Previous
Story-Writing Machines
In The Vendor of Sweets, Mali’s green car symbolizes how material goods, though apparently desirable, often fail to contribute to a good life. Before Mali leaves India for America to study creative writing, he gets around his hometown of Malgudi by walking or bicycling—and his bicycle is perfectly adequate to his transportation needs. After Mali returns to India with a plan to start a story-writing machine factory, he buys a used green car to facilitate his business travel—yet as Mali has not yet started his business, the car seems to be more a status symbol and a luxury item than a necessity. Later, Mali’s father Jagan encounters Mali and his girlfriend Grace driving around in the car together after Mali and Grace’s relationship has begun to crumble; the oddity of Mali and Grace joyriding together as their relationship fails shows that the green car, though a status symbol, cannot solve Mali’s personal or business problems. Finally, a police officer stops and searches Mali’s car, finds some alcohol in it, and arrests Mali (in the Indian region of Tamil Nadu, where the novel is implied to take place, alcohol was illegal until 1971). That Mali’s status symbol lead to his risky behavior—driving with alcohol—and his arrest shows how apparently desirable commercial goods can actually make people’s lives worse.
Green Car Quotes in The Vendor of Sweets
The The Vendor of Sweets quotes below all refer to the symbol of Green Car. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 13
Quotes
“That’s why I discouraged his idea of buying that horrible green car!” He vented his rage against the green automobile until the cousin interrupted, “A bottle could be sneaked in anywhere . . .”
“You don’t understand. It’s the motor car that creates all sorts of notions in a young fellow,” said Jagan[.]
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Vendor of Sweets LitChart as a printable PDF.
Green Car Symbol Timeline in The Vendor of Sweets
The timeline below shows where the symbol Green Car appears in The Vendor of Sweets. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 6
...progress to the country. Mali stops riding a borrowed scooter and starts driving a green car. One morning, while Jagan is praying, Grace comes and tells him that the company bought...
(full context)
Chapter 11
As Jagan walks to the sweets shop, Mali and Grace drive up in the green car and stop. Grace asks whether Jagan wants a ride. Jagan refuses. Grace asks whether he...
(full context)
Chapter 13
...He recalls how Grace and Mali sat together with their legs touching in the green car and feels an exhausted confusion—but he decides not to try to figure it out anymore.
(full context)
...brusqueness, says that Mali needs immediate help: the police found him with alcohol in his car and have put him in prison. Jagan shouts that he warned Mali against purchasing “that...
(full context)
...the colonial period. The cousin goes on to explain that Mali was in the green car with two friends when the police stopped them, searched the car, and charged them under...
(full context)
...him the lawyer will handle it. Jagan asks where Mali was going in the green car, and the cousin says he was meeting with “foreign collaborators” and that a hitchhiker brought...
(full context)
