Quest for Inner Peace in R. K. Narayan’s The Dark Room
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Abstract
This research explores the quest for inner peace, the supreme state of bliss, in human being represented by Savitri in R. K.Narayan’s The Dark Room. Savitri, the protagonist of the novel, undergoes through various stages in life: ignorance, series of suffering in her household life, frustration, and realization of reality of the world, and achieves the inner peace, which is the ultimate goal of Buddhism. As the Buddhist philosophy believes that the acceptance of the natural course of life and behave accordingly is the best way for human beings to avoid the suffering in life. To go against it is to invite suffering. Savitri eventually attains the enlightenment through physical and spiritual experience and accepts this truth of the world pursuing the Middle path, as proposed in Buddhism. Although Savitri returns to the previous place, the trivial activities of mundane life do not have any influence on her unlike on ordinary human beings.