Discuss The Compromise by Vijaydan Detha as an allegory.

 Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus, an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Considering this we can say that the story is an allegory, as in the story we have the conscience of the protagonist personified in terms of Aaskaran inside the mirror.

We see the two selves getting engaged in accusation and counter accusations, conversational and argument and finally they realize that the presence of one would be a threat for the other. And they come to an agreement to break the mirror. Once the mirror is broken the protagonist now is free from the voice of his conscience and can go on to pursue an immoral life. The story of The Compromise is of a student named Aaskaran who on a continuous basis talks to his conscience in the mirror.

Both he and his other self, indulge in argument making accusations and counter-accusations. After sometime they realize the fact that the existence of one is a threat to the other and finally they decide to break the mirror. The mirror is broken and Aaskaran is freed from his conscience. He is free now to lead an immoral and corrupt life. The author of the story is trying to say that like Aaskaran we all have killed or destroyed our conscience and do not feel any sense of regret after we commit an immoral act. And that is what happens in modern society.

In a way the story is a critic of loss of faith in modern society and tells us that we must not forget our inner conscience in the very fast developing society. The story The Compromise makes us re-think the values and moral standards of our life that we all are losing in the pursuit of development.  It becomes utterly important that we stop and look inside ourselves that what we are doing is right or wrong or can it be questioned. In the story we see that the protagonist talks to his conscience in the mirror, when finally he decides to break it as he cannot tolerate it any more. And once the mirror is broken, his conscience is dead, he can then pursue a life of immorality and corruption. The story is important today because, in a way we all are following the path of Aaskaran.

The story starts with the author giving description about himself. It seems that story is in first person. But when the protagonist is being introduced in the story, and we start hearing bis conversation between him and his inner conscience, the story becomes a third person narration.  At the end of the story once again the ‘T’ of the story comes in and tells us about the development in the character of the protagonist.

Other than this change the narrative technique the author has also made use of different folk elements in the story. During the course of the story, we see that Aaskaran sees his image in the mirror horned like goat, or long-eared like donkey, which vanish eventually during the story. Furthermore, the author has used the story as an allegory to remind us of losing values and moral in modern life.

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