Optimistic or Numb Essay

For years, beggary is star of the insistency issues that India faced, and being the country that bedevil unrivalled third of the worlds brusque, al close Indians be leading a life that people in the modern familiarity empennage never imaging. They never had ample nutrition to satisfy their hunger, nor a role to sleep and of course, non having clothes to soften and tear. Dangers were always around them and people would be killed so easily alike if one is crushing an ant.And because of this, most of them springiness up hope and smash struggling to improve their lifestyle, and it is to the extent that they became too adapt able to misery and use up their rights of pursuing happiness. In the base The Grass-Eaters by Krishnan Varma, the main yoke, Ajit baboo and his wife, Swapna atomic number 18 depicted as the poorest people in the Indian society, they startd a refugees life and be constantly on the move, even though Ajit Babu was a school master and is well educat ed, he was not leading a stable life.Despite the optimism attitude that Ajit Babu adopts towards the poverty and miseries he suffered, at that place actu onlyy lies a deep sense of despondency underneath it. In order to comfort themselves and the match forced themselves to give up some human nature for adapting the environment. This is why he is able to grow so accustomed in seeing the darkest side of society that he is able to watch it in peace and contentment.The root use symbolism to emulate the reality behind those contradictions, and to create a couple like them, grass-tributarys, spot, railway and night blindness (167-170) are a few symbols the precedent used to offer a distinctive weight down of interpretations of this short story. Firstly, the most obvious symbol, the grass-eaters and since it is sets as the title, the root must put on his own reason to this. This symbol plays an important role in the story development, as generally Grass-eater is use to define a ty pe of creature or else than a person who is ve incurarian.By using Grass eater, the author is trying to covey the idea that these people living in poverty are no longer living in conditions go away for human survival, but reduced to animals instead. In the later part of the story, the author describes Swapna as fang bared, claws out(167), which depict that she possess animalistic instincts. Secondly, in a good story, there is at least an important idea that the author is trying to convey and usually there will be hints tally by the whole story.In this story, several repeats of the word dental plate provoke be found easily. They refer to different places, or in this fortune, steady objects which plays different roles, but overall they share a similar meaning, that is to defend the incapability to control of ones fate, especially for the poor. Commonly when it comes to home, most of us will link it with words like stability, pledge, family, privacy, comfort, memory and the most important, your roots. and, in this story, home does not represent this at all.Since the couple is constantly on the move, it shows the instability their life, from the start, they have to set aside their own state, where their roots are and travel miles to Calcutta to avoid the riots in East Bengal (167). In their first home, which is nothing more than a footpath, it is so crowded that once you leave your place at night, you will not be able to sense your place again (167) and there is no privacy, as sharing one home with strangers is truly common, not only that, there is no security at all, since one might lose an ear by expenditure a night at such a place (167).In their second home, which is a wagon, even though they manage to get all the privacy they want, it is very insecure, since That was not the only we went to bed in Calcutta and woke up in another place(168). While privacy is very important to us but it is something we take for granted, but to the couple it is a heaven-sent gift. In order to let their fourth kid, Prodeep to be natural in a proper place, they move to a cement cover pipe (168), and it actually make Swapna sense very comfortable. As seen, the poor are very contented with such small improvement.This show they have when through a great deal of torment. In their die or most current home, the roof, Ajit Babu is pleased with the surrounding as the rental is cheaper as compare to other tenant yet they have a great deal more space for their son to play (169). In this story, perhaps the author creates the absence of the common meaning of a home to show that, the places they live in badly deprivation stability, security, privacy, comfort and memory and only decease will then grant the couple a place with all the things they lack of.As seen in the story, there is an eternal home to the couple, which is their tombs, the articulate We have a son to do our funeral rites when we died(170) appeared twice, and from this we can infer t hat the place can serve as a stable, secure, private and comfortable home for the couple. Since this is what the realistic world cannot give, so they resort to the reincarnation and hope that in their next life, life will be much fairer to them.This show that to the poor, mayhap death is better than life in this real world. Thirdly, most of the couples homes are near a railway, which have a long, immortal shape, and at some point of time make one feel like it is an never-ending way, just like life is endless, since you never chicane when will it endless and watching the approaching and departing train as though its a cycle, which is just like life.In the story, the couple are Hindus and Hinduism is a religion that holds the belief in reincarnation, where souls are being evolved through many evolutions. Therefore the railway has a meaning of being metempsychosis by linking the present and future. And since the couple are travelling to and fro the railway, it might typify their pr ocess of being rebirth into a better life, which we can see, that they are able to improve their living conditions as the story progresses.Finally the last symbol, night blindness, the author described as the couple as nightblind (169), there is three different interpretation to this, first, it could be refer as an infirmity, which is results from lack of certain necessary nutrition, since the couple are so poor, they are not able to afford food that can provide enough nutrition. Second, one can interpret night-blindness as a result of no electricity, because they cant afford the electricity bills, thus they are unable to fly themselves around in the dark.Both inferences are a subtle set off that poverty is one of the pressing issues and people are suffering from illness and diseases because of it. However, night-blindness can also be interpreted being optimistic, in this case being blind to the darkness in life and the obstacles that they may experience, as the only way to survi ved in this realistic world, is to be numb to the sufferings that derive even if is against their own will. In this story, the author showed the reality of the poorest people in his society, through a way of symbolism.The optimism that Ajit Babu has is in fact a kind of escape from reality. He chooses the easier way out by ignoring the sufferings he face, rather than facing them and fight for his own happiness. Poverty certainly is awful. But what really matters is to try whatever means possible to fight against it, rather than pretend to be enjoying the poverty and believe in the so-called optimism. kit and caboodle Cited Varma Krishnan. The Grass-Eaters. 1985. Rpt. in The International Story An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction. pathos Spack. New York St. Martins, 1994. 167-170