Halfway House Essay

The problems of id and breakdown of connection in human relations and resultant tragic effect of dullness and give up hope constitute the theme of Rakesh’s play, Aadhe Adhure, which is by far is the most suitable play, devastatingly exposing the fragmented personalities and cracked images within a disintegrated culture. ” — N. Choudhuri, (Hindi Drama, Modern Indian Literature) Mohan Rakesh’s “Halfway House” can end up being viewed as an exploration of which means and id in the uncertainty of changing interpersonal and familial structures. Although the play attempts to construct the search for personality within the unfulfilling, incomplete character of hooligan existence as a universal non-gendered experience along Existential lines as its primary concern, that eventually relates to many queries on a larger socio-economic circumstance on Realist lines.

Inside the Prologue alone, the concept of the exploration of id is presented, when ‘the Man within a Black Suit’ exclaims,  “Who am I? ” Immediately the statement takes a great Existential tangent as the fruitlessness on this search for meaning is declared with the loudspeaker claiming,  “This is a question I have given up looking to face.  He establishes the absurdity of identity simply by calling himself “amorphous” and “undefined”, as someone who like most of us puts on a new mask and share a new which means to him self for different occasions – “The truth is that there is anything of myself in each one of you and that is why, whether upon or away stage, I possess no individual identity. “He then claims that no matter what the circumstance, the particular situation plus the gender, man’s search for identification and that means in life might always stay an ridiculous, indescribable, undefined and irrational oddity.

However, characters with the play are noticed to engage in a constant search of which means and id in life. In the essay,  “Uncertain circumstances, Undefined Individuals: A study of Halfway House”, T. G. Bhanegaonkar points out that modern psychology does not view escapism like a symbol of weakness but since a delicate individual’s prefer to search for meaning which this individual does not get in the conditions he is put in; and hence, the characters of ‘Halfway House’ can too be viewed as being in a relentless pursuit of identity that transcends the turmoil of their fragmented existence.

It is in sync with R. D. Nigam’s theory, of the key characters of play becoming involved in a ‘self-made’ phenomenon of ‘the soul’s search for an alternate sanctuary’ in the absence of the sanctuary of home which‘stood for a supply of solace and moral stay to the specific in occasions of crises. ‘ The search for identification and that means in Halfway House is better articulated through the character of Savitri who seeks fulfilment and cause in marriage bliss – “Why will one get married? In order to fulfil a need…. an inner…. oid, if you like; to be do it yourself sufficient…. complete. ” Since her own partners fails to fulfil this interior emptiness, Savitri seeks marriage happiness further than conjugal contact in men who possess qualities your woman had constantly aspired intended for in Mahendranath.

Dilip Kumar Basu observes, “The prefer to look for “completeness” in the “other” may seem like Everyman’s essential and unreasolvable problem, and may even vaguely place her in the middle of an Absurdist drama the place that the search may be considered tragic/ridiculous.  Although the concept of Savitri searching for meaning in life being described in terms of her relations with men seems problematic by itself, the play tries to trick us in the generalisation that is only an existentialist quest for which means in life. She’s reported being overwhelmed simply by Juneja’s electric power, affluence and sense of reason. Shivjeet’s intellectual prowess, his school degree and numerous trips in foreign countries enamoured her.

Jagmohan’s understanding nature, feeling of connaissance, modernism, top-notch lifestyle and masculine satisfaction held enormous appeal on her. She was supposed to be attracted to her right now son-in-law, Manoj too, while his influential status acquired charmed her sufficiently. Savitri moves from one man to a new in search of the perfect partner.

The play tries to portray this kind of search since an false impression, an Absurdist attempt by simply denying Savitri the delight she is looking for and making her appreciate that all guys are the same plus they all of them such as Kirti Jain’s words”want to evade responsibility and to exploit her. ” Mahendranath is usually shown to search for a new identity and reason for his presence through his relationship with Juneja. The economic crisis great losing the identity to be the bread-earner of the relatives had improved his situation in the house into a non-entity and affected his mind and heart adversely “……. silent acceptance, perpetual snubs, constant abuse, is all that I deserve after so many years. ” He considerably resents his loss of control and influence inside the family and is definitely immensely unsatisfied to be regarded “only as a stamps of respectability to be employed only when the necessity arises. ” Underneath such circumstances of improved power equations, Mahendranath earches for that means in fresh relations build on a sense of understanding and common respect, as the case with Juneja.

From Savitri’s everlasting insults and accusations and its particular subsequent consequences in giving him an inferiority complicated, Juneja’s companionship offered Mahendranath the alternative sanctuary of solace and comfort in the midst of your emotional and economic crisis inside the family. He began to define himself in terms of his non-utility and unsuccessfulness, and thus sought comfort in momentary acts of rebellion concerning leaving the property and looking for meaning and mental peace in his companionship with Juneja.

Moreover due to his very own lack of conviction and lack of ability to take self-employed decisions, Mahendranath looked for identity declaration through mental dependence on others and in the first years of his marriage through a patriarchal control and constraint of Savitri’s autonomy. The very fact that Mahendranath finally comes back in the end employing his personal judgement, abandoning Juneja’s advice, establishes the futility of his search and once again, reiterates the Absurdist stance the play attempts to partially combine. Ashok and Kinni check out the aspect of id on their own inside their own globe so as to escape from the fearful existence of their wrangling father and mother.

Ashok pursuit of his id in an amorphous world, separate from fact and require, in the realm of idleness, impulsivity and romantic endeavors. For zero apparent reason at all, this individual quits his job by Air Freeze and instead consumes his time either in lazing about uselessly or in dating a girl doing work in the Udyog Centre. The everyday animosity between his parents distorts his impression of ‘home’ and therefore he looks for meaning and identity within an alternate community free of the pressure of shouldering friends and family responsibility along with the stress within the relatives.

Even the talk he has with Binni about the ‘air’ in the house echoes these emotions about the search for that means. The most youthful character Kinni on the other hand, searches for an identification through her emerging adolescent sexuality and awareness of this sexuality, inside the absence of a secure support mechanism at your home, both financially and emotionally. Given the emotional lack of stability in her house and the complete carelessness with which the lady was cured, Kinni wanted to define herself with regards to her rebelliousness, growing sex knowledge, resistance, ill-mannerisms and arrogance.

In the last scene, Kinni trying to get away when the door is locked from inside yet others trying to get in when the girl locks that from inside is definitely again symbolic of a futile quest for identification and which means in life, to get even her defiance and obstinacy fails to make issues any diverse for the limited girl. Binny too is shown to be within a relentless and shifting pursuit of a haven, an personality. She elopes with Manoj not within an impulse of affection and loving urge but also in search of the abode abroad where the lady presumed she’d find tranquility and security.

But nevertheless , when she experiences her husband’s rigid conservatism and fails to discover any meaning  in Manoj’s restrictive control within their domestique relation, the lady looks for answers in a sense of defiance – “He likes my personal hair very long, so I want to cut that. He doesn’t like me to work, and so i want a job. ” But this again proves futile while she understands she is struggling to execute her rebellious inclinations against the sub-ordination by her husband. Ultimately, she merely returns to her maternal home in search for your mysterious”something” in their property that is the “cause of all her trouble” and what refuses to wasteland her.

However , Binni is never shown to exactly unravel this mystery ‘cause’ thereby manifesting the nonsensicality of the entire process of finding meaning is obviously. However , once their hunt for meaning in life and the following despair and suffering is considered only along existential lines, it thus forecloses the potential of ever responding to the cause of the dilemma. All the characters’ quest for an identity beyond the house, the hunt for an alternate sanctuary besides getting analysed being a technique of Absurdist Cinema can also be observed in terms of the furor that comes with estate, the break down of joint family and the modern emerging power-plays and disputes within the nuclear family without viable support system outside.

The fact that Savitri under no circumstances explores the arena of identity since an independent person woman, an individual working female; but instead always identifies herself when it comes to fulfilment in her several relations based on a men increases important questions about the status of ladies as a great autonomous individual in contemporary society. To quote R. T. Nigam,  “The one answer which could have got lead to delight and fulfilment, and was available to her all the time, will need for its success, a regenerated society in whose value-system personal fulfilment and social responsibilities have been harmonised.

In the present social scenario, that option would not function. ” Morever, Mahendranath and Savitri not finding which means in their relationship can also be known as the electronic breakdown of marriage as an institution. In our fast-changing society and the face of belated individuality of its members, the values and regards on what family and matrimony have up to now rested happen to be fast burning off their meaning and value.

Assertion of personal rights and freedoms in a group-unit (family) which always involves inter-personal adjustments produces a situation of crisis since there are no guidelines to guide these adjustments, which will necessarily involves inter-personal adjustments produces a circumstance of crisis because there are no principles to steer these changes which, in present framework cannot be thought of in terms of give up of one or perhaps the other party. Every relations in the family need to be redefined with new set ups of family division of work and the go up of the doing work women. Since O. S. Sharma Prakash puts it,  “Halfway House is definitely the crisis of dignity of the individual. Modern guy demands specific dignity as well as honour of is choice…..

It presents the modern sensibility in all its power, form and dimensions. ” The fact that Manoj blames ‘something’ in Binni’s maternal residence as the main cause of all problems and then helps prevent her via working determines that the‘something’ is in reference to her mother’s promiscuity which leads him to infer that letting women out of our home would often come with the threat of her infidelity. Moreover, Mohan Rakesh’s rapport of a monogamous husband with a woman whose defining feature is her promiscuity incongruously at a time the moment the ‘Hindu Marriage Act (1955)’came into power outlawing polygamy to protect the rights of Hindu girls reflects the extent of male anxiety generated by women’s emancipation, whose directly to work meant the grave of the public-private dichotomy necessary for the maintenance in the family being a private ball.

This panic is further elaborated in terms of portraying Kinni as a great uncared neglected kid, who returns to a home without the mother and feels lonely and antiestablishment. Mahendranath’s despair too should be identified not only in terms of the emotional catastrophe that he faces together with the breakdown of familial relations and absence of mutual value, but also the recession which eventually appears as the root of most problems. Mahendranath loses his position in family, when the roles of provider and receiver are changed, when ever economic equations of one earning the money and acceptor are changed and redefined in terms of sexual intercourse and sexuality.

Their current poverty seems to be the result of typical-middle class life-style of living beyond one’s means, plus the search or perhaps identities only arises when ever existing identities run into turmoil with changing economic denominations of labour division in the family itself. Thus, Mahendranath’s yearning pertaining to meaning in life has new economic plans within the familial space and sheer lack of ability to solve the economic crisis, triggering it. Possibly Ashok’s arrogance and refusal to submit to influential persons, Dilip Kumar Basu seems can be analysed in the foundation of “1969 youngsters revolts in Paris, and things happening in our country.

 The small man’s not caring to job is thus to be made as a much larger question of youth rebellion and mobilisation, than just simply laziness and irresponsibility or a mere existentialist search for id. Hence, to summarize, it can be declared that although Mohan Rakesh’s”Halfway House” deals extensively with the question of identity and meaning in every area of your life, to position it exclusively in an Existentialist dimension and accord this the variation of being the main concern of the play, might unfairly downplay many other socio-economic themes the fact that play involves.