Abstract
In this essay, a structural pattern is examined that informs three twentieth-century novels written within a twenty-five year period, two set in the United States and one in post-independence India, by way of showing how each work is framed by competing forces of an old feudalism, represented by its hierarchic formations and differentiated class divisions, and a new democracy, represented by its populist reformations and integrationist agenda. The works examined are: Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men (1946), Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (1952), and Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari (1969). Applying Mikhail Bakhtin's critical analysis of carnivalization and dialogism, it proposes a pattern of failed quests common to the three protagonists trying to build a dialogic community in a monologic culture.
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