The Dark Room

The Dark Room – The central character of R.K. Narayan’s second novel, The Dark Room, is Savitri, a submissive housewife, very much dominated and neglected by her husband Ramani. There is a dark room in their house, where Savitri retires whenever her husband’s harshness seems unbearable to her. But when Ramani has a torrid affair with the newly-recruited Probationer Shanta Bai in his office, Savitri leaves after a bitter quarrel and tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide by drowning in a river. After some twists, typical to Narayan’s style, such as taking up a caretaker’s job in an old temple, Savitri cannot bear living without her children and returns home, deciding to live with the burden. The present critical study examines and analyses the narrative from the point of view of university examination.