English Literature

R.K. Narayan, the winner of Sahitya Academy Award, is one of the most famous Indian writers in Indian English writing. He achieved international acclaim as a prolific and perfect storyteller. He wrote several stories which fascinated the readers throughout the world. An Astrologer’s Day is one of them. This is the first beautiful short story in Narayan's anthology called Malgudi Days. An Astrologer’s Day is a very short story. It is very typical in its theme and style. It deals with the themes of fear, revenge, freedom, deception, guilt, relief and the ironies of life. It combines suspense, realism, and thriller genres. Here the central character, the Astrologer, faces some kind of crisis and resolves it at the end. The interesting plot, the element of suspense, the logical climax, the figurative language and the underlying meaning behind the story are the important elements of this story. These elements have been artistically interwoven in the story and that is why this story bec…

Ibsen is one of the greatest dramatists of English literature. He is the first man to show that high tragedy can be written about ordinary people in ordinary everyday prose. His contribution to the theatre is memorable. His A Doll's House is a beautiful drama.



A Doll's House is a problem play or thesis play. Here Ibsen presents the problem and leaves the solution to the readers. The problem is - what is the position of woman in relation to her husband and her home? The play focuses our attention on the conjugal life of a middle class couple. It shows the sad consequences of the subordination of a married woman to the control of her husband.  It again shows the method to get out of that predicament. Thus marriage is the major theme of this play. Ibsen is in favour of Nora, the heroine of the play. She wins our sympathy also. Thus it can be said that A Doll's House is a feminist play. 


Ibsen is popular as a dramatist of social realities.He was interested in women's indepe…

Munshi Premchand, the pioneer of modern Hindi and Urdu social fiction, has been the epitome of Hindi literature. He is always compared with Charles Dickens, Gorky and Tolstoy. He, the most renowned authors of the early 20th century in India, was a versatile writer of short stories, novels, dramas and essays. He translated a number of literary works of other languages into Hindi. Born at Lamahi near Banaras in a lower middle class family, Premchand learnt his early lessons in a madarsa. No doubt, his whole life was full of struggle. He made an active participation in the freedom movement of India. In response to Gandhi’s call he quit his job of Deputy Inspector and after that he devoted himself to writing. Premchand, a fantastic story writer, wrote more than three hundred stories. Experience of life is the soul of these stories and they are pure classic. These short stories mirror the society and encompass everything in the universe. Premchand’s first story Duniya ka Sabse Anmol…

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Once upon a time, there was a king who kept a monkey as a pet. The monkey served the king in whatever way he could. He had a free run of the royal household because he was the king’s pet. One hot day the monkey sat fanning by the side of the king who was sleeping. He noticed a fly on the chest of the king and tried to swish it away. The fly would go away for the moment and come back again to sit on the king's chest. The monkey could take it no longer and decided to teach the fly a lesson. He looked for a dagger to kill it and when he found it brought it down with all force on the fly. The fly flew away but the king died as result of the dagger blow delivered by the monkey. Karataka said, “Therefore, the lesson is that a king who cares for his life should not have a fool as his servant.’ He went on to relate a second story to show how shrewd people save the lives of others. Once upon a time a Brahmin lived in a big city and as a result of his misdeeds in his previous birth he beca…