THE MANIFESTATION POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVES IN R.K.NARAYAN’S NOVELS

The chief tone of R.K.Narayan‟s fictional universe is considered comical, although this comic vision fully interprets philosophical facets of Indian culture and civilization. One of the celebrated novelists of 20th century India, Narayan‟s creative genius seems committed to national ethics and Gandhian perspectives. Some of his novels had been published during the post-1980 period. His novels like A Tiger For Malgudi (1983), World of Nagraj (1990) are considered postmodern texts. Narayan belonged to earlier generation of the Indian Writing in English who not only witnessed the decline of colonial governance but also experienced the status of democratic nation. Hence, his creative span almost covers the entire 20th century in which he represents a variety of themes voicing modern as well as postmodern perspectives in its vivid forms. Some of the features of modernism retained its status even in postmodernism. To judge the fixed criterions and particular phase to define modernism and postmodernism is rather an awkward exercise. Some of the facets or techniques employed by postmodern novelists like magical realism, the cultural encounter between the East and the West, historiographic metafiction, erosion of moral values, changing standards, spread of corruption, reflexivity and self-consciousness are fully evident in Narayan‟s fictional Malgudi milieu. This paper examines the such postmodern perspectives observed especially in Narayan‟s novels: The English Teacher, A Tiger for Malgudi, The Guide and The Man-eater of Malgudi.