Critically Comment on the Ending of The Guide or Judge how fitting the ending
is.
The novel The Guide essentially revolves around one of R.K. Narayan's recurring themes—
self-abnegation as the means to spiritual peace. Through his eventful career, Raju's primary motive
has always remained his own self-gratification and it is not till the very end that he is moved to do
something "in which he was not personally interested”. When one comes to the end of the novel
he is threatened with so many unanswered questions. Sally Appleton in the review titled “The
Ambiguous Man,” observes: “The author must decide whether or not holiness will work . . . the
author abandons the reader to choose arbitrarily whether or not, as Raju sinks into the muddy
river bed, he is dying, whether or not, as the water rises to Raju’s knees, it rises because “it’s
raining in the hills” or because Raju himself is sagging into it.” It is not surprising that critics are
divided on this question. C. D. Narasimhaiah considers Raju a transformed man in the end, a saint,
whereas G. S. Balarama Gupta believes that “Raju is a selfish swindler, an adroit actor, and a
perfidious megalomaniac.”
Despite being so aware of the dangers of shamming such a serious thing as being a
guru, Narayan actually came out in favour of the institution in the end. He was unable to show the
villagers rejecting Raju, or Velan abusing and unmasking him. He did not want the novel to be a
propaganda tract against superstitious villagers and unscrupulous charlatans. He has presented the
theory of renunciation, and liberation or Moksha in The Guide through the character of Raju, the
tourist guide. The denouement of the novel is the point at which the complex moral world of The
Guide receives its fullest expression. He is initially entrapped in the illusory world when the
materialistic philosophy guides and governs his life. He receives his ill fate as per his evil actions.
But during his stay in the prison, he finds time for his moral and social transgression. The prison
provides him an ideal opportunity to look into the innermost regions of his soul and shake off his
material and social deceptions. Thereafter, Raju's character evolves gradually but this evolution
becomes a ceaseless and ongoing process. By the end of the novel, Raju attains that selfless state like
a saint, which sets the stage for his release from all the worldly shackles.
Raju’s penace to bring out the rain reminds us the story of the sage king Bhagirath
who conducted severe penace to bring out the goddess Ganga, a story found in both the Ramayana
and Mahabharata. The concept of liberation has been underlined again and again in the novel and the
character of Raju becomes the most convenient vehicle for Narayan to elucidate human weaknesses
and subsequent enlightenment. The penace in the personal level is both a conversion and catharsis
because “for the first time in his life he was making an earnest effort ...... He felt suddenly so
enthusiastic that it gave him a new strength to go through the ordeal.”
Narayan’s “My Dateless diary” describes the probability of Raju’s death. “ I have on my
hands the life of a man condemned to death before he is born , and I have to plan my narrative
to lead to it” However rebirth is hinted at - “ they held him as if he were a baby.” Raju is surely
transformed into a good man now because we remember his mother quoting “ if there is any good
man anywhere , the rain would descend for his sake and benefit the whole world.
Narayan shows a fine artistic tact in the handling of the final scenes. The changed Raju
becomes invested finally with a quality of exaltation and mystery. His progress from rake and social
parasite to saviour of the community is rendered wholly credible. Prof Krisna Sen concludes “The
denouement is neither a rejection nor a defence of the Hindu faith—it gestures towards the
complexity of life, in which there are no simple solutions. It is this ambiguous and open-ended
denouement that raises the novel far above the level of a mere moral fable, or a story with a
simplistic happy ending”.
