Soul’s Craving for a Way Out of This Artificial Material World in Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

Abstract

As the result of the rapid growth of industrialization, technology, mechanization and the so-called
modernization the contemporary scenario of the human world has undergone a drastic and an undesired
change. The psychology of modern man seems to be trapped in a strange kind of chaos and confusion.
Arun Joshi is one of those Indian English novelists who represent the confused and conflicting innerself of modern man. The root cause of this predicament of the modern man’s inner-self is his growing
interest in the materialistic way of life. In The Strange Case of Billy Biswas the protagonist, Billy
Biswas, is seen in a constant search for a way out of this hypocrite, artificial and material world.
Keywords:- Mechanization, Predicament, Anti-materialistic, Westernized society, Self-realization,
spirituality