Karma Khushwant Singh Analysis

Analytical essay
Karma

The religious term karma means deed, work done or destiny. Theologically speaking, it is a Hindu doctrine proclaiming that your actions continue to have affects in your next incarnation. What goes around comes around, so treat others how you wish to be treated, as your deeds will determine your destiny, not only in this life, but also the next. This theme is highly present in the short story Karma by Khushwant Singh, published in 1989. Other than illustrating karma as theological concept, the short story revolves around social and economic inequality, aristocracy and imitation of foreign culture in the flight from your own. Historically speaking, India was under jurisdiction of European colonial powers for more than

While he is waiting for the train to arrive in the first-class waiting room, she is seated with the luggage outside. While he is seated in the first-class compartment of the train, she is sitting in the lower-class zenana compartment. Throughout the story she is portrayed as being of less worth than her husband. This way, the settings become significant for the readers understanding of the socially conditional decisions the characters make and thereby the plot of the short story. The settings are a symbol of the inequality in the relationship between the two protagonists, literally placing Lachmi lower in the social hierarchy than her husband. 

Sir Mohan Lal and Lachmi are both flat, static characters, as they undergo no development throughout the story. Sir Mohan Lal is consistently portrayed as a supercilious man detesting his nation and ethnicity, striving to seem English instead of embracing his Indian origin. He is depicted as a man wishing to be perceived as was he from the higher castes, despite of him being a completely ordinary Indian citizen. His feeling of superiority is due to spending five years in England, …Five years of a crowded glorious life. Worth far more than the forty-five in India with his dirty,