A Horse and Two Goats : Summary

The short story “A Horse and Two Goats”, written by R. K. Narayan, addresses many important social issues through the use of humour. It is a sensitive yet amusing story, set in situational comedy. From the title, it appears that Muni has both horse and goats as his pets, but so is not the case. The horse is only a statue. The fun is that the American wishes to buy the horse statue while Muni thinks he wants to buy his goats. It occurred owing to the gap in communication because the two spoke two different languages without understanding each other. The writer has employed the third person narrative technique where narration and dialogues are well proportioned. The characterization of Muni, his wife and the American has been great. Narayan has spent just about the right amount of words on each of the important characters.

The story is set in a fictional small Tamil village named Kritam; it is here that the protagonist of the story, Muni, lives. The village consists of less than thirty houses, mostly made of bamboo thatch, straw and mud. Only one house called the Big House, the house of the village chief, is made of brick and cement. Once upon a time, when he was rich, Muni owned a herd of forty sheep and goats. But now his possession has reduced to mere two goats.

On the day the story unfolds, Muni takes his usual breakfast of a handful of millet flour and then shakes down drumsticks from the tree in front of his house. When Muni expresses his wish for a drumstick sauce, his wife asks him to bring groceries like dhal (lentil), spices, oil and potato. He goes to the village shop and makes all efforts to get these things on credit but fails. He returns home humiliated, only to be further humiliated by his wife. He drives the two goats to a place in the outskirts of the village beside the highway to graze his goats.

Muni sits under a statue of a clay horse. It is usually here that he sits to protect himself from the sun and watches the vehicles moving on the road. That day he sees a yellow station wagon approaching. The wagon pulls over in front of the statue. A red-faced American, dressed in khaki, gets out of the wagon and asks in English about the nearest gas station. As soon as the American notices the horse statue, he gets fascinated by it and starts a discussion with Muni. He offers Muni cigarettes and carries on with the funny conversation where the two of them do not understand each other – Muni speaking in Tamil and the American in English.

At first Muni assumes the American to be a policeman or soldier and tries to protect himself saying that he is not involved in the crime that has happened in the nearby village. When he finds the American friendly by his gestures, he carries on telling his story.

Muni ends up telling the stranger how cheetahs or jackals sometimes carry their cattle off. He also tells him that he never went to school, as in those days only Brahmins went to schools. He narrates how the temple priest can see in the camphor flame the face of the thief, and how at the end of the Kali Yuga, the world will be destroyed and the clay horse will come to life and trample down all bad men. Muni also expresses his grudge for the village chief who has gathered a lot of money.

The American also tells his own story of he being a businessman dealing in coffee and how one day he was forced to work for four hours in his office when there was no electricity or elevators. This incident made him curious to “look at other civilizations”. So, he has come to India to see how people live here. He further adds that his wife has stayed back in Srinagar.

Thinking Muni to be the owner of the horse statue, the American offers a one hundred rupee note to buy it. Realizing that some financial element has entered the talk, Muni thinks that the man wants to buy his goats. In fact, he has always dreamt of selling his goats at a good price and setting up a small shop with the money someday. Muni is happy that he has sold his goats for one hundred rupees and the American is happy that he has bought the horse statue.

Muni comes back home to show the money to his wife. She does not believe that he has sold the goats for such a hefty price. She accuses Muni of a theft. Her belief of Muni stealing the money gets even stronger when the two goats return home just afterwards.

The main themes of the story are culture clash, miscommunication, money, wealth, and poverty. Narayan contrasts Muni’s impoverished but culturally rich lifestyle with the foreigner’s materialistic worldview, in which everything may be bought and paid for. While the horse statue carries great cultural and religious importance for Muni’s village, to the foreigner it is just a decorative item to serve as a talking piece during house parties.