as the department of Linguistics. He was a
scholar, writer, poet, folklorist, and translator. He was honoured by the title of
‘Padma Shri’ by the Government of India in 1976. He also received a MacArthur
fellowship in 1983. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1990. He wrote in English, Kannada, and Tamil; and was most
reputed for his translations from Kannada and Tamil. His works included
Speaking of Siva (1973), Hymns for the Drowning (1981), and The Collected Essays
(published posthumously), which included his most celebrated essay, Is There
an Indian Way of Thinking? His folklore translations are found in Folktales from
India: A Selection of Oral Tales from Twenty-two Languages (1991) and A Flowering
Tree and Other Oral Tales from India (1997).

ABOUT THE STORY

A Story and a Song is the first story from a collection of Ramanujan’s Kannada
folktales entitled, A Flowering Tree and other Oral Tales from India. Ramanujan
begins the collection with this story, thus setting the scene for the rest of the
stories that follow. It is a typical folktale about why stories ought to be told. The
folk tale is narrated through word of mouth. It is the story of a common person.
In the world of this tale, stories and songs as well as lamp flames have been
personifi ed and have a life of their own; the stories and songs transform into
material things like shoes and coats. The flames of the lamps don’t die but go to
the temple and return when the householders light the lamps again. The story is
short, but the message comes across more through what is left unsaid rather
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than what is overtly stated. The characters have no names, we hear their story
in the third person, and we do not have insight into their emotions or thoughts.
Thus, the narration underlines the universality of the message. The conclusion
that may be drawn is that the woman is perhaps totally engrossed in her
household life, and has forgotten to share what she knows or probably wanted
to share with her husband. Her husband is probably indifferent too, until he
discovers the coat and shoes in his house and is shaken. The incident unsettles
both of them, and they are forced to think about what was ignored and taken
for granted. The story and the song—that the housewife does not share—
become the symbol of the suppressed creativity of the woman, which
eventually dies due to lack of expression.

A STORY AND A SONG

A housewife knew a story. She also knew a song. But she kept them to herself,
never told anyone the story or sang the song. Imprisoned within her, the story
and the song were feeling choked. They wanted release, wanted to run away.
One day, when the woman was sleeping with her mouth open, the story
escaped, fell out of her, took the shape of a pair of shoes, and sat outside the
house. The song also escaped, took the shape of something like a man’s coat,
and hung on a peg.
The woman’s husband came home, looked at the coat and shoes, and asked
her, ‘Who’s visiting?’
‘No one,’ she said.
‘But whose coat and shoes are these?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she replied.
He wasn’t satisfied with her answer. He was suspicious. Their conversation
was unpleasant. The unpleasantness led to a quarrel. The husband flew into a
rage, picked up his blanket, and went to the Monkey God’s temple to sleep.
The woman didn’t understand what was happening. She lay down alone
that night. She asked the same question over and over: ‘Whose coat and shoes
are these?’ Baffled and unhappy, she put out the lamp and went to sleep.
All the lamp flames of the town, once they were put out, used to come to
the Monkey God’s temple and spend the night there, gossiping. On this night,
all the lamps of all the houses were represented there—all except one, which
came late.
The others asked the latecomer, ‘Why are you so late tonight?’
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