A Horse and Two Goats Reflection

A Horse and Two Goats

By: R. K. Narayan

"A Horse and Two Goats" is a short story that takes place in the isolated village of Kritam, in India. It is a village so small that there are no more than 29 different houses there. The story follows an old man who lives with his wife in the village. Muni, the main character, was once a reasonably wealthy man, with plenty of livestock but now, as an old man, he is much poorer and only has 2 worthless goats left. Since he is poor he frequently has to go to the town’s only shop and beg for food, telling the shop owner that he will pay him back later. This particular day, the shop owner is having none of it and insults Muni calling him an old man and refusing to give him anything until he has paid off his debt. Muni then returns home empty handed which angers his wife. She then sends him off with the goats and tells him not to return until sunset. He took the goats to a statue of a soldier and a horse with some sort of religious background and sat at the base of the statue while the goats grazed, all while thinking about how his wife would have somehow come up with some food for him to eat by the time he returned home.

As Muni sat on the statue and watched a few vehicles going by on the street, he was surprised by a car that stopped right in front of him. When a foreigner got out of the car, Muni’s first instinct was to run, as he was scared, but being as old as he was he stayed seated, aware that if he were to run, the foreigner would catch him with ease. The foreigner got to Muni and asked if there was a petrol station anywhere, but Muni could not understand him in order to respond and thinking that the man was looking for a murderer, Muni tried to back away from him, saying that he knew nothing about the crime but that if his village found the culprit, they would keep him hostage. When the foreigner offers Muni a cigarette, he starts to relax and talk more openly with him. They converse, though in reality, they are both rattling on about completely unrelated things until the foreigner gestures to the statue that Muni is sitting on and asks for the price of it. Muni, realising that he is being asked about the horse rumbles on about its religious value and how it has stood for generations. The foreigner, since there was a language barrier, assumed that Muni was a salesman, trying to make some money off of the statue and offers him 100 rupees for it. Muni then assumes that the foreigner is trying to buy his goats and accepts the 100 rupees, sauntering back to his house to tell him wife the good news. When he arrives home, he tells his wife that he has sold the goats and shows her the money only to hear the goats outside a few minutes later. As soon as his wife hears the goats he comes to the conclusion that her husband must have stolen the money. The story then concludes, ever so abruptly, with his wife stating that she is leaving him to go and live with her parents so that she does not have to bear witness to his arrest.

I personally did not like this story, because half of it revolved around two ignorant people, who clearly could not understand each other, having a conversation. It was just strange to read two completely different and unrelated sides of a conversation. I do not understand the inspiration behind the story or what the writer was trying to get across. What I took from the story was the making assumptions leads to complications. The foreigner assumed the Muni owned the statue, and if he got caught trying to take it away he would have been in serious trouble, Muni and his wife both made assumptions about the goats and the money, assumptions that went on to ruin their marriage. I would be more certain that the author was trying to get across a message about not making assumptions, had the foreigner also been in trouble, maybe being caught in the act of trying to move the horse, but as he wasn’t that left me unsure. It does however make sense because, for me, if the foreigner had of been in trouble for trying to take the horse it would have been predictable. It just seems unfair that an old man had to suffer for an honest mistake while the foreigner, presumably, got away for free.

One thing that I liked about the story was the use of juxtaposition. I think that it was smart of the author to put two very different people next to each other for readers to compare them. Muni is an old, poor, uneducated individual, barely scraping by and the foreigner is a rich, successful man, travelling the world and these things are highlights by putting the two very different characters together. I also find it interesting how the foreigners mind was strictly on business; he so quickly jumped to the conclusion that Muni was trying to sell the statue, whilst Muni was absorbed in talk about family and cultural heritage. I like how the author showed that people from different backgrounds value different things. People can argue that what some cultures value is better than others, but we’re all different and people have to respect that.

“His wife glared at him and declared, ‘If you have thieve, the police will come tonight and break your bones. Don’t involve me. I will go away to my parents…’ I may not have liked the story but it managed to evoke sympathy in me and the cliff hanger ending made me curious to know more. I cannot believe that he wife would jump to such a horrible conclusion about her husband straight away. It seems as though Muni and his wife have been married for many years because they are both old and therefore it’s sad how lowly she regards Muni. The way she was so ready to leave him made it seems as though she had been looking for a reason to leave him, now that he’d become old and had nothing much left to offer her. Yes, it was ignorant and a bit foolish of Muni to try to do business with someone he could not understand, but his wife was shallow and antagonizing for not even giving him a chance to explain! The ending left me curious and though that is a good way for a writer to leave his audience, I still think that I would have a much better understanding of the story had I been given a more conclusive ending.

From all the short stories that we've read, I think that this one was most like “Her First Ball” by Katherine Mansfield. Both stories were greatly influenced by the assumptions that people made and quite frankly, they are both my least favourite stories so far, but I prefer "A Horse and Two Goats" for the simple reason that the author made me feel bad for the main character whilst Katherine Mansfield made me feel nothing.