SY B.A Paper II Note on "Halfway House" by Mohan Rakesh

 Is “Halfway House” primarily about a search for meaning and identity?

Answer:

“The crisis of identity and breakdown of communication in human relations and resultant tragic effect of boredom and despair constitute the theme of Rakesh’s play, Aadhe Adhure, which is by far is best play, devastatingly exposing the fragmented personalities and broken images in a disintegrated society.” — N.Choudhuri,  Mohan Rakesh’s “Halfway House” can be viewed as an exploration of meaning and identity in the turmoil of changing social and familial structures. Although the play seeks to construct the search for identity within the unfulfilling, incomplete nature of bourgeois existence as a universal non-gendered experience along Existential lines as its primary concern, it eventually deals with many questions on a broader socio-economic context on Realist lines.

In the Prologue itself, the theme of exploration of identity is introduced, when ‘the Man in a Black Suit’ exclaims, “Who am I?” Immediately the declaration takes an Existential tangent as the fruitlessness of such a search for meaning is asserted with the speaker claiming, “This is a question I have given up trying to face.” He establishes the absurdity of identity by calling himself “amorphous” and “undefined”, as someone who like all of us puts on a new mask and gives a new meaning to himself for different occasions – “The fact is that there is something of me in each one of you and that is why, whether on or off stage, I have no separate identity.”He then asserts that no matter what the circumstance, what the situation and the gender, man’s search for identity and meaning in life would always remain an absurd, indescribable, undefined and irrational oddity.

Even the characters of the play are seen to engage in a constant search of meaning and identity in life. In his essay, “Uncertain circumstances, Undefined Individuals: A study of Halfway House”, S.G. Bhanegaonkar points out that modern psychology does not regard escapism as a symbol of weakness but as a sensitive individual’s desire to search for meaning which he does not find in the conditions he is placed in; and hence, the characters of ‘Halfway House’ can too be seen as being in a relentless quest for identity that transcends the turmoil of their fragmented existence. It is in sync with R.L. Nigam’s theory, of the main characters of play being involved in a ‘self-made’ phenomenon of ‘the soul’s search for an alternate sanctuary’ in the absence of the sanctuary of home which ‘stood for a source of solace and moral stay to the individual in moments of crises.’

The search for identity and meaning in Halfway House is best articulated through the character of Savitri who seeks fulfilment and reason in marital bliss – “Why does one get married? In order to fulfil a need….an inner….void, if you like; to be self sufficient….complete.” Since her own husbands fails to fulfil this inner emptiness, Savitri seeks marital happiness beyond conjugal relations in men who possess the qualities she had always aspired for in Mahendranath.

Mahendranath is shown to search for a new identity and reason behind his existence through his relationship with Juneja. The economic crisis and his losing the identity of being the bread-earner of the family had altered his position in the house into a non-entity and affected his mind and heart adversely “…….silent acceptance, perpetual snubs, constant insults, is all that I deserve after so many years.” He greatly resents his loss of control and influence in the family and is immensely unhappy to be regarded “only as a stamp of respectability to be used only when the need arises.”

Binny too is shown to be in a relentless and shifting quest for a sanctuary, an identity. She elopes with Manoj not in an impulse of love and romantic urge but in search of an abode away from home where she presumed she would find peace and protection. But however, when she experiences her husband’s strict conservatism and fails to find any meaning  in Manoj’s restrictive control within their conjugal relation, she looks for answers in a sense of defiance – “He likes my hair long, so I want to cut it. He doesn’t like me to work, so I want a job.” But this again proves futile as she realises she is unable to execute her rebellious tendencies against the sub-ordination by her husband. 

Hence, in conclusion, it can be said that although Mohan Rakesh’s “Halfway House” deals extensively with the question of identity and meaning in life, to situate it solely in an Existentialist dimension and accord it the distinction of being the primary concern of the play, would unfairly downplay many other socio-economic themes that the play encompasses.