The English Teacher Critical Analysis

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The English Teacher clearly builds up within its narrative an anti-colonial critique. Discuss. Ans: The English Teacher can always be reread as a powerful post-colonial reaction against the socio-literary suppositions of such westerners as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and Graham Greene: it exposes the irony of not only the English but also the general European literary traditions and creates a separate identity for itself through the cultural hybridism of its Indian characters and the continual projection of Indian traditions and values as alternative cultures against the British customs. The settings of the English Teacher is as anti-colonial response against the Eurocentric novels opening generally in western metropolis like London, Madrid, Paris, or Berlin. Narayan’s Malgudi where the different incidents described in The English Teacher occur is an imaginary provincial town that has the relics of the colonial establishment but the role and presence of the British imperialists has been minimised .Moreover the only active British character in Narayan’s pre-independence novel is the Albert Mission College, Principal Mr. Brown, but he identifiably commands no special importance. K.R.Srinivasa Iyenger in “Indian Writing in English “, underscores the fact that Narayan’s anti-imperialist approach is demonstrated in…show more content…
The opening pages of the English Teacher record its protagonist dissatisfaction with the colonized educational system. Krishna is compelled to make his students ‘mug up’ with Milton and Shakespeare so that they might secure high marks in exams that will ensure his monthly salary. Such process to commodify education and the artificial and material aspect is quite evident in the novel. In the hierarchical structure of student- teacher relationship, the dividing gulf is ever widening by a mechanical awe and compulsory
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