Dette er vores hjælp til analyse af novellen “Another Community” af Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan. Novellen optræder i lærebogen Wider Contexts (s. 283). Novellen er fra 1967. Ud over hjælp til analyse, får du her også et summary samt input til tema og perspektivering.
Social setting
When it comes to the social setting in “Another Community”, the narrative mainly focuses on the causes and consequences of mob mentality, which leads to fear and paranoia. The story also mentions the conflict between Indians and Pakistanis.
The narrative refers to the Indian and Pakistani communities as “ ‘One Community’ and ‘Another Community’ ” (p. 284, l. 3), and the narrator refrains from telling which community the man belongs to. The effect on the social setting is that it does not matter which community people belong to, as similar events can take place anywhere. It also hints that both communities can be considered the same, something that the man himself realizes at the end (p. 287, ll. 37-38). Moreover, at the beginning of the story, before the conflict, there are hints that the two communities co-existed peacefully and interacted with each other (p. 284, ll. 30-33).
The story’s ending shows the consequences of the mob mentality, which led to a war between the two communities: “The incident of that alley became known within a couple of hours all over the city. And his uncle and other uncles did press the button; with results that need not be described here.” (pp. 287-288, ll. 43-44, l. 1)
