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The Marxist Stream Of Untouchable, Daniel Blanchard

Student Research Symposium

This presentation was given as part of the Panel Presentation Studies in Postcolonial Modernism at Portland State University's Research Symposium. The study investigates Mulk Raj Anand's 1935 novel, Untouchable, through a Marxist lens, following its main character, Bakha, through his trials and tribulations. It argues that through Bakha's religious inquisitions, and frustrations with his experiences as a Hindu outcaste, he comes to realize himself as a class entity, part of the Marxist process of the proletariat's rise to power. Bakha evolves throughout the novel, from being uncritical of his own materialism and egoism, to recognizing his ethics as unrepresentative of …