Digital Object Identifierhttps://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.10
Fictionalized in R. K. Narayan’s works, Malgudi is an imaginary South Indian town in which the transition of Indian society from colonialism to postcolonial modernity is narrated. Narayan depicts tradition and modernity as fluid, cyclic, co-existing and constituting rather than dichotomous entities. The aim of this research paper is to illustrate, through close textual analysis of his works including Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The Guide, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, The Vendor of Sweets, The Painter of Signs, and The English Teacher how the author has represented generational conflict, education, marriage, spirituality and business as areas of negotiation between the two cultures. The paper uses Raymond Williams’ concept of residual, dominant and emergent culture, the theory of hybridity by Homi Bhabha and the critique of colonial modernity by Ashis Nandy to prove the fact that for Narayan, Malgudi emerges as the specific cultural space of Indian society in which Indian society accepts Western influences without negating its culture.
Bala, Saroj, and (Dr.) Shalini Yadav. “Tradition and Transition: The Conflict and Reconciliation of Old and New Values in the Fiction of R. K. Narayan.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 5, Oct. 2026, pp. 134-50, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n5.10.
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by the Research Centre for English Language and Literature (RCELL) under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
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