The Dark Room :: essays research papers

The Book                    Name The Dark Room                         Author R. K. Narayan                          Number of Pages 214                         Publisher University of Chicago Press                          Date of Publication January 1981 salmagundi               FictionSummary In the quiet town of Malgudi, in the 1930s, on that point lived Savitri and her husband, Ramani. They lived with their three children, Babu, Kamala, and Sumat i. Savitri was raised with certain traditional values that came into internal conflict when she took Ramani, a modern executive, as her husband. Savitri has endured a lot of humiliations from her temperamental husband and she always puts up with his many tantrums. To find solace and escapism, she takes refuge in the dark room, a musty, unlit, storeroom in the house. But when Ramani takes on a beautiful new employer, Savitri finds out that her husband has more than a professional interest in the woman. So, at first, she tries to retreat to her dark room. But she realises that hiding in there wont help. So she tries to leave the house. She stayed with a friend in another village. But after staying there for some time, she cant help but think of her husband and their children. What would happen to them? After doing a lot of thinking, she finally decides to go back home. In the end, Ramani has finally stop seeing Shanta Bai, the other woman, and I guess you could say its a happy ending. Its now up to you to go and guess the rest. Savitri is very much real. She is basically instead like most people. They treat problems like that. They find ways to escape it. Like booze, drugs, suicide, etc. In Servitors case, she stays in the dark room, and finally, leaves her family. As I was reading "The Dark Room, I felt compassion towards Savitri. I can clearly see that she was a confused woman. It was depicted through and through the first part of the story wherein her son was ill and she told Babu, her son, not to go to school that day. But Ramani intruded upon them and said that Babu has to go to school and that his illness is merely a headache. Savitri didnt know what to do then. She was concerned for Babus health, but at the same time, she didnt want to argue with Ramani. In the end, Babu had gone absent to school. As for Ramani, I felt like shouting at him while reading the novel because of his bullying.