The Guide by R.K. Narayan - Brief Summary and Characters

The Guide by R.K. Narayan - Brief Summary and Characters

👉 Introduction

"The guide" is a famous English novel written by R. K. Narayan. It was first published in 1958. This novel has a story of a common man "Raju", who goes through different life trips-from a tour guide to becoming a spiritual guru. This is the story of the search for self-change and salvation.

👉 The Guide - Main characters

Raju - the hero of the story. Earlier there was a tourist guide, later became a spiritual guru.

Rosie - a dancer. Raju's girlfriend.

Marco - Rosie's husband. Historian and remains lost in itself.

Villagers - villagers considers Raju as a guru.

👉 Summary according to the plot

Beginning of the novel

Raju is a tour guide at a railway station. He guides tourists. One day he meets Marco and his wife Rosie.

Rosie’s love

Raju falls in love with livelihood. Rosie is a skilled dancer, but her husband considers dance down. Raju inspires Rosie to dance.

New life

Rosie leaves her husband and starts living with Raju. Raju becomes his manager. Rosie becomes famous, but Raju becomes greedy.

Mistake and punishment

Raju forges a legal document. He gets jailed. Rosie leaves him.

Guru's form

Raju reaches a village after leaving jail. People consider him a monk. Raju also slowly feels a change inside himself.

Last sacrifice

There is drought in the village. People ask him to pray. Raju fasts. Finally he falls near the river - perhaps dies, perhaps he gets salvation.

👉 Main Theme

Self-change power

Conflict between confusion and reality

Fame and collapse

Travel to salvation

👉 "The Guide" - Detailed Summary

R.K. Narayan’s "The guide" is a famous novel, which touches subjects like Indian society, self-change, love, and discovery of salvation. The main character of this novel is Raju, whose journey is from a simple tourist guide to becoming a spiritual guru.

The story begins with a fictional city called Malgudi, where Raju works to guide tourists at the railway station. He specializes in impressing people with his words. One day there comes a couple - Marco and his wife Rosie. Marco is a historian who is engrossed in itself. Rosie is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, but her husband despises her dance.

Raju is sympathetic to livelihood, and gradually it turns into sympathy love. Rosie also gets inclined towards Raju. She leaves her husband and starts living with Raju. Raju inspires Rosie to dance again and becomes his manager. He soon becomes very famous by the dance art of Rosie.

As soon as fame and money comes, Raju changes. He becomes arrogant and greedy. He uses Rosie's earnings for his benefit. Meanwhile, he cheats in a legal paper, which leads him to jail. Rosie is very sad to know this and leaves it.

After being released from jail, Raju reaches a village instead of returning to his old life. The people of the village consider him a monk or a guru. Initially Raju takes advantage of this confusion, but gradually he starts to understand his responsibilities. Now he has started thinking differently than before - introspects and sees his life from a new perspective.

When there is a drought in the village, people pray to Raju to do rituals for rain from God. Raju wants to tell them the truth, but he understands that now his life is no longer his life. He fasts for 21 days so that the villagers can get water. During this fast, he becomes physically extremely weak.

Finally, on the last day of fasting, the guru, Raju falls on the banks of the river. He says - "Is it raining?" - And this is the story ends here. The author has not clarified whether Raju dies or not, but it is clear that he has traveled to an autism to become a philanthropic saint.

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