The Story Archive

Choma's Drum

K. Shivaram Karanth · 1933 CE · Novel · Indian · Modernist

Choma, an untouchable field hand bonded to a landlord's household in coastal South Kanara, wants the one thing his caste forbids him: a patch of earth of his own to plough. His grown children go up to the coffee estates of the ghats to work off the family debt, where a missionary's offer of land comes attached to a condition and an estate owner takes an interest in his daughter. Karanth's short second novel is the first sustained Dalit portrait in Kannada and made his reputation long before the Jnanpith went to his later fiction.

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Attributes

Genre
TragedyPolitical
Theme
Class & InequalityIndividual vs SocietySuffering & EnduranceTradition
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanScapegoat
Plot structure
Tragic Reversal
Symbol / motif
MusicThe HarvestThe Estate
Conflict
vs Society
Mode / tone
RealistTragic
Culture / tradition
Indian

Closest analogues