Engine Trouble by R. K. Narayan (Summary & Analysis)

Engine Trouble

by R. K. Narayan

(Summary & Analysis)

  

R. K. Narayan, one of the most famous Indo – Anglian writers, was born in 1907 in Madras and settled down in Mysore. He is famous among readers for his best novels viz. Swami and Friends, Mr. Sampath, The Bachelor of Arts and The Guide. He received the Sahitya Academy Award for ‘The Guide’ in 1958. R. K. Narayan has written a large number of short stories which have been collected and published in six volumes – Dodu and Other Stories, Malgudi Days, Cyclone and Other Stories, Lawley Road and Other Stories, Astrologer’s Days and Other Stories, A Horse and Two Goats. Many of the stories in these collections were first published in the leading Madras daily, The Hindu. He also contributed some stories to leading American journals like The Reporter, The New Yorker, Vogue and others.

R. K. Narayan’s stories belong to the Indian soil and are redolent of its culture. His stories depict South Indian life and his view of the world and those who live in it. Simple but fascinating plot, lively characterization, strict economy of narration and elegant simplicity of language are features of his short stories.

Narayan’s stories produce one single vivid effect. They seize the attention of the reader from the outset. Narayan’s purpose does not seem to be moral and didactic like that of Aesop’s or Tolstoy’s. However, fate does play its part in some of his stories. His stories attract both foreign and Indian students. His stories serve a good introduction to the foreigner who wants to know Indian life. Easy and Simple language of his stories presents no difficulty to the Indian students.

Summary

R.K. Narayan’s Engine Trouble is considered to be one of the most humorous pieces of prose in Indo-Anglian literature. The Talkative Man is the narrator in the story. Narayan has beautifully depicted the troubles of the Talkative Man after winning a road engine as a lottery prize at the ‘Gaiety land’ in his village. The Talkative Man thought that the prize would relieve him of his financial crisis. But soon he realized that the engine was a bundle of problems for him. He tried to sell it but all in vain. He had to pledge jewel of his wife to pay rent of the Gymkhana ground. His efforts to move it from its place resulted into his imprisonment. Finally, nature came to his rescue and he got rid of it.

Analysis

The literary device of Irony is employed by R. K. Narayan in the story Engine Trouble. Irony denotes a sense of difference between what is asserted and what actually is the case. The Talkative Man won a road engine as a lottery prize. He thought that it would change his fate. But it proved a bundle of misfortunes for him.

Narayan’s stories display a greater simplicity of plot and language, even as they develop a greater complexity of meaning to exhibit the domain of India. By the time Narayan wrote Malgudi Days the crowded action of his early fantasies was replaced by introspections of Indianness.

Engine Trouble by R.K Narayan is truly an Indian story of unlucky draw. The meaning is developed through the characters, especially the narrator. Like Narayan, the narrator is a middle-class man struggling to rise above his origins. Although the narrator wants to adapt to the dominant middle-class culture, he remains profoundly attached to his own family sentiment.

Narayan has a love for describing carnivals, fairs, and the expo. Story after story we find his Malgudi Days being set in such an environment. The story starts with a line of breezy description of past Malgudi, which continues to carry the story forward. Narayan never dresses up the narrative of his characters. While perfectly natural, the narrative manages to convey the character's attitudes with remarkable authenticity.

This is a story by Narayan which begins on an ironic note of how a prize won by a man proves to be an expensive headache. A showman comes to Malgudi and brings with him his Gaiety land. The Gymkhana grounds are used for the festivities and the whole town pours in to see the show. Our protagonist wins a road engine at a show, people gather around him looking at him as if he is some curious animal. Now the problem that rises is how to take the prize back home. The driver of the engine is an expensive one and the suggestion of bringing in the municipality is not a good idea. Its decided that the engine can stay on the Gymkhana grounds till the end of the season but the cost of maintaining it on those grounds prove to be expensive for our protagonist.

A cattle show comes to town and he is given 24 hours’ time to remove it, so a temple elephant and 50 coolies are hired to take it to a nearby field owned by a friend. Joseph, a dismissed bus driver comes in to help steer the engine. Hell breaks loose resulting in undue expenditures.

Narayan introduces a Swamiji who performs various impossible feats and insists on having a road engine run over his chest. The municipality does not know how to arrange for one. Our protagonist becomes the hero of the hour by lending his engine for the feat. And in return it would be driven wherever he wanted it to. It is Narayan’s ability to bring forth the comic elements present in the gravest situations.

Unfortunately, in the story, the law comes in between and the feat cannot be performed, through the figure of a police inspector, the legality of doing such acts has been brought forward by Narayan where the inspector says that Swamiji can do anything except have potassium cyanide or have a rail engine run over him. It is a natural calamity that comes as a stroke of luck for the protagonist and solves all his problems.

The story is an example of Narayan's success to combine simple language and a few neutral things—feathers and dust, a noise in the attic—to generate the tense, fairyland atmosphere that dominates Engine Trouble.