“Narrative Structure and Plot Development in Selected Indian English Novels: A Critical Study”

Abstract

Narrative structure and the development of the plot in literary fiction are central elements to shaping the organization, presentation and interpretation of story. The way inventions are being presented in Indian English novels has also experienced considerable shifts, which correspond to the shifts in the novelists' cultural identification, historical consciousness, social relationship and experimentation. It highlights the narrative structure and development of the selected Indian English novels such as Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981), Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things (1997) and Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger (2008) in a critical manner. This study is a qualitative, analytical, and comparative study aimed to investigate chronological and nonlinear narration, characterization, narration form, tear, symbolism and development of themes. The narrative device of the fragmented story, the use of the past to look back on one's present, the introspection into personal and communal identity, along with other ways of arranging stories in unconventional ways, are explored in particular detail. The analysis indicates that the innovation of narration style and other aspects of experimentation in Indian English novel extend beyond the innovative aspect of the narrative and also play a direct role in the narration of history, memory, social inequality and personal identity. In Rushdie this strategy translates into a combination of personal biography with national history, while Roy's aims are accomplished by the nonlinear narration to describe the enduring aftertaste of familial and social trauma, and Adiga's method is a confessional narrative which exposes contemporary class divisions and moral paradoxes. The study demonstrates that narrative structure and plot development is inter-challengeable literary technique or device in which the Indian English novelists can provide critical perspectives on the changing social, cultural contexts while enhancing the characterization of the novels.