The power of story

The novel depends on the power of story (or back story ) to elicit interest and emotional investment in the characters. This humanizing power of story is not only structurally assumed. This concept of story also plays a key role in the creation and movement of A Fine Balance’s narrative. For instance on page 334-5, Maneck sways Dina to real concern for the tailors by telling her about their former life. He finishes with an account of their family’s murder. She is horrified by the story and moved to compassion wishing for the tailors safe return out of concern for their safety rather than her prosperity. This sentiment results in her taking a more selfless interest upon their return because she understands their plight. Moreover, it cultivates the domestic happiness that follows. When this sense of community and domesticity is challenged by Om’s and Maneck’s fighting, Dina restores peace by telling her back story (p419).

However the power of story is not the only narrative engine. The outside force of the Emergency, or more specifically the domination it allows, move the narrative. These catastrophes are twined with the examples of stories uniting the characters. For instance the tailors story comes up because they have been disappeared to a forced labor camp which in turn threatens Dina’s livelihood. On one hand, this interplay of story as a response to catastrophe seems to explode caste and class distinctions. At best the back stories, inside jokes and little kindness of the novel are the small things that Roy celebrates.

However they also seems an attempt to cast a spell of domestic bliss that include lower class/caste into a sense of middle-classness. These stories make an exception for these individuals but doesn’t really question middleclass values. In fact at times they seem to stave off a consciousness or opposition of the Emergency as a social threat. These humanizing devices foster a denial and avoidance of the Emergency’s horrors at the most problematic.