The Apprentice: A Symbol of Victimization of the Innocent By A Corrupt Society

Abstract

Indictment of materialism has already been treated in Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner and The Strange Case of Billy Biswas but it is in the third novel that this indictment comes into prominence, giving the book a wider social relevance. Unlike Billy Biswas, Ratan Rathor wades through corruption to arrive at an understanding of life and its affirmations, which take almost a lifetime, during the process of which, he is totally dejected. The novel is a treatise on the current social and political scene in independent India -- a social novel born out of intense humanism. In any ideal conception of a civilization and its representative social orders, whether socio- political or theological, man is supposed to be in the harmony with nature. In human fellowship he creates a community of beings. But in modern materialistic and cultural context, which essentially derives its meaning and power from commerce and luxury, man and the society happen to be the two warring adversaries who, in the social process, dehumanize each other and find themselves in an alienated situation.