2.6.11

RUSKIN BOND Interpreter of Human Relationships

by: RAM KULESH THAKUR









ISBN 978-81-7977-411-3

Price: Rs. 80.00

pp.: 80


With his versatile, original and elegant writing style, Ruskin Bond has secured for himself a place among the most successful Indian short story writers.

The present study, a short literary monograph, seeks to highlight Ruskin Bond in a new perspective. He has been accredited with Nature writings and writings for the entertainment of children. Apart from a rich pictorial description of Nature, traveling experiences, supernatural elements, and nostalgic memories, Bond also presents a web of human relationships in his short stories. His stories depict such unexplored relationships as ‘Child-Stranger’, ‘Child-Child’, ‘Child-Parent’, ‘Male-Female’, ‘Male-Male’ and ‘Human-Nature’.

The text-centred study, besides assessing his position among the contemporary Indian English Writers, presents a detailed classification of his writings into several categories and further sub-categorizes the short stories on the basis of the human relationship they discuss. It analyses human relationships in terms of the characters’ psychological attitude, behaviour and defence mechanisms such as “Rationalization”, “Phantasy”, “Projection”, “Identification” and “Withdrawl.” This should help explain and appraise Ruskin Bond’s understanding and grasp of human mind, character, attitude, and behaviour on the one hand, and the social structure and milieu, on the other.

In brief, it provides a new dimension to the short stories of Ruskin Bond. No study has been carried out till date on the ‘human relationship’ in Bond’s short stories or the psychology at work in the human relationships depicted by Bond.

Ruskin Bond, already established as one of the most celebrated English short story writers, is included in the syllabuses of many Indian Universities at the Bachelor/Honors and Master’s Degree level. The book should help students understand the writer in fresh light, and also motivate some of them to explore Bond for higher studies.

(from the Preface)

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