Monday, August 26, 2013

Does the story "A Snake in the Grass" by R. K. Narayan end on a conclusive note?

Does R. K. Narayan’s story “A Snake In the Grass” end on a
conclusive note?  The simple (and probably accurate) answer to this question is “no,”
for some of the following reasons:


  • The story can
    be read as a simple “slice of life” tale, which offers no grand lessons and which
    teaches no lofty morals.  Since life itself is often inconclusive, it is appropriate to
    the tale that its own ending seems fairly
    inconclusive.

  • The story ends by emphasizing what might
    have been rather than what really
    happened:

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The college boy murmured: “I wish I had taken the
risk and knocked the water-pot from Dasa’s hand; we might have known what it
contained.”



  • This
    final sentence is inconclusive in a number of senses besides the one just mentioned. Had
    the college boy really, truly suspected earlier that Dasa was tricking them, or did this
    idea occur to him only after the appearance of the second snake? The narrator doesn’t
    make an answer to this question clear, and so the story ends on an inconclusive
    note.

  • Why didn’t the college boy at least move the stone
    slab above the pot open just slightly enough to see if the pot really contained a
    snake?  The narrator provides no clear answer to such a question, and thus the story
    ends inconclusively in yet another way.

  • What would the
    family have done if they had indeed checked the pot? The narrator provides no clear
    answer to this question, and thus the story seems inconclusive in one more
    way.

  • What will the family do when Dasa returns?  The
    narrator doesn’t say.

  • Will the family check with the
    snake charmer to test Dasa’s veracity?  The narrator doesn’t
    say.

  • Does the fact that Dasa claimed he would take the
    supposedly captured snake to the snake charmer imply that he really does have a snake in
    the pot? The narrator leaves this potential question
    open.

  • Is the snake spotted by the family the snake they
    had been looking for, or is this indeed possibly a real second snake? The narrator
    leaves the question open.

  • How are we meant to assess the
    meaning of this story and the nature of the characters? The narrator, by merely
    reporting rather than openly commenting and assessing, leaves the conclusion of the
    story open-ended in yet one more way.

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