Puerilism in the novel, Waiting for the Mahatma

Abstract

“Waiting for the Mahatma”, is a more distinct novel than that of other novels written by R.K.Narayan. He depicts an Indian culture predominantly, a South Indian village life. His characters are alive through his description; his settings are vibrant and are reproduced in his pictorial descriptions. The research paper studies how R.K.Narayan depicted the protagonist’s character in this novel. In several situations in the novel the protagonist, Sriram behaves like an infant. The infantile behaviour in adulthood is called Puerilism. In this paper a few situations have been taken and analysed to reveal Sriram’s character which depicts puerilistic behaviour. This is judged based on the observation of cultural and sociological impact upon a person. We study how family and cultural circumstances impact Sriram.