Coolie

Research India’s now largely defunct caste system. What function did the caste system serve? Why did it last so long? Why do elements of its mindset still exist in India today, decades after the government essentially outlawed it?

Compare and contrast the two factories in Coolie, the pickle factory in Daulatpur and the cotton mill in Bombay. What does the novel say about industrialization, capitalism, and urbanization?

The lengthy aside in Chapter 5 on May Mainwaring and her desperate efforts to pass for white is often cited as a structural flaw in the novel. How does the opening of Chapter 5, which details May Mainwaring’s troubled adolescence, her efforts to bleach her skin, her rabid promiscuity, her two marriages, and her dream of passing for British fit the larger argument of the novel? How would the novel have been different had it ended in the street riots in Bombay?

How does the novel treat religion? The street protests following the decision at the cotton mill to cut hours is enflamed by rumors that a Hindu girl was kidnapped by Muslims in the city. Anand’s own sister, a Hindu, committed suicide because she could not stand the ostracism she suffered simply for having a Muslim as a friend. Explore Anand’s critique of the intolerance and bigotry of his own country.

Research the genre of social realism and compare and contrast the novel with John Steinbeck’s 1939 epic The Grapes of Wrath, to which Anand’s novel is often compared. Is Munoo a dated novel? Is it best read as a period piece, or, like Steinbeck’s novel, are there elements that speak to any culture, any time?

How does the novel use Munoo’s response to nature—his bucolic rural upbringing, his nights along the Arabian Sea, his journey to the foothills of the Himalayas—to provide contrast to Munoo’s experience of the city?

Research tuberculosis as an element of late-19th- and early-20th-century realism. How did these writers use the so-called White Death symbolically and thematically? How does Anand’s treatment fit within that genre?

Prepare a character analysis of Ratan. He is a product of the same caste system as Munoo. How does his character radically differ from the other coolies in the novel? In the showdowns at the factory after the flood and then later when he is fired, is Ratan heroic or foolish?