The Big Heart Essay

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After writing about the Untouchables, coolies, laboureres, Anand represents an intimate picture of another segment of society, the coppersmiths in The Big Heart. This novel is mainly an effective dramatization of the effects of industrialization and money values on the traditional make-up and the values of Indian rural communities. Unlike Bakha, Bikhu and Munoo, the protagonist Ananta is not handicapped by his social status and lack of education. He is equipped with the adequate understanding of the social status and human dignity. Ananta, a coppersmith, returns to his own city after having worked in the factories in Bombay and Ahmedabad. Two capitalists have set up a factory with huge machines and as a consequence of it, the “thathiars” …show more content…

It gives the poor and the lowly an upper hand over their rich brethern. The rich Lala Murli Dhar has to face utter humiliation when his poor “thathiar-brethern” boycott the betrothal ceremony of his grandson. The old man, then, has to make pathetic appeals to his brotherhood : Listen brothers, I’ve put my turban at the feet of all of you. Save this ceremony. I have sinned. I have erred. You can beat my old head with your shoes. But let us have this betrothal. Those boys of the brotherhood are my dear ones and near ones. If I did not invite them it was because they felt bitter with me about the factory and the loss of their trade. A crow tried to strut like a peacock, but, seeing his feet, wept and cried. That is my condition. Forgive me . . . . . The poor coppersmiths live in unhygienic and filthy surrounding. In the opening pages of the novel, we are told that they live in “the dilapidated hovels blackened by the coppersmiths’ furnaces and foundaries, greased by the mustard oil saucer lamps . . . dirties by the spittle, the nose blowings and sweat of the men who hammer metal into shape, day and night, night and day”. The fifth and degradation of city life is realistically captured in the descriptions of Daulatpur and Bombay in Coolie are once again available in horrifying details in the novel

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