Cultural Disparity and Conflict of Generationin R.K. Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets
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Abstract
The chief problem with which the novel The Vendor of Sweets deals is that of
cultural disparity and generational conflict between two generations in India. In R.K.
Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets,the protagonist, Jagan is a conservative person who
wants to live in an idealized traditional Indian life. He tries to adopt the moral and
ethnical codes of the traditional society for gaining eternal peace and tranquility in
life. Mali, on the contrary, ignoring hisown typical Indian culture attempts to imitate
western culture as well as lifestyle. Leaving his further study in India he prefers to go
to America for story-writing machine and begins to adopt American way of life in
terms of food, education policy, individual lifestyle and so forth.Cultural disparity
between two generations looms there and this kind of cultural disparity creates
generational conflict which leads towards family disintegration, i.e. irreconcilable
conflict between two generations.