Introduction
The title of the short story that we want to present is trail of the green blazer. Trail of the green blazer are one of the short story that write by R.K. Narayan. The main characters of the short story of trail of the green blazer are Raju and Green Blazer. The author of trail of the green blazer is R.K Narayan. R.K Narayan was born in Madras (India) in 1906 and starting his first novel (Swami and Friends (1935)). The full name of the R.K Narayan is Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Naranayanaswami and his shortest the name suggested by friend Graham Greene when the time publish the short story of (Swami and friends). He completes their education at Maharajah’s College in Mysore. The short story like (A Horse and Two Goats, An Astrologer’s Day, Lawley Road, Malgudi Days and The Grandmother’s Tale) is the numerous novels that publish by R.K Narayan. R.K Narayan was awarded the A.C Benson in 1980. This is award by the Royal Society of Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. R.K Narayan is also the member of the Rajya Sabha (non-elective house of parliament in India) in 1989. Characters and Characterization
A short story usually included one primary character and one or more secondary characters and their characterization in order to make the entire short story become more attractive and excited when the users read the story. Therefore, the characters in a “Trail of the Green Blazer” short story can be classified as below.
Main Character/ Primary Character
The main character is known as primary characters in a short story. The writer can find out more detailed likes the background, attitudes, perception after reading the entire story and the writer will builds the story is based on the primary characters. Besides that, the main character usually is the hero or heroine in the story and also called the protagonist whereas the antagonist is the character that opposite from the antagonist which is the enemy of the protagonist in the whole short story. According to the “Trail of the Green Blazer”, the main character/protagonist in this short story is the Raju. After reading this short story, we can find out regarding the Raju’s family background, attitudes, preference, job and etc. Based on the story, we can analyze that the Raju is a poor man and has a family need to take care but does not have a job to support his family daily expenses. In order to support his family, Raju has taken up pickpocket as his professional job. He is clever pickpocket because his able to calculate the distances and always keeping the target behind himself for the three steps.
Besides that, Raju is a lazy person because he just had energy to observe in a crowd and put his hand into another person’s pocket. Raju is love the bulging purse and dislike the fountain pen and watches. Then, Raju is take care for his family and he will buy things to his children and wife. After that, Raju is a sympathy person when his flashbacks the motherless child will disappoint when did not get the balloon from the Green Blazer and his felt that the green blazer would beat those mother children if they crying too long. Lastly, we can analyses that Raju will never change for his attitude or feel shame after served 18 month in the jail because his told himself “His will never put back the purse once his pick up the pursue from someone pocket. Apart from this, the antagonist in this story will be the Green Blazer which means that the enemy of the Green Blazer is Raju. The Raju is feel that the Gree Blazer is very rich person because the green blazer is foreigner. After that, Raju is quietly followed the Green blazer and stealing the Green Blazer purse when passed through a narrow path. At the end, the Raju will try to put back the purse into the Green Blazer pocket and get caught by their Green Blazer (antagonist).
Flat Character
The flat character is often not fully developed or detailed in the short story and the readers will able to discover the flat character only in one-dimensional. Normally, the writer will need the flat character to develop in the entire short story but the writer wills not spending more time to describing these flat characters in the short story. Insides the “Trail of the Green Blazer” short story, the flat characters is Green Blazer. The Green Blazer is the foreigner tourist and wearing a green color blazer. Then, we can found out the Green Blazer is stingy person and likes to bargain the prices with the market seller likes the coconut seller, balloon seller. Due to the Green Blazer wear the prominent of outfit so that his become one of a victims being stealing purse by the Raju. Lastly, the Green Blazer is credence person. Based on the story, we know that Green Blazer is promise to buy the balloon for those motherless child at the end his achieved his promise and buy the balloon from the balloon seller. Hence, we only know one sides of Green Blazer in the entire story.
Round Character
The Round Character is usually fully developed in terms of personality and enables the readers to know all sides of this character. The protagonist usually is a round character and the round characters are most convincing reader when they resemble real people. The round character in the “Trail of the Green Blazer” is the Raju. Through this story, we can clearly know the Raju background, attitude, action and etc. in the short story. Based on the story, we can feel that the Raju have a bad attitude, laziness and always think for stealing other people purse and never change their attitude after served 18 month in the jail. Therefore, we can know the Raju very well in this short story and we can feel that Raju behavior likes a real person in the story.
Minor / Supporting Character
The minor characters often the less developed characters in the short story. The minor character often appears in the short story to interact attention for those main characters (protagonist). Insides the “Trail of the Green Blazer” short story we can know that the Raju’s wife is a minor character. As we know the Raju’s wife is likes to ask many question and innocent because she believed his husband (Raju) is reformed and those money is earned as commissions. Besides that, she feels that pickpocketing is shameful to his family name. Apart from that, the other supporting character likes coconut seller and balloon seller which can found in the story. Therefore, we only know little detailed for the supporting characters in the whole story.
Static Character
The static character is one that opposite from the dynamic character. The static character does not make any changes during the course of the story. The Green Blazer is a static character in the story. We cannot obtain more relevance information about the Green Blazer and the entire story will depict us the Green Blazer is only one of a victims that sustain stealing purse by the Raju.
Dynamic Character
Normally, the protagonist is a dynamic character and a dynamic character is one that who undergoes changes in character during the course of the plot. The dynamic character in the”Trail of the Green Blazer” is a Raju. Insides the short story, we can understand the changing process staring from the Raju stealing the purse from the Green Blazer to make decisions whether need to return the purse and finally get caught by the Green Blazer. We can notice that, the dynamic character (Raju) will let the reader feel their emotional, action in the short story unlike the static character we cannot find out the changes insides the story.
Setting
Place
Crowded market place in Malgudi India
Time
An Afternoon
Atmosphere
Hot, sunny, noisy and crowded market place
Social Condition
1. Influence by British couture, bible preaching
2. People are lacking of sympathies
3. Social condition were poor, over populate
Plot
From the short story the trail of green blazer, the plots that can identify in this short story are woven plot. The woven plot is describe about the structure of the story that only have a climax area and the climax area are surrounding by the rising action and falling action. The flows of the Woven plot are show as below;
From the story of green blazer, it shows that the story is start with the description of the background of the story before the actions are begun and these situations are known as the exposition of the story. In this story, the exposition is showing the villagers wearing style, life style and also the city situation. The next stages of the woven plot are the rising action.
The rising action is about where the stories are become complicate and the conflicts are appearing. It is allocate in the between of the introduction of the story and the climax of the story. In the trail of green blazer, the rising action are start from the paragraph 2 until the paragraph 8, that is when the story show the Raju is a professional pickpocket and until the he decide to put back the purse to green blazer. Next is the most important part in the short story, which is the climax of short story. The climax also is known as the turning point of the overall story. From the short story of trail of green blazer, the turning point is when the Raju tries to put back the purse to the green blazer which are stolen before because of the balloon in that purse remind he the motherless child of green blazer.
The coming stages are the falling stage. The falling stage is allocated after the climax in the story and it is begin to slow down the story. The most probably in this stage is showing the result of an action or decision that made by a character. From the story, the falling stage is fall into when Raju are arrest because of stole the purse of green blazer. And the last stage of the woven plot is resolution stage. The resolution is the stage that showing the conclusion and the ending part of the story. In the trail of green blazer, the resolution stage is about Raju swear that he will never ever to put back the item that have steal.
Theme
Crime
The main themes are referring the main character: Raju is thief that made pickpocket his way of life.
Hesitation
Raju’s hesitation to completely steal the Green Blazer’s purse caused Raju downfall
Patience
Raju was patient like a hunter, stalking his prey who is Green Blazer
Conflicts
1. Human Versus Human
Human versus human indicate that the protagonist is in struggle/conflict with
other character and usually is making conflict with the antagonist in the story. For the “Trail of the Green Blazer” short story, the protagonist is Raju and the antagonist is Green Blazer. The Green Blazer wearing the prominent outfit led to the Raju targeted him as a next victim for stealing the purse. Raju get caught by the Green Blazer when trying to put back the empty purse (only ballons) to the Green Blazer pocket. Therefore, the conflict is between the Raju and the Green Blazer and lead to the Raju jailing 18 months in the prison.
2. Human Versus Society
In this Human Versus Society conflict, the protagonist struggle against the society. The protagonist struggle against tradition, rules, ideas, and beliefs and so on. In the short story, Raju is struggling against with the traditional belief, law and social values. Stealing other person purse is totally not accepted by the society. Therefore, Raju is beaten up by the society when caught by the Green Blazer and the society does not believe the Raju joke for put the purse back into the Green Blazer pocket. The society thinks that the stealing should be getting the serious punishment and stealing is shameful the family name.
3. Human Versus Self
The Human Versus Self describes that the protagonist struggles with himself or herself flaws, choosing between rights or wrong and internal problems. Raju is struggle against with himself whether need to put back the purse to the Green Blazer pocket when successful stealing the purse. Since the Raju is sympathy with those motherless children so that his made the wrong decision for cause in the jail. Besides that, the Raju will make wrong choice for become a pickpocketing and this will lead to the conflict between himself for the reasons get caught into the jail.
Point of View
In the short story of trail of the green blazer, it is using the third person point of view. The narrator is using the word such as “Raju” and “he” to present or describe the short story instead of using the word like “I” or “u”. The narrator tell us about the thoughts for very character that are include the Raju, Raju wife, green blazer and other character like the coconut seller, balloon seller, Raju children and police. From the short story trail of the green blazer, we can know the thought of the Raju is a professional thief and have sympathy for something. For example, 3 step behind are the professional technical skill that the Raju will use when he trying to steal other people money. After Raju steal the purse from the green blazer, he found a balloon in the purse and feel guilty and pity to the motherless boy. LANGUAGE STYLE
Flashback
A situation when the time back to the passed
From paragraph 1 to paragraph 2, the Raju is following the green blazer Raja is flashback to the past that he remembered how he steals other belongings. A foreshadowing exists when something is predicted to be happened Raju predict that if the motherless boy didn’t get the green blazer balloon then they will cry because of the billon and the Green Blazer might beat the motherless boy. There was no one to comfort him. Perhaps this ruffian would beat him if he cried too long Simile
Conclusion
After the read the story trail of green blazer, the main lesson that I have learn from the story are every action or decision that we have done, we must have to accept the consequences from our action or decision. Besides that, the short story also teaches us before make a decision or an action must think twice before we do it. Not only that, we must also consider about the feel of the person that we are care whether we will hurt him/her after we have done the action or a decision. From the overall story I felt that the whole story is quite interesting, especially at the ending part. For the real situation, after a person has received bad consequences from him or her action, and he or she will not repeat that action again in order to have the bad consequences. But in this story are difference, the main character Raju learn from his lesson is do not put back the thing that steal. Lastly, we must aware on the action or decision that we make may bring happiness to the person surrounding us. But on the other hand, it may also bring sadness to the person we care about.
