The Householder: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Householder" explores the journey of Prem, a young teacher navigating the complexities of married life in Delhi. As a newlywed and soon-to-be father, Prem struggles with his roles as husband, educator, and member of a larger community, revealing themes of personal growth and responsibility. His wife, Indu, is competent in domestic matters but also grapples with her own inexperience in marriage, leading to communication challenges between them. The narrative introduces a diverse cast of characters, including Sohan Lal, a family-oriented professor who becomes a mentor, and Raj, a college friend whose reluctant friendship highlights the pressures of adult life.
The dynamic between Prem and his mother reflects traditional familial expectations, while figures like Hans Loewe—a German seeker of spirituality—add a layer of cultural contrast through their friendship. The characters' interactions illustrate various social and economic challenges, emphasizing the shifting nature of relationships and identities in the modern world. Overall, the novel presents a thoughtful examination of growth within the context of personal and societal expectations, making it relevant for discussions on marriage, responsibility, and cultural identity.
The Householder: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
First published: 1960
Genre: Novel
Locale: New Delhi, India
Plot: Fiction of manners
Time: The 1950's
Prem, a newly married young teacher of Hindi at an undistinguished Delhi college. Himself a second-class graduate of a college in the smaller city of Ankhpur, where his father was the principal, Prem is inexperienced in all of his new roles: as teacher, as husband, as father-to-be, and as lonely resident of a big city where he knows few people. During the course of the novel, Prem slowly becomes accustomed to and more competent in his new life, especially in the important role of householder, a concept that includes the assumption of husbandly, parental, and economic responsibilities. Prem's most visible maturing is sexual: As he gradually loses his prudishness and sense of shame, Prem is able to enjoy and appreciate his wife and his role as husband, which leads to his adjustment in the other aspects of his life.
Indu, Prem's young and pregnant wife. Sure and competent in her household and in family matters, Indu is as inexperienced maritally and socially as Prem and is less well educated. At the outset, Indu and Prem each find it difficult to communicate with the other. Indu has a strong sense of her own worth, demonstrated in her returning for a visit to her parents' home when Prem has asked her to stay for his mother's visit. The separation makes each realize a growing fondness for the other, and the marriage really begins on Indu's return.
Sohan Lal, an older professor of mathematics at Khanna College who becomes Prem's friend. Not an especially competent teacher, Sohan Lal is a devoted family man, spiritual and religious in his outlook, resigned to the difficulties and limitations of his life. It is these qualities that attract Prem, despite Prem's knowledge that his father would have advised him to seek a more successful model.
Raj, Prem's college friend from Ankhpur and a minor official in the ministry of food. Raj has been married longer than Prem and already is a father. For most of the novel, Raj is a reluctant friend who frequently fails to keep engagements with Prem and always allows Prem to finance their meetings. By the end of the novel, however, when Raj and his family visit Prem and Indu, Raj has become a little less uncertain about his new work and therefore less pompous, and Prem has lost his need to dwell on the past in Ankhpur, which used to annoy Raj.
Prem's mother, the widow of a small-town college principal. Prem at first idealizes her care for him. When she comes to visit him in Delhi, she complains about Indu and their household arrangements, and she intrudes on their marital privacy after Indu's return from her family. Prem, in his growing competence and maturity, arranges with one of his sisters to call her home.
Hans Loewe, an intense young German visiting India to explore its spirituality. He takes up with Prem and projects on him the spiritual endowments he is seeking. This situation is comic in effect, because Prem's problems almost entirely center on his material establishment in the world. Despite their mismatch, Hans and Prem do become friends, and, for a time, Hans's friendship is important to Prem's self-confidence.
Swami, a spiritual leader to whom Prem is introduced by Sohan Lal and to whose service Prem enthusiastically declares himself. As Swami anticipates, Prem is not able to carry through; nevertheless, Swami and his followers seem to remain important, if intermittent, elements in Prem's life.
Mr. Chaddha (CHUH-duh), a teacher of history in Khanna College whose classroom Prem shares and whom Prem recognizes as competent and successful. It is Chaddha whom Prem believes should be his model, though Prem dislikes him for his pomposity, his flattery of the principal, and his lack of sensitivity and spirituality.
Mr. Khanna, the principal of the college where Prem teaches. Astute in identifying his college's role, which is to groom well-off but unsuccessful college students to pass their university examinations, he hires second-rate, needy, or inexperienced teachers at low wages, keeping them if they are useful to him and do not give him much trouble. His wife complains that the teachers are a nuisance, though she makes a profit on the poor tea she serves them.
The Seigals, Prem and Indu's comfortably well-to-do and easygoing landlords. Prem would like to approach them for a reduction in his too-high rent but fears to do so.
Romesh Seigal, the Seigals' easygoing and mentally lazy son, a boy about the same age as Prem's students who enjoys nothing but films and on whom Prem seems to be a fairly good influence.
Kitty, a middle-aged Englishwoman, Hans Loewe's landlady. She is kind to Prem and interested in him in an offhanded sort of way.
Sethji, a wealthy, worldly follower of Swami, accepted by Swami but despised by Vishvanathan.
Vishvanathan, an intense, world-renouncing follower of Swami who is sure that his devotion is the only acceptable path.