R.K.Narayan’s The Financial Expert: The Conflict between Tradition & Modernity

Tradition and Modernity are two contrasting elements that predominate in almost all the novels of R.K.Narayan. Reading his novels sparks a sense of Indianness provided with his own taste, flavour and recognition of rich cultural inheritance. The Financial Expert is his wonderful creation, and highly resourceful for someone who is interested to delve deep into Indian culture, enjoy its values and at the same time witness how materialism adds a new dimension in Indian traditional culture. The paper attempts at examining Narayan?s creation of a character who strives very hard with the changing values of society to establish his own identity only to restart a new stride. Theory of colonialism and its effect in the post ? independence era is also perceived in the analysis of the text. Besides the theoretical perceptions, the economic thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru also act as a background force in the novel.