Character Sketch of Rosie/Nalini from The Guide by R.K. Narayan

 CHARACTER SKETCH of ROSIE or NALINI 

√ For a beautiful answer, always start your introduction with a quotation. 

INTRODUCTION - “Neither Marco nor I had any place in her life, which had its own sustaining utility and which she herself had underestimated all along” Rosie is an attractive young wife of 'Marco'.  Her marriage has been like a curse in disguise to her as Marco is totally engaged in his career and thus totally apathetic and unemotional to her. She is very passionate about dancing but her husband does not allow her to dance. She later falls in love with Raju who helps her become a successful dancer.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE - "She looked just the orthodox dancer that she was. She wore saris of bright hues and gold lace, had curly hair which she braided and beflowered, wore diamond earrings and a heavy gold necklace."

"The moment she got down from the train I wished I had hidden myself somewhere. She was not very glamorous, if that is what you expect, but she did have a figure, a slight and slender one, beautifully fashioned, eyes that sparkled, a complexion not white, but dusky, which made her only half visible—as if you saw her through a film of tender coconut juice."

√ Then write directly what is being asked without wasting time, for example it is character sketch question so I am writing all of her characteristics which defines her character.

HER CHARACTERISTICS -

• AMBITIOUS - "She was full of plans. At five in the morning she’d start her practice and continue for three hours. She would have a separate hall, long enough and wide enough for her to move in. It must have a heavy carpet, which would be neither too smooth under the feet nor too rough, and which would not fold while she practiced her steps on it. At one corner of the room she’d have a bronze figure of Nataraja, the god of dancers, the god whose primal dance created the vibrations that set the worlds in motion. She would have a long incense-holder, in which at all times she would have incense sticks burning. After her morning practice, she would call up the chauffeur. “Are you going to have a car?” I asked. “Naturally, otherwise how can I move about? When I have so many engagements, it will be necessary for me to have a car. It’ll be indispensable, don’t you think?” “Surely. I’ll remember it.” She would then spend an hour or two in the forenoon studying the ancient works on the art, Natya Shastra of Bharat Muni, a thousand years old, and various other books, because without a proper study of the ancient methods it would be impossible to keep the purity of the classical forms. She thought of every detail, and dreamed of it night and day. Her immediate need would be a party of drummers and musicians to assist her morning practice. When she was ready to appear before the public, she would tell me and then I could fix her public engagements. I felt rather baffled by her fervor."  

• STRONG WILLED - Any woman of her nature would become devastated and clueless when her husband leaves her all of a sudden leaving her in such predicament. However, Rosie stays calm, but, at the same time determined. Even when Raju gets arrested, she works her best to pay the money.

"I knew I was growing jealous of her self-reliance. " 

"Nalini’s photograph, the name of the institution where she was performing, and the price of tickets. Now at this corner of South India, now there, next week in Ceylon, and another week in Bombay or Delhi. Her empire was expanding rather than shrinking."

• TOLERANT - Marco says when asked whether she could dance, ‘Oh! You want to rival me, is that it? This is a branch of learning, not street- acrobatics. An acrobat on a trapeze goes on doing the same thing all his life; well, your dance is like that. What is there intelligent or creative in it?’(121). Rosie is here depicted as the epitome of patience and perseverance. She doesn’t react here, but instead she does her best to adjust with her husband. She thinks she can change him and eventually she would be able to pursue her dream of becoming a classical dancer. 

You wanted to dance; you have done it.” “Till the thought of it makes me sick,” she added. 

• GRATEFUL - "It does not mean I’m not going to help. If I have to pawn my last possession, I’ll do it to save you from jail. But once it’s over, leave me once for all; that’s all I ask. Forget me. Leave me to live or die, as I choose; that’s all.”

She kept Mani spinning around. She sent him to Madras to pick up a big lawyer for me. When the stress for cash became acute and she found we would have a lot to make up, she became somewhat more practical-minded. She swallowed her own words and went through her engagements, shepherding the musicians herself, with Mani’s help, making all the railway arrangements, and so forth. 

• FICKLE - "In his place I would have made you a queen of the world.” She didn’t push away my hand. 

I found it difficult to understand the girl. I found as I went on that she was gradually losing the free and easy manner of her former days. She allowed me to make love to her, of course, but she was also beginning to show excessive consideration for her husband on the hill. In the midst of my caresses, she would suddenly free herself and say, “Tell Gaffur to bring the car. I want to go and see him.”

And what was more, for the girl to support him with such ferocity. I was appalled at the duplicity of her heart.

“I thought it best that we forgot each other, and that I went back to him.”

“I do, and I deserved nothing less. Any other husband would have

throttled me then and there. He tolerated my company for nearly a month, even after knowing what I had done.”“You talk about a single incident in two different ways. I don’t know which one I should take.” “I don’t know. I may be mistaken in my own judgment of him. 

I had an appalling thought that for months and months I had eaten, slept, and lived with her without in the least understanding her mind. What were her moods? Was she sane or insane? Was she a liar? Did she bring all these charges against her husband at our first meeting just to seduce me? Would she be leveling various charges against me now that she seemed to be tiring of me—even to the extent of saying that I was a moron and an imbecile? I felt bewildered and unhappy. I didn’t understand her sudden affection for her husband.

• IMMORAL - By letting Raju touch her, Rosie begins to collude in the betrayal of her husband. Raju further encourages this impulse on her part by taking to flattering and complimenting her again. The development of the relationship is indicated in the fact that the physical contact between Raju and Rosie grows, as he holds her hand that night in the veranda. By this point, the relationship between Rosie and Raju has progressed well beyond the bounds of propriety, given that she is a married woman.

"Leave me in peace,” she said,opening her eyes wide, which gave me another opportunity to whisper close to her face, “Because life is so blank without your presence.” She could have pushed my face back, crying, “How dare you talk like this!” and shut the door on me. But she didn’t. She merely said, “I never knew you would be such a troublesome man. Wait a minute, then.” 

• SELF CENTRED - Rosie, at the prompting of her family, marries Marco because of his wealth and class, also suggests her desire to escape the constraints that are imposed on her as a result of her poverty and low social status. As such, Rosie had clearly hoped that a husband such as Marco would bring her freedom and that's why she married him. “I will do anything for you. I will give my life to see you dance. Tell me what to do. I will do it for you.” She brightened up. Her eyes lit up with a new fervor at the mention of dancing. So I sat up with her, helping her to day-dream. I found out the clue to her affection and utilized it to the utmost.

Her life with Marco is miserable and she knows that with Raju her life will not be that good but it can still set her free. 

“First, I’ll make the world recognize you as the greatest artist of the time.”

My mother said, “All right. I can pack in a minute.” “Don’t go, Mother,” I pleaded. “See that girl’s obstinacy. She watches it all so calmly,” said my uncle.

• DEVOTED - She is devoted to dance and dance only. 

"Looking at her, one would have thought that she had not a care in the world. She was quite happy to be doing what she was doing at the moment, was not in the least bothered about the past, and looked forward tremendously to the future. 

She spent a great part of the day in her rehearsal hall with her musicians. One could hear the stamping of feet and the jingle of anklets on the upper floor. After all, she was living the life she had visualized. “Even if you are free,I’ll not dance in public any more. I am tired of all this circus existence.” “It was your own choice,” I said. “Not the circus life. I visualized it as something different. It’s all gone with that old home of yours!”  For her dance is not just a way of earning money. 

• BOLD & PASSIONATE - "Oh, modern girls are very bold. I wouldn’t let my wife live in a hotel room all by herself if I had to remain on duty on a hilltop!”

"I’d been certain that he was going to be captivated by it and tell me to go ahead and dance all my life." 

"We were a married couple to all appearances. Rosie cooked the food, and kept the house. I seldom went out except to do a little shopping. All day long she danced and sang. I made love to her constantly and was steeped in an all-absorbing romanticism, until I woke up to the fact that she was really getting tired of it all. Some months passed before she asked me, “What are your plans?” “Plans!” said the sleeper, awakening. “What plans?” She smiled at this and said, “There you are, always lying on the mat watching me or holding me in your arms. I have now good practice—I can manage a show of four hours, although with accompaniments it would have been much more helpful—”

• DOWN TO EARTH - For her, there is nothing superior or inferior. 

"These people come to you because they are your inferiors.” “I’m tired of all talk of superior and inferior. What is so superior about us?” she asked in real indignation. “Well, you know, you have more engagements than a hundred of them put together,” I said. “That’s more money,” she said. “I don’t care much for that sort of superiority.” 

Her circle was widening. Artists of the first and second rank, music teachers, dilettantes of the town, schoolgirls who wanted ideas for their school functions, all kinds of people asked to see her. Wherever possible I turned them back, but if they managed to slip through and get upstairs, I could do nothing about it. Nalini kept them for hours and would hardly let them go back.

She said, holding up a piece of garland and sniffing the air for its fragrance, “To me this is the only worthwhile part of our whole activity.”

• INDEPENDENT - Not only does Marco condemn and ban Rosie’s pursuit of dance, but Raju, with whom she commences an affair soon after she arrives in Malgudi with her husband, also lets her down. While Raju genuinely supports and encourages Rosie’s pursuit of her art at first, once she achieves fame as the dancer “Nalini,” he begins to exploit her success in his role as her manager to enrich himself. Not only that, but Raju deceives Rosie, and attempts to control her contact with others because of his jealousy. And yet, try as they might, the men in Rosie’s lives ultimately fail to contain and control her

• HARD HEARTED - "I thought she would break down. She often broke down on small issues, but this seemed to leave her unperturbed. She merely said, “I felt all along you were not doing right things. This is karma. What can we do?”

She became hardened. She never spoke to me except as to a tramp she had salvaged. It could not be helped. She had had to scrape together all her resources to help me. But She went through her act of help in a sort of cold, businesslike manner.

I asked coldly, “What do you propose to do in future?” “Perhaps I’ll go back to him.” “Do you think he will take you back?” “Yes; if I stop dancing.”

I laughed in a sinister manner. “Why do you laugh?” she asked. “If it were only the question of dancing, he might.”

√ Now you can also write how that character is in one word, you can also leave it if you can't remember it. Remember quality matters more than quantity.

AS A CHARACTER- 

• COMPLEX - Rosie in R. K. Narayan’s The Guide is a complex female character – a hybrid of tradition and modernity of Indian Culture. She challenges the orthodox stereotype of how a woman should be and yet a part of her complex nature is intensely orthodox. She wants to dance and she has physical relationship with another man despite being married challenges traditional and her devotion to remain by her husband and only wanting to have him forgive her, her attachment to him even in the later stage of the novel is like a traditional Indian housewife. In her we can see a woman trying desperately to free herself from the pigeonhole, at the same time allowing the doors of patriarchy to enclose her.

• A DREAMER - Cobra raised itself and darted hither and thither and swayed. The whole thing repelled me, but it seemed to fascinate the girl. She watched it swaying with the raptest attention. She stretched out her arm slightly and swayed it in imitation of the movement; she swayed her whole body to the rhythm—" . I felt nervous that those on the floor below might ask us to stop, but she never cared, never bothered about anything. She only cares about dance. 

• THE SNAKE WOMAN - "the cobra raised itself and darted hither and thither and swayed…[Rosie] stretched out her arm slightly and swayed it in imitation of the movement; she swayed her whole body to the rhythm—" 

"beware of the snake women" Raju's mother first calls Rosie a snake woman. They are associated with bad luck and there is no doubt that since Rosie came, Raju's troubles started to keep her to him. "I felt like telling Mani, “Be careful. She’ll lead you on before you know where you are, and then you will find yourself in my shoes all of a sudden! Beware the snake woman!”

My troubles would not have started (Raju said in the course of narrating his life-story to this man who was called Velan at a later stage) but for Rosie.

Come on. Go back to your normal work. You were so interested and carefree and happy then.” I had nothing to say to this. It was very reasonable advice he was giving me. Even at that moment, it would have been all different if God had given me the sense to follow Gaffur’s advice. I should have gone quietly back, leaving Rosie to solve her problems with her husband. That would have saved many sharp turns and twists in my life’s course

• A GREAT DANCER - She held the performance for nearly an hour; it filled me with the greatest pleasure on earth. I could honestly declare that, while I watched her perform, my mind was free, for once, from all carnal thoughts; I viewed her as a pure abstraction. She could make me forget my surroundings. I sat with open-mouthed wonder watching her.

Rosie symbolically seeks an entry into the orthodox society that rejects her, 

but it also points to her creativity which is expressed through her dance. Indeed, the metaphor of the ‘dance’ defines Rosie’s fate in the same way tat the metaphor of the ‘guide’ defines Raju’s. It is her deep love for dance that brings trouble into her life – she gets frustrated with Marco because he forbids her to dance, and gets seduced by Raju because he appreciates her dancing. But Rosie’s attitude to dance is completely different from Raju. For Raju, dance is a cultural commodity which can be exploited for money and fame. For Rosie, dance is a vocation. This soon leads to conflict, and this rift in their values eventually leads to their separation.

• BLEND OF TRADITIONAL AND MODERN - Being from a family of temple dancers, she breached the social custom and broke the chains of bondage tied around the women of her caste or family that existed to complete her Masters in Economics. During those days, very few girls from such families used to go for higher studies. It shows her determination to be a woman of substance in the society. 

Significantly Rosie enters Malgudi through Railways which brings the touch of modernity with it to the traditional and homogenous culture of Malgudi. The exotic nature of her westernized name also shows her social hybridity. But her name is only a starting point of her unorthodox life. 

She traditionally belongs to a Devdasi family who are dedicated to the temples as dancers. They are viewed in the society as of low class women. Yet she acquires a University degree, M.A. in Economics, which is not only unconventional but almost revolutionary. 

Achievements of Rosie - to become a thoroughly welcomed and respected BharatNatyam dancer, to successfully pursue her art, to transform herself into a self-made woman is a revolution in itself. But traditionally She constantly expresses her gratitude to Marco for having married her in spite of her background. Even after many years, when she becomes a household name with her own identity, her unsympathetic and insulting husband's book remains very dear to her and she carries it all her life. her attitude towards the dominating and hard-hearted Marco remains one of submission and subservience. 

ACCORDING TO OTHER CHARACTERS -

“She is a real snake woman, I tell you." - Raju's Mother 

“It’s not he who has ruined you, but the saithan inside, which makes you

talk like this.” He meant Rosie. 

"Everything was so good and quiet—until you came; you came in like a viper. Bah! I have never seen anyone work such havoc on a young fool! What a fine boy he used to be! The moment he set his eyes on you, he was gone. On the very day I heard him mention the ‘serpent girl’ my heart sank. I knew nothing good could come out of it.”  - Raju's Mother

CONCLUSION - After all the alarums and excursions, all the excitement and suspense, all the regrets and recriminations Raju realizes that neither Marco nor I had any place in Rosie’s life which had its own sustaining vitality and which she herself had underestimated all along. 

IF THERE ARE ANY MISTAKES (human nature), LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENT SECTION. HOPE YOU WILL FIND THIS HELPFUL. 

YOU CAN CUT THIS ANSWER AND CHOOSE THE HEADINGS YOU LIKE OR WHICH ARE EASY TO REMEMBER FOR YOU. I WROTE THIS IN MY EXAMS AND GOT QUITE GOOD MARKS... 😊 

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Other related tags -

A Study of the Character Rosie in the Novel “The Guide” by R.K. Narayan 

The Character of Rosie

Rosie/Nalini Character analysis 

Character Sketch of Rosie in The Guide by R.K. Narayan