If you have worked through all the study guides in this

section, you will have an understanding of the context,

plot, themes and characters in Anil.

Question:
Discuss the contrast between child and adults in Anil.
Preparation
Before you start, gather together all the notes you have made about
the story: its context, plot, characters and themes. Re-read them,
then have a go at the question.
Part 1
Section 1 - Introduction:

introduce the broad differences between the child, Anil, and

the adults
Section 2 - The first difference - dreams:

the adults' limited dreams of possessions

Anil's waking dreams of the magical wonders of life

Section 3 - Anil's parents and their lack of dreams:

the mother

the father
Part 2
Section 4 - Anil's childhood fears and fearlessness:

his fear of ghosts and the child-eating tree

his fearlessness of telling the truth about Marimuthu

Section 5 - The villagers' fears of the headman:

Anil's father

the other villagers

Section 6 - Truth and lying - adult and child contrasted:

Marimuthu's and his brother's lies

Ragunathan's lies to his son; Anil's blunt statement of the

truth

the lie of the woman's funeral brings the story to an end

Once you have completed your own essay, compare it with ours...

Sample answer - part 1

Ridjal Noor's story shows a very strong contrast between the child, Anil, and the adults
in the village. There are three main differences between them. The first is that, whereas
Anil looks up to the stars and has dreams, the adults do not. The second is that the
child's fears are very different from those of the adults. The third is that the child tells
the simple truth whereas all the adults are involved in some form of lying.
In the opening paragraph of the story the adults are all fast asleep and"dreaming their
dreams that rarely amounted to anything". One is dreaming of having a new cow,
another of having a new sewing machine, but they are all very limited dreams; dreams
about possessions and material wealth. Anil, however, is lying there wide awake. He is
gazing up at a star that he can see through a hole in the roof of the poor hut that he
lives in. This suggests that he is looking beyond the limits and poverty of his village. He
has dreams of far more than acquiring a few possessions. "He believed in the magical
wonders of life. His dreams were bigger than him."
In contrast, "His parents would not even stop for a second to gape at a star." His mother
is described unflatteringly as she lies asleep beside him. She is physically unattractive
(fat, bathed in sweat, and she wheezes) and she is totally unresponsive to her child's
appeals. She is very far from being a 'dream' mother.
His father seems worse. He has beaten his wife in his drunkenness and Anil is frightened
of him. "His father was a burly man, a bully to his family and a timid mouse to the
headman." They are people who have been reduced almost to an animal existence.
Ragunathan, for example, is compareed to a mouse. When the headman meets Anil's
father and tells him he wants to talk to him about the boy, Noor writes,"And Ragunathan,
the illiterate, uneducated father, the person with little dreams, the mouse of a man who
was ever ready to serve his employer, nodded agreeably." This is clearly a heavy
judgement upon the father. He doesn't attempt to protect his son but readily agrees with
the headman about silencing Anil. He is a man with "little dreams" as opposed to his son.

Sample answer - part 2

Anil is terrified by thoughts of what is out there in the dark. He is frightened of ghosts
and of a tree that devours kids, as an adult villager (albeit a madman) has told the
children. He is full of childhood fears. By contrast with the adults of the village, however,
he is not frightened of the power and authority of the headman during daylight hours.
When the headman's brother, Marimuthu, weeps in public over the body of his wife, Anil
is moved by the man's hypocrisy to say to him the blunt and shocking truth, "You killed
her. You killed your wife."
When Noor writes, "Anil suddenly found himself whispering to Marimuthu" the
phrase "suddenly found himself" suggests that it was less of a conscious decision to
speak out than an irresistible and spontaneous need to speak the simple truth. He
speaks in the same way, directly and fearlessly, to the headman even when the latter
puts his hand warningly on Anil's shoulder. "The headman's hand came onto Anil's
shoulder. Anil looked up at him and repeated his words, 'He did it. I know he did. I saw
it."

The adults are entirely different in their reactions to the headman and his family. When
the headman suggests that they do not inform the authorities they comply even though
it is clear that they know it is a cover-up. "Anil's father was one of the first to agree with
the headman's decision." This is almost certainly because, as his servant, he depends for
a job on the headman's goodwill. He is willing to cover up the truth in order to keep his
job. "The rest of the villagers piped in, gesturing their agreement with the headman's
wise decision." They too probably depend on his goodwill and are ready to betray the
truth. It is evident from their whispers that they suspect or know the truth. The
headman "heard whispers of the woman having been abused by Marimuthu. He heard
whispers of his family abusing the woman."
Marimuthu is heavily involved in lying. His crying and grief over his dead wife are a lie.
And his brother, the headman, is the principal liar in the village. He has in fact been the
main actor in his sister in law's murder but he presents it to the village as a suicide. He
is the furthest of all from the dreams of the magical wonders of life, the innocence and
the truth telling of the child, Anil.
In the final section of the story, Anil is being sent away by his father. It is probably the
dream of every poor Indian parent to be able to send a son to school and university. The
final lie that Ragunathan is involved in is the pretenceto both himself and his son that
this is why Anil is being sent away. "You are very, very lucky to have this chance." Again
Noor shows a huge contrast between Anil and the adult. The boy cries out the simple,
terrible truth: "Are you sending me off because I saw him do it?"
The final two paragraphs show the headman and his brother at the scene of the
"suicide's" funeral - Noor uses the words "woman who had committed suicide" to
underline the continuing lie that they are involved in. Marimuthu continues to weep but,
when "the shadow of a smile" appears on his brother's lips, "he heaved a sigh of
relief." They have got away with the murder. The lie, the opposite of Anil's "dream of
magical wonders of life", is complete.