The Assertion of Existentialism in the Fiction of R.K. Narayan

Abstract

The effectiveness of existentialism is judged the role of fate and chance, surrender and shock ,and despair and uneasy calm in whatever man feels , thinks, and does .In my days the novelist says, ‘’I practiced psychic contacts regularly for some years , almost every night . I found it possible to myself from my physical body (a process taught by Paulbrunton) and experience a strange sense of deliverance. And then and gradually the interest diminished when I began to feel satisfied that I had attained an understanding of life and death.’’ This personal experience went a long way to shape and fashion Narayan’s attitude to the problem of affirmation of existentialism .will am Walsh points out that ‘’existentialism affirms itself by  providing the weakness of life; what the novelist shows in his novels is within the power of existentialism .’’ Narayan’s creative genius is deeply rooted in the ancient Indian religion which attaches great importance to negation and its forces of alienation.