A THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF EZEKIEL’S PLAY 'NALINI' (Pages 114-118) by in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Indian Drama in English is not so well-developed a branch of Indian Writing in English as the Indian novel or poetry in English. The production of Indian drama is meagre. There is the qualitative dearth of dramatic writing. Still meagre is Ezekiel’s contribution to Indian English drama. Still more meagre is the critical material on the plays. Ezekiel’s fame rests on the bed rock of his poems rather than his dramas. Only three plays -- Nalini, Marriage Poem: A Tragi-comedy and The Sleepwalkers have been the taken up for study, the reason being the other plays have not seen the light of publication from the Writers Workshop.As far as Ezekiel’s plays are concerned, the clash between modernity and conservatism is a predominant theme. He graphically describes the inherent hypocrisy of the characters and also he portrays how these get reflected in one’s lives, language and relationship with others. As a perspective playwright, he dramatizes these events and incidents both sympathetically and severely in his plays. This paper makes an analysis of Ezekiel’ s play Nalini and studies the different themes such as hypocritical, perverted behaviour and hollow lifestyle of Indians. Keywords: Play, Nalini, Social Satire, Hypocrisy, Modernity.