A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF EXTRACTS FROM RK NARAYAN'S SHORT STORIES AND ESSAYS

Abstract

This academic exercise looks at style in RK Narayan's works, notably two short stories -- GURU and SALT AND SAWDUST and a few of his essays. In the Introduction, the scope and intention behind this dissertation is discussed and defined. RK Narayan has been accused of being a simple writer whose works are spontaneous. It is the intention of this dissertation to debunk this theory. For this purpose, a variety of linguistic features such as Transitivity, Speech and Thought Presentation, Mood and Modality, Narratorship and Points of View and Pragmatics have been examined to analyse RK Narayan’s portrayal of character and narrating style. This dissertation concludes that RK Narayan's style is simple only at the surface level. A deeper analysis reveals that he makes effective use of complex linguistic features behind the deceptively simple and spontaneous style for several purposes: to highlight his protagonist's character; to reveal the characters' attitudes to each other; and to indicate his point of view.