Tree Without Roots is an excellent novel with modernist elements. The novel’s protagonist is proved to be an existential modern hero by Sayed Waliullah. Let’s find existentialist and modernistic details in the main character Majeed. Majeed acts like a savior of the helpless men and women around him and is himself a poor man and has been driven to his fraudulence by the need for a livelihood”.
In the novel, the existence of Majeed needs a value which he tries to make unintentionally to preserve his existence in Mahabbatpur. Everything in this novel is only for his survival, even his values. Therefore, the devotion of such illiterate people to religion helps him better to make his influence stronger. Thus, his self-created religious identity is never seen doubtfully. Besides an existentialist point of view, the author characterizes Majeed as a modern hero with some exceptions in Tree Without Roots. The protagonist Majeed has every quality to be a modern character.
For More Notes: Tree Without Roots
He is in great alienation, even surrounded by many who have nothing to say against him. He is cared for and respected a lot by Rahima, his wife, who never proves irreligious to him. Yet he is unhappy. It is partly because he is ‘more than a husband to Rahima. Again, he knows the futility of the ‘Mazar’. Moreover, his self-questioning gives him a modern man s quality. However, unlike an everyday hero, he believes deeply in God and is constantly haunted by the thought of whether God would forgive him for what he does here. All these invoke a sympathizing reaction to Majeed rather than rage upon him for the audience and villagers. This also reminds us of his being a modern hero in Mahabbatpur.
