Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Locale: Crete
Principal characters
Zorba, a Greek miner, a man of passion and vigor
The Narrator, called the boss, Zorbas employer
Madame Hortense, an aging and vibrant harlot
The Widow,
Pavli, a young man in love with the widow
The Story:
The narrator, a bookish man, decides to experience life by going into mining operations on Crete. While the
narrator is waiting with his crates of books for the weather to clear so that he can board his ship, Zorba enters the
caf and starts a conversation with him. Enchanted by Zorbas dynamic personality, the boss, as Zorba calls the
narrator, agrees to hire him as personal cook and foreman at the mine. Although he is in his sixties, Zorba
possesses tremendous strength and a boundless appetite for physical pleasures.
They arrive at the village near the site of the narrators mine, where they were welcomed by an aging woman,
Madame Hortense, who reveals to them her colorful past life as a courtesan. She drinks copiously while
reminiscing about pleasures and love affairs, and about being the mistress of French, Italian, and Russian
admirals and princes. She is now ready, however, to live a life of reflection and repentance.
Zorbas infectious exuberance revives the broken harlot. As they dance, she regains her old sensuality and
flirtatiousness. The night continues with music, dancing, food, wine, and lust. Zorba and Madame Hortense
satisfy their sexual desires. The narrator witnesses all with wonder but cannot see himself engaging in such
behavior.
He is profoundly moved by Zorbas physicality but continues his meditations on philosophy and psychology,
always searching for analytic explanations. The narrator is amused by Madame Hortenses reminiscences but is
touched at the same time by the power of experience reflected in her memory. He sees the same attachment and
sensibility in Zorba, but in him the narrator can see it in concrete action. As Zorba ages, he grows more
passionate, not less. The narrator is experiencing a sensual dimension of life that is absent from his abstract
speculations.
As the narrator discovers more about Zorbas past, he realizes that Zorba has had a full life as a lover, husband,
father, landlord, and beggar. Zorba, however, has never lost his sense of freedom, which is untouched by
conventional or Christian morality. His pure animal pleasure is his guide and his theology.
The narrator and Zorba meet a beautiful young widow in the towns tavern, where she is being harassed by the
young men of the town, as she often is. Zorba rescues her from her predicament, and the encounter triggers a
long dialogue between Zorba and the narrator. Zorba theorizes that a man will burn in hell for allowing a woman
to sleep alone, and he encourages the narrator to visit the widow, who is being courted by other men. There are
indications that the widow is attracted to the narrator; for example, when she returns to him an umbrella that he
has lent her, she also gives him a bottle of rose water and dainty Christmas cookies. He tries to hide these gifts,
but Zorba discovers them and says that they are conclusive evidence of her interest. The image of the widow
comes to haunt the narrator. He feels that the mere thought of her is taking away his freedom. If he had to
choose between falling in love with a woman and reading a book about love, he would choose the book.
At the mining site, Zorba works diligently to restore the dilapidated mine, often exposing himself to danger as he
does so. Progress with the work is slow and discouraging. They need wood for the mine, and in a series of
delightful and humorous encounters with the leaders of a monastery, Zorba reaches an agreement to harvest
wood from their forest. He persuades the boss to give him time and money to invent a means to carry the timber
down the hill. When the boss agrees to finance his project, Zorba begins dancing to express his emotions.
On Christmas Eve, Zorba gives a passionate lecture about the significance of Christmas and maintains that the
Virgin Mary and the widow are one and the same in Gods eyes. The narrator buries his nose in a Buddhist
manuscript, refusing to submit to temptation, although Zorbas tutelage is insidiously affecting his repressed
sensuality.
Zorba goes to the city to buy materials for harvesting the trees, and he ends up getting drunk and sleeping with
prostitutes. He writes a confession to the boss detailing his experiences, and while the narrator is reading the
letter, Madame Hortense arrives and asks if Zorba mentions her in it. Feeling pity for her, the narrator makes up
fictitious messages to Hortense from Zorba, messages full of promises of marriage, gifts, and happiness. She
leaves full of hope and anticipation.
The narrator, immensely affected by Zorba, Madame Hortense, and the Cretan air, wine, and food, begins to
think that Zorba is right, that the young widow is destined for him. Meanwhile, young Pavli presents the widow
with a passionate letter, but she spits on it and throws it in his face. That same night the narrator, drunk but
resolute, knocks on the widows door. Word soon gets around that he has spent the night with her, and, upon
hearing this, Pavli drowns himself in the ocean. His body is found the next morning by his distraught father and a
band of Pavlis friends. They blame the widows liaison with the narrator for Pavlis death.
As Pavlis funeral procession lumbers toward the church, the crowd is stirred into a frenzy by the sight of the
widow and the body of the young man. The townspeople stone the widow and finally decapitate her, as Zorba
tries unsuccessfully to stop them. The horror-stricken narrator watches the ghastly proceeding.
The narrator later experiences a kind of epiphany, a realization that life has to be lived and not merely studied.
He sees that all his books of poetry, philosophy, and religion are mere shadows compared with one moment of
Zorbatic living. He accepts the widows murder as a new beginning to his life.
When Madame Hortense comes to ask Zorba about all the promises he supposedly made in his letter, Zorba
realizes that he will have to go along with her wishes. They get married in the moonlight, with the narrator serving
as a witness. Hortense is in ecstasy, but she soon becomes fatally ill and dies in Zorbas arms. The villagers
arrive and loot her home, taking all of her belongings.
Both the narrator and Zorba feel that they have had enough of Crete. They separate, but the narrator continues
to hear stories about Zorba. He learns that Zorba traveled through the Balkans, leading a life of pleasure with
wine, women, food, and dancing. Finally he settled down in Serbia and died there, leaving behind a young wife
and child.
Critical Evaluation:
Zorba the Greek is based on Nikos Kazantzakiss own experiences while trying to mine low-grade coal during
World War I. He engaged a workman named George Zorba to supervise his operation in Peloponnesus. This
experience, as well as an earlier scheme to harvest wood from forests, gave Kazantzakis most of the material for
his essentially autobiographical novel, which he wrote between 1941 and 1943. The work, which was dedicated
to the memory of George Zorba, established Kazantzakiss reputation in the English-speaking world.
Zorba the Greek is not an action-packed story, though some episodes have great passion and dramatic intensity.
The novel is essentially a long debate between two men of opposite dispositions. One is a scholar-ascetic who
prefers to read about life rather than to experience it; the other is a nave, trusting, and biologically sophisticated
man who represents paganism. The two men represent the undying conflict between the two philosophical poles,
Dionysian and Apollonian.
To some extent, the novel concerns the transformation of the narrator. Although Zorba is the main character,
Kazantzakis focuses attention on Zorbas effect on the narrator. Nothing changes in Zorba, but he changes
everything he touches.
Kazantzakis assigned great importance to Zorbas character and to his philosophy, which was Kazantzakiss
synthesis of his favorite ancient and modern philosophies, from Plato to Carl Jung. He would have placed Zorba
alongside such luminaries as Homer and Plato. Zorba is not a simple phenomenon. He has a dynamism and
complexity that can be interpreted in such different contexts as Friedrich Nietzsches Dionysian-Apollonian
schema or the Buddhist conception of the nothing. Zorba in Nietzschean terms is the Dionysian man, the
exuberant extrovert whose sole epistemological meaning is sensual experience and passion. He abhors
abstraction and the sterile asceticism of the intellectual life. When words get in the way, he dances to express
himself. He is a brute soul, deeply rooted in the earth, with all the astute physical awareness of a wild animal.
The narrator, by contrast, is pallid and book-bound, and he struggles in Platonic and metaphysical valleys of
doubt. He is on earth but does not feel it. He is overwhelmed by the titanlike character of Zorba and watches him
with delight and envy. The narrator, who represents Kazantzakis in his youth, can feel the conflict of life and
death, whereas Zorba sees only the wonder of life.
When asked what he believes in, Zorba summarizes his philosophy by saying that he does not believe in
anything or anyone except himself not because he is better than others, but because Zorba is the only being
he has in his power. A rugged individualist, he needs no one to reaffirm his existence and beliefs. He mingles
freely with people and departs with no nostalgic sentimentalism. The narrator also believes in individualism, but
he soon realizes that his individualism is hollow compared with Zorbas thrilling dances, delightful indulgences,
and childlike fascination with nature. It is Zorbas primitive joy in living that motivates the narrator to pursue the
widow.
Although the plot revolves around the character of Zorba, it is transformed by the narrators abstract mentality.
The novel sings the praises of paganism and animal vitality but is firmly in the grip of Kazantzakiss German-
educated, analytical mind. It is this underlying methodical analysis that gives the story its dynamism. The
intellectual narrator can never be Zorba, who remains a demigod to be observed and admired.
The narrator discovers that Crete is more primitive than the mainland. Because everyone is affected by the
environment, even the monks who live in the hilltop monastery, Crete seems to the narrator to be the last bastion
of the ancient Greek gods. Perhaps one of them is personified in the person of Zorba, whose passionate dances,
playing of the stringed santui, and frenzy of sexual love are all characteristic of a savage god on a savage island.

2
Zorba the Greek What is surprising is that Kazantzakiss most famous novel, Zorba the Greek, represents an
apparent reversal of the authors position that people must abandon pleasures of the flesh to achieve spiritual
self-fulfillment. In this novel, the reader is forced to recognize the attractiveness of the hero Alexis Zorba, whose
whole life is devoted to sensual gratification. Zorba is anti-intellectual and antireligious, having thrown off the
shackles of paralyzing intellectualism that have bound the narrator, the Boss, within himself and caused him to be
ineffectual in dealing with others except as intelligences. The Boss is the consummate ascetic, a follower of
Buddha who renounces the pleasures of the flesh because he believes that closeness to others only leads to
pain. Zorba, on the other hand, is the epitome of Bergsonian lan vital. The Boss withdraws from commitment;
Zorba seeks it.
The mining venture in which the two men engage is Kazantzakiss way of representing symbolically the vast
differences between them and hence between the lifestyles they represent. Mining, the act of taking from the
earth the materials one needs to survive, is hard work, but Zorba relishes it, getting dirty along with his fellow
workers, taking chances with them, even risking his life when necessary; the Bosss involvement is that of the
dilettante who occasionally pokes his nose in to see how things are going but who actually remains aloof from the
work itself. Their different approaches to the mining operation characterize their approaches to other forms of
involvement as well: Zorba is a great womanizer because he believes that only through such lovemaking can
man be fulfilled (and besides, he tells the Boss, all women want a man to love them); the Boss is paralyzed by
contact with women. The Bosss affection for books is paralleled by Zorbas penchant for dancing, playing
the santiri, and womanizing; where one learns of life secondhand through the writings of others, the other
experiences it fully and directly.
Zorbas power to act, even in the face of overwhelming odds and with the knowledge that his actions will be of
little real value, marks him as the kind of hero whom Kazantzakis admires. Failure does not deter him from
action. When his elaborate scheme to bring down timber from the top of the mountain collapses (literally as well
as figuratively), he shrugs off the experience and goes on to another venture. The death of the old whore
Hortense, whom Zorba has promised to marry, disturbs him only momentarily: Death is the way of the world, and
Zorba understands it. By the end of the novel, the Boss, too, has come to understand the inevitability of death
and the need to live vigorously in the face of that knowledge. When he receives word that his good friend
Stavridakis is dead, he accepts the information stoically; when he learns that Zorba, too, has died, he chooses
not to mourn but instead to turn his own talent for writing to good use by composing the story of his experiences
with Zorba.
In the novels following Zorba the Greek, Kazantzakis moves from studying the contrast of opposing lifestyles to
concentrating on the figure of the hero himself. Freedom or Death, based on the Cretan revolt of the 1880s,
focuses on Captain Mihalis, who is torn between self-satisfaction and service to country. Kazantzakis was always
fascinated by the heroes of history and literature; often his novels and plays are attempts to retell the stories of
heroes whom he has met in other works, to reinterpret their struggles in the light of his own theory of positive
nihilism. It is not surprising, then, to find that he chooses for his subjects Odysseus, Faust, Christopher
Columbus, Saint Francis, and even Jesus Christ.

3
Places Discussed
Piraeus tavern Piraeus tavern. Place on Crete where the Boss meets Zorba. A chance encounter throws
together the two protagonists, and readers immediately see the difference in their outlooks on life. Zorba is a
reckless adventurer who travels where his heart takes him; the Boss is a sensitive thinker, afraid to strike out on
his own. The location is important because it establishes a motif that is thematically central to the novel: the lure
of the sea, a metaphor for the unknown that awaits every traveler through life.
The Bosss hut The Bosss hut. Seaside shack in which the Boss and Zorba live as they work at mining lignite.
While Zorba supervises the miners and works beside them, the Boss frequently remains at the hut writing a book
about Buddha. At the end of each day, the two frequently converse about issues such as God, human
immortality, the wisdom of activity versus contemplation, the place of women and family in mens lives, and other
philosophical and moral issues.
Significantly, the hut is set beside the sea, a central symbol in the novel. Both Zorba and the Boss recognize the
mystery posed by the sea, on which hundreds of generations of men have gone to seek adventure, fortune, and
happiness. The warm breezes that blow north across the sea from Africa suggest both the source of human life
and the life-giving forces of nature concepts that the Boss struggles to understand.
Madame Hortenses hotel Madame Hortenses hotel. Located in the village, Madame Hortenses hotel is a
pivotal locale in the novel. Through the character of Madame Hortense, Kazantzakis displays the fate of women
in the world, and her home is emblematic of the transient nature of male-female relationships. Once the mistress
of men from many nations, she is now reduced to keeping house for travelers who pass through the village. At
her death, the house is scavenged by other women who take away the mementos that signified her worth as a
human being.
Village Village. Locale for the majority of the action in the novel. Here Zorba carries on a love affair with Madame
Hortense, and the Boss meets the widow whose death at the hands of angry villagers causes him personal pain
and leads him to question further the purpose of life. Like the inhabitants of Megalokastro, the village in
Kazantzakiss Freedom or Death (1953), the citizens of this village display the values that characterize Crete
itself: a proud sense of self-reliance based on isolation from other centers of civilization, a keen sense of family
loyalty, and a zest for life that Zorba admires but the Boss mistrusts.
Monastery Monastery. Religious community that the Boss and Zorba visit at the invitation of Zacharias, a monk
who has become disillusioned with life there. Within the walls of the monastery, they discover that monks
ostensibly devoted to the service of God carry on lives characterized by petty jealousies, scandalous sexual
behavior, acquisitiveness, and preferment based on favoritism rather than merit. With Zorbas help, Zacharias
gains revenge on the monks by burning down the monastery.

4
Zorba Zorba, the central figure of the novel. He is about sixty years old but feels that, ironically, his desires
becomes more pronounced as he grows older. When he goes to the city to buy tree-harvesting equipment, he
easily becomes sidetracked and spends most of his bosss money on women and wine. He has a huge appetite
for earthly pleasures. He is loud, crude, and larger than life. He believes in the primacy of the senses over moral
and intellectual faculties. His pagan theology is rooted in nature and his own senses. He carries his senturi the
Greek counterpart of an American hammer dulcimer everywhere, but he plays only when he is in the right
mood and in the right company. Music is sacred to him. He dances whenever he is so full of emotion that he can
no longer contain it. At his own childs funeral, he was filled with grief and had to express it in dancing. He is a
free spirit guided by his senses rather than his intellect. He laughs at his own shortcomings and is honest and
open, like a child. Zorba practices his paganism to the last days of his life while wandering in Serbia.
The Narrator The Narrator, who goes to Crete to experience the world by engaging in a capitalist venture but
takes all of his books and bookishness with him. By chance, he and Zorba meet and become friends. The
Narrator tells the story and analyzes the incidents. He observes Zorba with fascination. His sterile intellectual
sensibility, however, is slowly transformed by his novel experiences. He begins to see the value of sensual
pleasures. Zorba guides and encourages him. When the Narrator meets the beautiful, young Widow, he is
attracted to her, but Zorba must coax him to pursue the relationship. Zorbas ecstatic dancing and pagan
theology, Madam Hortenses musings about love, and Cretes wine and atmosphere transform the Narrator to the
point where he wants to partake of the sensual life. The death of the Widow shakes him to his soul and
transforms him further. He learns how to dance, drink wine, and worship nature and its promptings. A Zorbatic,
pagan theology that celebrates life takes root deep inside him. He eventually leaves the island but is entirely
imbued with the spirit of Crete and of Zorba.
Madam Hortense Madam Hortense, who had a wild and colorful life as a courtesan. She was a mistress to many
important men of her time. Now she is an aging, broken woman who has nothing but her memories. Upon
meeting Zorba, she comes alive again. She experiences affection and intimacy through Zorbas vibrant
paganism. Her life is brightened by some brief moments of happiness in the company of Zorba, but then, tired of
her long and dreary life, she begins to fade away with illness. She dies in Zorbas arms with a satisfied smile on
her face.
The Widow The Widow, a melancholy woman who prefers a lonely life to a desperate attempt to bring men into
her life to fill the void her husband left behind. She is young and beautiful. Men of the village lust after her and
wish they could have her, even for one night. She rejects them all with disdain. The men resort to harassing and
ostracizing her. When the narrator and Zorba arrive, things begin to change for her. Zorba gives her protection
and support, and the Narrator fills her mind and imagination. After much procrastination, the Narrator finally goes
to her, and she welcomes him to her bed. This one-night affair marks her. Jealous women whip up stories and
instigate a frenzied mob attack in front of the church. She is stoned and beheaded.
Pavli Pavli, a sensitive young man who dares to express his love for the Widow. Other young men tease him and
laugh at his melancholy, lovesick disposition. Pavlis father disapproves of his sons choice of a love object and
tries to dissuade him. One night, Pavli writes a love letter and delivers it to the Widow personally. His father finds
the letter and punishes Pavli further. Finding no sympathy for his misery and feeling despised by the woman he
adores, he drowns himself in the ocean.

Ritusamhara
Kalidasa is the supreme poet and dramatist in classical Sanskrit literature. His works have been
hailed as classics of all time. They speak to all ages about the timeless things in life. The limitations of
cultural contexts are easily transcended by them. Ritusamharam is considered to be the early effort of the
master poet. The poem establishes the lyrical mode in classical Sanskrit literature. Love (sringara) is the
dominant emotional mode that finds expression in the poem. Each stanza is exquisitely crafted round an
image, as it were a flower, strung to the other to make a garland. The result is the poem, a garland of the
seasons. The poet looks at Nature against the backdrop of changing seasons and the changes in the lives of
the natural phenomena.


Ritusamhara
1
India has always believed in the harmonious relation between man and forces of nature and the importance
of each season has been beautifully brought into light by the great poet Klidsa in Ritu
Ritusamhara , a poem written by him.
Ritusamhara is a long poem or mini-epic in Sanskrit. The word Ritu means seasons in
the Hindu calendar and sahra means coming together in Sanskrit.
It can be called the Medley of Seasons or Garland of Seasons. The poem has six cantos for the
six Indian seasons, Grishma (, summer), Varsha (, monsoon/rains), Sharat ( , autumn),
Hemanta ( , cool), Shishira (, winter), and Vasanta (, spring). It is generally
considered to be Klidsa s earliest work.
The seasons are depicted against the thematic backdrop of how lovers react to the altering landscape and
transformation in their relation with the changing seasons of India. This imbues the poem with a strong
strand of erotic love (shringara) rasa.
Suvaasitam harmyatalam manooharam
Priyaamukhoocchavaasavikampitam madhu
Sutantrigiitam madanatsya diipanam
shuchau nishiithe anubhavanti kaaminaha
At nights, in summer, the lovers enjoy the beautiful and well-scented terrace of the palace, wine stirred by
the breath and lips of the loved ones and well-tuned Vina which inflames passion in the heart.

2

Traditionally the Indian calendar begins with Spring (Vasantha) and ends with Winter (Shishira).
Kalidasa begins his description with summer, which should have come after spring. Such a strange
beginning has evoked keen critical interest. One view is that the poem is written to celebrate the Spring
festival. A more convincing view is that the poet wants to end the poem with a description of the vernal
equinox, thereby leaving a benediction on human beings and the natural world. In fact, each Canto of the
poem ends with such a blessing. Therefore the poem follows a carefully structured cyclical pattern which
is in tune with the Indian concept of Time.
Kalidasa describes the glowing summer in glowing imagery. The opening stanzas visualize a pair
of lovers. The blazing sun has dried out the tide of desire. Women try to kindle their lovers passion with
the help of sweet smelling flowers, sweet melodies and with graceful seductive movements of their body.
The swirling clouds of dust tossed up by the fierce heat of the sun burn the hearts of men who are far away
from their beloved. The lovers and the world seek relief in moonlit nights during the season. From the
world of the lovers the poet takes us to the larger world outside. The natural world is in pain. The savage
heat has left the vegetation and the animals helpless. Deer run to the distant sky thinking that the blue sky
is a distant pool. Cobras take shelter under the plumes of a peacock frogs leap to the shade of a hooded
snake in their desperation. Wild pigs try o escape into the earth by digging up cakes of mud in ponds. Fish
lie dead, birds fly away in fear, buffaloes come out of their caves with their pink tongues hanging out.
Elephants in their agony of growing thirst ignore the languishing lion at the river bed. The sizzling rays are
like numerous sacrificial fires.
Fire breaks out in the forests. Assisted by violent winds it catches up to the tree tops reducing
tender shoots and all to a cinder. It crackles and bursts in the bamboo thickets, spreads in the grass and
burns the earth. Like the vermilion petals of the unfolding mallow rose, fire roams on all sides of the
woodland. It assumes multiple forms in cotton groves and in the hollows of trees. In its scorching heat
animals come looking for the river side like friends. They have forgotten their natural enmity in the
extremity of exhaustion. The poet comes back to the world of lovers. He wishes his beloved ease and
delight in the company of lovely women, in lotus pools and on moonlit terraces where the air is cool and
perfumed.
Ritusamhara is an exuberant expression of the love of life. Even separation of lovers is a sweet
longing. The beloveds beauty and the beauty of Nature mirror and evoke each other. If Vyasa and Valmiki
speak about the splendours of the spiritual, Kalidasa combines the transcendental with the terrestrial; and
finds beauty in all.