Saturday, February 15, 2014
Critically evaluate Gobar, the character from the "Godan"
“Godan”
is considered as the best novel of Prem Chand. The main theme of the novel is
the exploitation of the peasants and their inability to pay their debts. Here
different characters represent different walks of life. He presents characters
with rural and urban background. Through the rural characters, he presents the
Indian peasants of the pre-independence period with their problems of poverty,
starvation, poor healthy, misery, humiliation and death. In the matter of characterization,
Prem Chand is a progressive writer. In his treatment of rural characters and
rural life and not only presents the bitter realities of life, but he also
exhibits his progressive attitude. He neither idealizes his characters nor
romanticizes them. He simple presents them as they are.
A rebellious character:-
Hori’s
son Gobar is a rebellious character who refuses to bow before injustice and
exploitation. He is capable of leading people against any oppression. He does
not like a slow space of village life. He is just the anti-thesis of Hori’s
personality. He has been exposed to the trends in changing environment who
believes in life of challenged and initiative. Hence Gobar has been drawn a
powerful character quite in opposition to his fathers traits. His is the
character that links the two stories plot and sub pot of the rural characters
and the urban society.
His outlook:-
Gobar is tall and lean with black
complexion, a young man who has no interest in his father’s fruitless labour
and hard working without any reward or gain. In place of satisfaction and
calmness he is always seen dissatisfied and so revolts against all the wrong
doe not his family. He doesn’t worry about food but family tradition and
slavery of his father to the rich land owners and money-lenders. Contrasting
his father Gobar presents the modern trend and changes in life. He is in favour
of a radical change in society and he appears as the representative of change
and modern values. Gobar has a rebellious spirit. It prevents him in flowing
blindly the old tradition, custom and beliefs in religion and social culture
which takes way the innocent life in the name of culture and family tradition.
Thus Gobar goes to react against all the exploitation done to him or against his
family members. For Hori and Dhania, he is the only a hope of ray to survive in
life. Gobar carries not traits of virtues his parents, yet he has some dynamism
inherited from his mother Dhania.
His pride, self respect and religious nature:-
Gobar
has been watching the endless blames and suffering since his childhood day. As
a result he has becomes a little bit proud. His youthful spirit and proud lead
him to behave a man of pride and self respect. He has therefore certain
prejudice for the rich money lenders and Rai Sahibs. He severely and bitterly
criticizes his father’s service and salutes and over respects to Rai Sahibs. He
doesn’t life his fathers’ manual service to be rich. Gobar’s spirit can get
satisfaction only when he insults the landlords the aristocrats and money
lenders of his village. He experiences the tyranny and oppression shown to his
family creates a spirit of revolt in him. It makes him conscious of his rights.
He shows his anger and discontent contempt for the age old social barriers, and
conservative, and casteism, class-difference and unequally distribution of
wealth against the whole society that off him and his family nothing but struggle for such thinking, he
becomes a rebel.
His love for Jhunia:-
Gobar is a sensitive man, a young man
with a sense of revolt against exploitation and the system to which they
belong. Gobar brings home a cow and it is a time of festivity for the family.
This dynamic youth falls in love with Jhunia the daughter of Bhola, a money –
lender. Gobar thoughtlessly loves her. His mother Dhania comes to know about
Jhuniya’s pregnancy they are worried as a result; his house is also clotted by
the whole village community. Jhunia’s
father and brother are in search of Gobar and but he out of the village. The panchayat
decides to impose a fine on Hori. Hori has to pay the find otherwise he has to
face of being neglected matrimonially, economically as well as socially. Poor
Hori because of his son Gobar’s wrong deed which can be called “love”, has to
pay the penalty in chase. A son is born to Jhunia and both and Hori and Dhania
accept the son and mother with joy. Gobar leaves the village for Lucknow to get
some work and dreams about the future.
His life in Lucknow
When
Gobar reaches Amindbad market in Lucknow, he offered joy along with other
workers. He works for Mirza Khurshid and learnt the ways of the Urban world. He
starts lending money to other workers on interest and opens a small-shop. Now
even Mirza borrows money form him Gobar decides to bring his wife Jhunia along
with him as he is fed up with a lonely life in a big city. For the same, he
returns to his native village.
Gobar a changed transformed land
Gobar
arrives from the town with many gifts. The family is overjoyed and Hori feels
proud of his son Gobar. In the village Gobar is transformed. Gobar wearing new
clothes and pump shoes. The news spreads in the village and the village lads
are fascinated to see him. His parents extremely are happy. When Gobar come, to
know about the injustice done to his father, he threatens the village headman
of dire consequences. Gobar lures the young lads of the glamour of city and
life and promise them good jobs in Lucknow. The
boys accept him as their ideal and he offers them a lavish party at
home. He as a voice of young Indian spirit advices his father to come out of
the world hollow ideas and to lead a lfe on the plance of reality. When he
finds his father steeped in blind beliefs, he decide to resutn to Lucknow as he
does not want to ruin his life in a village.
Gobar’s Weakness:-
Gobar
has some weakness in his character. He is rough and rash. He loses his temper
very quickly and never thinks about the consequences. Tough he loves Jhunia yet
he can not master enough courage to marry her. After his parents accept her as
their daughter in law, he takes her to the city with him. After collapses of
his business in Lucknow, he starts taking liquor and now often beats Jhunia. He
is form in conflict between herd and heart. As an individual., Gobar has the
capacity to struggle but his weakness make his life more miserable. His two
sons die and he is helpless. Yet when none compares Gobar with the male
character in the village, he emerges as the most enterprising young man with a
great exposure to modern values of life. Like his mother he is a rebel but in a
different way. Though he has a brief role to play, yet he remains one of the
important character in the novels.
Gobar a voice of new generation:-
Gobar
has been drawn as a practical man who doesn’t think about the world or his
surroundings. He knows that man’s’ suffering in the present time are not due to
his bad luck but due to the system and its agencies. He has an argumentative
temperament. This attitude is not the product of any training or philosophy but
it is very much the produce off the ethos and environment. He out argues his
tradition living father. In the worlds of a critic Dr. Trilok Nathkhanna, “Gobar
is the voice of new generation which gives a jerk rather want to shatter the
assumption and thinking of Indian peasantry
Write a detailed note themes and central issuses in Godan.by Premchand
“He
is the greatest Indian writer who has intimately studied the life of the
peasant and portrayed with such powerful imaginative art that it stands supreme
in the history of Hindi fiction.”
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