"Negotiating Tradition and Modernity: Cultural Conflict and Identity in Munshi Premchand's 'The Shroud' and Albert Camus' 'The Guest'"

Abstract In this paper author examines the role of culture in an individual’s life by comparing two short stories ‘The Shroud’ by Indian writer Munshi Premchand and “The Guest” written by Algerianborn French Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus. Both attempts to figure out how old ideals — of love, truth or justice; of freedom or domesticity; of race, class and gender itself — might be shouldered by ordinary individuals in their everyday lives. “The Shroud” looks how impoverished villagers in India handle death and social mores. “The Guest” is an exploration of a moral dilemma in the context of French colonial rule in Algeria. It’s also how it shows the way cultural differences and individual responsibility collide. Culture plays a role in who people are, what they believe, and how and why they act.