Humour and Irony in The Guide (B.O)

As a humorist R.K. Narayan occupies highest rank among all the indo-Anglican novelists. His humour is all – pervasive and most varied. There is in him virtual humour arising from jokes, jests, repartee and retorts. Again, one get in him humour of situation and of character. His characteristic humour result from an observation of the common human follies and foibles. It aims at portraiture rather than exposure of human nature. As a result, his humour is denial urbane and tolerance. Often his humour is near allied to pathos and in this he is closer in spirit to Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens.
All varieties of humour are found in The Guide. The pleasantries / casual remark exchanged between the barber and Raju at the very beginning smack of humour which ends with a prophetic note, ‘you look like the Maharaja now’ after shaving and surveying Raju at a distance. Hilarious humour occurs in Raju’s lesson with his father, who wrote the first two letters of the Tamil alphabet on each side of the slate. But when Raju was asked to write it again, he put his entire body weight on the pencil and the slate pencil screeched at which his father ordered ‘Don’t make all that noise with the horrible pencil of yours’. Another such situation causes innocent laughter when the children on the Pyol school once slipped in and passed from room to room of their master’s house and saw him cooking in the kitchen and said, ‘oh, master, you know how to cook also !’ and giggled and his wife also goggled at their remark. Again, humour is created by exposing the absurdity of human situation. A similar mock – serious self-portrait occurs when Raju describes his attempt to interest the Albert Mission School authorities in a dance recital by Raju’s lawyer, an adjournment / suspension expert. Raju finds Marco a ‘grotesque creature’ who dresses ‘like a permanent tourist’. Narayan’s gentle humour is thus integrally related to the theme of characterization of…