One thing that struck me in Vijay Dan Detha’s The Dilemma was the place of its characters’ readings of the natural world, particularly when it came to those of the Seth’s son compared to those of the ghost who falls in love with his wife. The ghost is established as having a deep appreciation for nature's beauty: looking at the bride, he thinks “It was as if all the beauty of nature had compressed itself in her face” (146). Moments later, her groom is not paying much attention to her, but instead has his nose in a ledger, calculating the wedding expenses.
The joys of accounting and trade are the greatest joys. Everything else is nothing but a useless distraction. God too is a careful keeper of accounts. He keeps track of each breath we draw. He preserves an exact record of every drop of water, gust of wind, and grain of soil. When even nature makes no mistake in its account, how can a mistake in a trader’s ledger be overlooked? (147)
Both understand their likes and desires in terms of an image of nature. The ghost’s image of nature is based on its beauty; the groom’s image of nature is as an impeccably balanced ledger. The latter’s image isn’t purely utilitarian, though: when his wife asks him to take his eyes off his ledger and pick some berries for her, he refuses to pick them because berries are for “village bumpkins” (147). When she does it herself; he refuses to eat them. The groom’s reading of nature is class-inflected too: he believes that people of his class should deny themselves of its fruits to live up to some image of civilization. His image of nature therefore operates in two ways. First, as something that is rationally constructed and managed, and therefore as a model; Second, as the antithesis of civilization, and therefore something to differentiate oneself from.
For the ghost, on the other hand, “Never had nature appeared so enchanting” (151). His readings of nature constitutes his initial impression of the bride’s beauty, but this impression reconstitutes nature. First inventing meaning out of his image of the natural world, he re-maps this meaning back to it. He starts anthropomorphizing and gendering the natural world. Describing the setting sun:
Nature had covered herself with a transparent veil. Both the face and the veil were visible. Then nature changed her veil. The dark veil was studded with nine million stars. Her face could be dimly seen. Dim trees, dim greenery. As though a dream were being woven. (151)
Now away on his five year trip for business, the groom, in the dark about the ghost replacing him back home, thinks: “If only the nights were shorter…Why need the nights be so long? Half one’s life is wasted sleeping. If one could spend that time on business, one’s income would be doubled” (158). The groom’s conceptions of nature are revealingly contradictory: it is at once the perfect ledger for the businessman to imitate, the uncivilized brambles the businessman should separate himself from, and an impediment to doing business.
What struck me was that after all this, it is only when his very identity is being questioned that he is forced to re-engage with his previous readings of nature. He tries to prove his identity by saying that he remembers his wife wanting berries on their wedding day — the very relationship with nature from which he tried to separate himself is the relationship he goes back to when trying to prove who he is.
One last thing I wanted to note is a beautiful passage about a storm that brews after the ghost decides to take the groom’s place:
What strange dreams nature has! Had it not been for this dream, could the dust that lies underfoot have blotted out the sun? The air shrieked aloud, whipped by the coming storm. The whirlwind stirred the very roots of the mountains. Huge trees, hollow in their pride, were uprooted, one by one. But the flexible bushes that humbly swayed and bent to the storm, remained unhurt. The grass that is trampled underfoot remained unhurt. Enquiring, caressing, stroking, the storm passed overhead. All vegetation rocked as though in a cradle. Every leaf and bud was shaken. Large birds were slapped around while small birds sat glued to the branches. It was impossible to fly. The storm ruled the sky… Strange is this dance of the whirlwind, this moving of sands. Nature hid herself in the storm, Neither hill nor greenery nor earth was to be seen. Formless. Invisible. (152)
This is the third person omniscient narrator’s reading of the storm. It moralizes the flexible and the small as humble. It subjects all else to violence until, all of a sudden, the storm is gentle and curious: it enquires, caresses, and strokes. Soon enough, though, it goes back to slapping and ruling, but then back to dancing. Its character is so fluid. I don’t know what to make of the significance of this, and I don’t know what to make of the ghost wondering if “this was not the storm in his own mind finding outward expression?” (152). What do you think?