Crime and Punishment by R.K. Narayan.

This blog is based on the task assigned by Dr. Megha Trivedi, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU), which explores the dynamic relationship between teachers and students through R. K. Narayan’s short story “Crime and Punishment.”

Original Text: Crime and Punishment

Who Teaches Whom? Power, Authority, and Student Agency in R. K. Narayan’s “Crime and Punishment”

Introduction: The Classroom as a Space of Power

What happens when the teacher loses control of the classroom and the student begins to control the teacher? R. K. Narayan’s short story “Crime and Punishment” presents this question through a humorous but critical portrayal of a teacher, a mischievous young boy, and the boy’s protective parents. The story begins as a simple tutoring session in which an unnamed teacher is preparing the child for an arithmetic test. The teacher expects obedience, concentration, and correct answers, while the boy repeatedly gives wrong answers and resists the lesson. 

When the teacher loses patience and slaps him, the power relationship changes. The teacher becomes anxious about the parents discovering the incident, while the boy recognizes this vulnerability and uses it to negotiate with the teacher. The supposedly powerless child therefore acquires a form of psychological power over the adult who is supposed to control him. The story is fundamentally humorous, but beneath the comedy lies a serious examination of authority, discipline, punishment, parental expectations, student agency, fear, and the purpose of education.

The title itself adds another layer of irony. Narayan's story is not simply about a teacher committing a “crime” and receiving a conventional punishment. Instead, the teacher's attempt to impose discipline ultimately places him in a vulnerable position. The story can therefore be read as a study of how power circulates between teachers, students, and parents rather than moving only in one direction. This interpretation also connects with educational research. Cothran and Ennis's study of teacher–student relationships argues that classroom power can become reciprocal, with students as well as teachers using different resources to influence the learning environment.

Narayan's story becomes even more meaningful when placed beside novels, short stories, films, educational videos, and scholarly discussions that explore similar questions. From Dickens's Hard Times and Dahl's Matilda to Taare Zameen Par, 3 Idiots, Hichki, Dead Poets Society, Whiplash, and Sir Ken Robinson's “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”, different works represent different models of teaching, learning, discipline, resistance, and student freedom. Together, they help us understand why Narayan's small classroom becomes a much larger reflection on education and society.

The Teacher: Authority Under Pressure

At the beginning of the story, the teacher appears to have the conventional authority of an educator. He asks questions, expects answers, corrects the child, and attempts to maintain discipline. However, Narayan quickly reveals that this authority is not absolute. The teacher is tutoring the boy because he needs the additional income, while the child's wealthy parents have their own expectations regarding his education. They want the boy to perform well but also disapprove of harsh punishment. The teacher therefore occupies a complicated position: he has educational authority over the child, but he remains economically dependent upon the family.

This becomes particularly important after the teacher slaps the boy. The act appears to establish authority for a moment, but it actually weakens the teacher's position. He immediately becomes concerned about the parents discovering what he has done. The child recognizes this fear and realizes that the teacher can be pressured. The teacher's authority therefore changes from control to negotiation.

This is precisely where the dynamic nature of the teacher–student relationship becomes visible. Cothran and Ennis found that the traditional idea of teachers as the sole holders of classroom power does not fully explain actual classroom relationships. Their research describes a more reciprocal relationship in which students can use participation, non-participation, disruption, personality, and other resources to influence classroom situations. Narayan presents a comic version of this reciprocal power: the teacher has formal authority, but the student discovers a different kind of power.

The Student: From Learner to Negotiator

The boy initially appears to be a conventional student: young, dependent, and expected to learn from an adult. Yet he refuses to remain a passive learner. His repeated wrong answers are not simply evidence of academic weakness; they become a form of resistance to the teacher's attempt to control the lesson. Once the teacher punishes him, the boy discovers that the teacher is afraid of his parents.

The child's power is therefore not academic. He does not become powerful because he knows more mathematics. He becomes powerful because he understands the teacher's vulnerability. He realizes that the teacher cannot afford to let the parents know what has happened. As a result, he can bargain for what he wants: freedom from the lesson, opportunities to play, and stories instead of arithmetic.

This reversal is central to Narayan's humour. The adult who possesses knowledge becomes dependent upon the child, while the child who is supposed to receive knowledge begins to control the situation. Yet Narayan does not romanticize the child's behaviour. The boy is clever, but his cleverness also becomes manipulative. His agency is therefore morally complicated.

This is important because student agency does not automatically mean student innocence or moral superiority. Narayan's point is more subtle: students are active participants in educational relationships, and they can influence the classroom even when teachers formally possess authority.

 Discipline, Punishment, and the Irony of the Title

The teacher's slap is the turning point of the story. He believes that punishment will restore discipline, but instead it produces a new crisis. The child cries, threatens to complain to his parents, and discovers that the teacher is frightened. The punishment therefore reverses the power structure it was supposed to strengthen.

This gives the title “Crime and Punishment” its comic irony. Narayan takes a title associated with Dostoevsky's serious exploration of crime, guilt, and punishment and places it within an ordinary domestic and educational situation. The teacher's “crime” is the act of striking the child, but the “punishment” is not imposed by a court or formal institution. Instead, the teacher experiences anxiety, fear, humiliation, and the loss of authority.

The story consequently questions the assumption that punishment automatically produces discipline. A punishment based on fear may temporarily force obedience, but it can also generate resentment, resistance, or manipulation. Narayan does not turn the story into a theoretical essay on corporal punishment; rather, he uses comedy to expose the unpredictable consequences of authoritarian discipline.

The important point is not simply that the teacher should never punish the child. The deeper issue is that authority becomes unstable when it depends entirely on fear. Once the child realizes that the adult is also vulnerable, the entire relationship changes.

Parenting and the Problem of Educational Expectations

The parents are essential to understanding the conflict. They want the child to succeed academically, but they also want him to be protected from harsh treatment. They give the teacher advice about child psychology and expect him to produce academic improvement without causing the child discomfort.

This creates a contradiction. The teacher is responsible for the child's academic progress, but his ability to discipline the child is restricted by parental expectations. The parents therefore influence the classroom even when they are not physically present.

The story can be read as a humorous critique of over-protective parenting, particularly when parental expectations make it difficult for teachers to establish boundaries. The child learns that adults are reluctant to impose serious consequences, and this knowledge contributes to his confidence in challenging the teacher.

At the same time, Narayan does not make the parents completely responsible for the child's behaviour. The child himself is mischievous and manipulative. The story is therefore more complex than a simple argument that “bad parents create bad children.” Instead, Narayan presents a network of relationships in which teacher, student, and parents influence one another.

 The Hidden Curriculum: What Is the Child Really Learning?

The formal curriculum of the story is arithmetic. The hidden curriculum is much larger.

The child is learning about authority, fear, negotiation, adult behaviour, social status, and consequences. The teacher wants to teach him how to solve mathematical problems, but the classroom simultaneously teaches him how power operates. He discovers that adults are not invulnerable and that authority can be negotiated when its weaknesses become visible.

This idea connects with the educational concept of the hidden curriculum, which refers to the values, behaviours, expectations, and social lessons students learn indirectly through educational institutions. The classroom therefore teaches more than what appears in the syllabus.

Narayan's story offers a comic example of this process. The teacher thinks he is teaching arithmetic, but the child is learning a lesson about power. The teacher, meanwhile, is also learning something: he discovers the limitations of his authority and the importance of understanding the child he is teaching.

This makes the story particularly useful for a critical reading of education. A classroom is not simply a place where information is transferred from teacher to student. It is also a social space in which people negotiate authority, expectations, identity, and behaviour.

Foucault: Discipline and the Circulation of Power

Michel Foucault's concept of disciplinary power provides a useful theoretical lens for reading Narayan's classroom. Foucault's work examines how modern institutions use practices such as observation, examination, classification, correction, and punishment to regulate behaviour. A classroom is one such space in which individuals are observed, evaluated, corrected, and expected to conform to certain norms.

In Crime and Punishment, the teacher initially occupies the position of the observer and evaluator. He asks questions, judges answers, and attempts to correct the child's behaviour. But after the slap, this relationship is reversed. The student begins to observe the teacher's behaviour and recognizes his fear.

The important point is not that Narayan was writing a Foucauldian story. Rather, Foucault gives us a theoretical vocabulary for understanding the power reversal that Narayan represents through comedy.

The story therefore demonstrates that power is not always something possessed permanently by one person. It can move through relationships. The teacher has formal authority, but the child has situational power; the parents have economic and social power; and the teacher's fear gives the child an opportunity to negotiate.

 Paulo Freire: From Authority to Dialogue

Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed provides another useful framework. Freire criticizes what he calls the “banking” model of education, in which teachers are treated as holders of knowledge and students as passive receivers.

Narayan's teacher initially operates according to this conventional structure. He asks the questions, possesses the correct answers, and expects the child to receive instruction. But the child's resistance disrupts the model. He refuses to behave like a passive receiver.

However, Narayan's story also shows that resistance by itself does not create genuine education. The child's resistance becomes manipulation rather than dialogue. The teacher loses control, but neither teacher nor student automatically develops a democratic educational relationship.

This distinction is important. A better educational model would not simply reverse the hierarchy so that the student dominates the teacher. Instead, it would create a relationship based on dialogue, mutual respect, participation, and shared learning.

Thus, Freire helps us ask a deeper question: rather than deciding whether the teacher or student should possess more power, how can the classroom become a space where power is transformed into productive dialogue?

Charles Dickens's Hard Times: Education Without Imagination

Charles Dickens's Hard Times provides an important literary comparison. Thomas Gradgrind represents an educational philosophy based on facts, measurement, utility, and discipline. His students are expected to absorb factual knowledge rather than develop freely through imagination and emotional experience.

Narayan's teacher is very different from Gradgrind, but both works question an education system that places too much emphasis on predetermined answers. In Crime and Punishment, the teacher expects the child to provide the correct arithmetic answer. In Hard Times, Gradgrind expects children to think according to a system dominated by facts.

The contrast between Gradgrind's philosophy and the imaginative Sissy Jupe reveals the limitations of reducing education to measurable knowledge. Similarly, Narayan's story reminds us that a child is not simply a container waiting to be filled with information. A student has personality, emotions, desires, resistance, and imagination.

Both works therefore encourage readers to ask whether education should produce obedient performers or independent human beings.

Roald Dahl's Matilda: The Child Against Adult Authority

Roald Dahl's Matilda offers another strong comparison because it presents a highly intelligent child confronting adults who underestimate or attempt to control her. Miss Trunchbull represents authoritarian discipline, while Miss Honey represents a more supportive and empathetic approach to teaching.

Narayan's unnamed tutor occupies a more complicated position. He is neither a cruel authoritarian like Trunchbull nor an ideal teacher like Miss Honey. He is an ordinary, frustrated teacher whose impatience leads him to punish the child. His vulnerability makes him comic and human.

Both works, however, emphasize child agency. Matilda does not simply accept adult authority, and Narayan's boy does not simply accept the teacher's authority. Yet the difference is important: Matilda's resistance is often associated with justice, while Narayan's child's resistance is frequently mischievous and self-interested.

This comparison prevents us from romanticizing rebellion. A student's ability to challenge authority can be valuable, but education still requires responsibility and mutual respect.

William Carlos Williams's “The Use of Force”: Authority and Resistance

A useful short-story comparison is William Carlos Williams's “The Use of Force.” The story presents a doctor examining a sick child who refuses to cooperate with him. The doctor has professional authority, but the child's resistance makes the examination difficult. The conflict gradually becomes a struggle between adult authority and a child's refusal to submit.

This resembles Crime and Punishment in an important way. In both stories, an adult believes that force is necessary to accomplish an immediate objective. Yet force also changes the emotional and ethical character of the relationship. The adult may possess institutional authority, but the child's resistance complicates that authority.

The stories are different in their circumstances and purposes, but both reveal the limitations of understanding authority simply as “the adult commands and the child obeys.” The child's body, behaviour, silence, resistance, and refusal can all become forms of agency.

Thus, both Narayan and Williams make us question what happens when authority meets resistance.

Bollywood: Taare Zameen Par and the Individual Learner

A particularly important Indian comparison is Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par (2007). The film follows Ishaan, a child whose difficulties within conventional schooling are initially interpreted as laziness, disobedience, or failure. His teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh approaches him differently by attempting to understand his individual learning needs.

The contrast with Narayan's teacher is significant. The teacher in Crime and Punishment initially responds to the child's behaviour through correction and punishment. Nikumbh attempts to understand the reason behind the child's difficulty before deciding how to help him.

This difference illustrates two models of teaching: discipline-centred teaching and learner-centred teaching.

Radhika Khanna's article in the Journal of Indian Education specifically examines Taare Zameen Par as a pedagogical case study and connects the film with transformative education, learner diversity, creativity, and educational practice.

The comparison is therefore particularly useful because both texts place a child at the centre of an educational conflict, but they show different responses to the child's behaviour. Narayan asks us to notice the consequences of punishment; Taare Zameen Par emphasizes the importance of understanding the learner.

 Bollywood: 3 Idiots and the Pressure to Succeed

Rajkumar Hirani's 3 Idiots (2009) expands the discussion from the individual classroom to the larger education system. The film explores academic competition, parental expectations, examination pressure, institutional authority, and the difference between learning and merely obtaining marks.

Professor Viru Sahastrabuddhe represents a highly competitive and rigid academic environment, while Rancho questions the idea that education should be reduced to marks and conventional success. The film therefore complements Narayan's story by showing another form of conflict between educational authority and student individuality.

The comparison is especially useful because Crime and Punishment also contains tension between academic performance and the child's actual behaviour. The parents want academic success, the teacher is expected to produce it, and the child resists the process.

Both works consequently raise the question: What happens when educational success becomes more important than the learner?

Bollywood: Hichki and the Teacher as Facilitator

Siddharth P. Malhotra's Hichki (2018) offers a different model of teaching through Naina Mathur, a teacher who works with students who are marginalized within their educational environment. Rather than accepting the students' circumstances as evidence of inability, she develops a relationship based on patience, confidence, and understanding.

This provides another contrast with Narayan's teacher. Narayan's teacher initially attempts to make the child conform to his expectations, whereas Naina attempts to understand her students and create conditions in which they can participate successfully.

The comparison develops one of the central questions of Crime and Punishment: Is teaching primarily about controlling behaviour or helping a learner grow?

Narayan's story does not offer the idealized answer represented by Hichki, but the comparison helps us identify the educational possibilities that lie beyond punishment.

Bollywood: Chhichhore, Nil Battey Sannata, and 12th Fail

Nitesh Tiwari's Chhichhore (2019) adds the theme of examination pressure and the fear of failure. The film challenges the belief that academic results should determine a person's value. This connects with Narayan's story because the child's academic performance is central to the teacher's responsibility and the parents' expectations. Education becomes connected not merely with knowledge but with success, failure, family expectations, and self-worth.

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's Nil Battey Sannata (2015) adds the themes of class, family, aspiration, and social mobility. The film demonstrates how education can become a means of imagining a different future. It reminds us that classroom relationships are always connected to social and economic circumstances outside the classroom.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 12th Fail (2023) provides a contemporary perspective on student agency and persistence. Manoj Kumar Sharma's educational journey demonstrates how students negotiate institutional barriers and difficult circumstances. When placed beside Narayan's story, the film reinforces the idea that students are not passive recipients of education; they actively respond to the structures surrounding them.

Together, these Bollywood films broaden Narayan's small classroom conflict into a larger discussion of education, class, parental pressure, failure, aspiration, and student agency.

 Dead Poets Society: Education and Independent Thinking

Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society (1989) presents John Keating as a teacher who encourages students to think independently, question established assumptions, and discover their own voices. The film therefore offers a very different model from Narayan's tutor.

Narayan's teacher begins by demanding correct answers and obedience. Keating encourages students to question the assumptions behind conventional answers. Yet both works demonstrate that classrooms are spaces of power.

The comparison becomes more interesting when we avoid reducing Keating to simply a “good teacher.” His teaching exists within an institutional system with its own expectations and restrictions. The film therefore reveals the tension between individual teaching practices and institutional authority.

Narayan's comedy and Weir's drama ultimately meet at the same question: What kind of power should a teacher exercise in the classroom?

Whiplash: When Discipline Becomes Domination

Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (2014) presents a much more extreme version of teacher–student conflict. Terence Fletcher uses humiliation, fear, psychological pressure, and extreme expectations to push Andrew toward musical excellence.

The film provides an important comparison with Narayan because both stories involve a teacher who believes that pressure can produce better performance. The difference is one of degree and genre. Narayan transforms the conflict into comedy, whereas Whiplash presents it as an intense psychological struggle.

The comparison also helps distinguish discipline from domination. Discipline can help establish a learning environment, but when fear becomes the primary educational method, the teacher–student relationship may become destructive.

Narayan's teacher learns this lesson almost accidentally: the moment he uses physical force, he loses control of the situation he intended to control.

 Good Will Hunting: The Teacher as Listener and Mentor

Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997) provides another model of the teacher–student relationship through Sean Maguire and Will Hunting. Will possesses extraordinary intellectual ability, but his emotional difficulties prevent him from fully realizing his potential. Sean does not simply give him information. He listens, challenges, and develops a relationship of trust.

This expands the meaning of teaching from instruction to mentorship.

Narayan's teacher does not become a mentor in the same sense, but his experience moves him away from a purely instructional relationship. He eventually enters the child's world through play and storytelling. The classroom therefore becomes less rigid and more relational.

The comparison suggests that effective teaching may involve not only knowledge but also patience, listening, empathy, and an understanding of the learner as a complete human being.

Sir Ken Robinson: “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”

Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” provides a valuable video connection to Narayan's story. Robinson argues for an education system that nurtures rather than undermines creativity. The TED description identifies the central purpose of the talk as the need for educational systems to support creativity.

The connection with Crime and Punishment is indirect but significant. Narayan's child is expected to produce correct answers and behave according to the teacher's expectations. His resistance disrupts that controlled structure. The child's behaviour is not necessarily “creative” in itself it is often mischievous but the situation still allows us to ask whether educational systems leave enough room for individuality.

Robinson's argument therefore helps expand Narayan's story beyond punishment. Education should not merely ask:

“Did the student give the correct answer?”

It should also ask:

“What kind of learner is this student becoming?”

The TED Talk consequently provides a contemporary educational perspective through which Narayan's classroom can be reconsidered.

The Teacher as Learner: Who Teaches Whom?

The deepest irony of Narayan's story is that the teacher becomes a learner.

He begins with the assumption that he is the person who possesses knowledge and that the child is the person who needs instruction. Yet the events of the story force him to learn about patience, fear, parental expectations, childhood behaviour, and the limits of authority.

The child also learns. He discovers that adults have weaknesses and that authority can be negotiated. However, his learning is not necessarily moral development. His cleverness allows him to manipulate the teacher, but Narayan does not suggest that manipulation is an ideal form of student agency.

This is why the story should not be interpreted simply as “student defeats teacher.” The deeper point is that both teacher and student are changed by their encounter.

The teacher learns that authority cannot survive through force alone. The child learns that adults can be influenced through knowledge of their vulnerabilities. The reader, meanwhile, learns that education is a relationship rather than a one-way transaction.

The Classroom as a Microcosm of Society

Narayan's classroom can finally be understood as a miniature version of society.

The teacher represents professional and educational authority. The parents represent wealth, family influence, and social expectations. The child represents the individual negotiating these structures.

No single person possesses complete power. The teacher has knowledge and institutional authority. The parents have economic and social authority. The child has psychological and situational power. Their interaction produces a constantly changing network of influence.

This interpretation explains why the story remains relevant beyond its immediate comic situation. Education is never isolated from society. Questions of class, family, economics, discipline, authority, aspiration, and identity enter the classroom even when the lesson itself concerns something as simple as arithmetic.

Narayan's achievement is to make these complex social relationships visible through a small, humorous domestic situation.

Major Themes at a Glance 👇👇👇

Major Themes in R. K. Narayan's “Crime and Punishment”

Major Theme	“Crime and Punishment”	Related Example
Teacher–Student Power	The teacher gradually loses control and must negotiate with the child.	Dead Poets Society, The Paper Chase
Student Agency	The boy uses his knowledge of the teacher’s fear to challenge adult authority.	Matilda, 12th Fail
Discipline and Punishment	The slap produces an unexpected reversal of power between teacher and student.	Whiplash
Parental Influence	Parents shape what the teacher can and cannot do in the educational process.	3 Idiots, Taare Zameen Par
Educational Pressure	Academic performance creates conflict between the teacher, child, and parents.	3 Idiots, Chhichhore
Learner-Centred Education	The story highlights the need to understand the individual child rather than rely only on conventional discipline.	Taare Zameen Par, Hichki
Hidden Curriculum	The child learns lessons about power, fear, authority, and social behaviour beyond arithmetic.	Educational theory
Creativity	Conventional educational expectations are challenged by the child’s unusual behaviour.	Ken Robinson’s TED Talk
Teacher as Mentor	Teaching becomes a human relationship rather than merely the transmission of information.	Good Will Hunting
Authority and Resistance	The child resists and negotiates adult authority instead of remaining completely passive.	“The Use of Force”
Class and Education	Economic and social relationships influence the teacher’s authority and educational choices.	Nil Battey Sannata
Mutual Learning	The teacher also learns from the student, showing that education can be reciprocal.	The English Teacher

Critical Note: R. K. Narayan’s “Crime and Punishment” presents the classroom as a space where authority, discipline, fear, resistance, and mutual learning intersect. The related literary and cinematic examples extend these concerns into broader debates about education and teacher–student relationships.

Conclusion: 

Who Really Teaches Whom?

R. K. Narayan's “Crime and Punishment” is much more than a humorous story about a naughty child and an irritated tutor. It is a subtle exploration of the unstable relationship between authority and resistance within education. The teacher begins with formal authority, but that authority becomes fragile when he uses physical punishment. The student begins as a dependent learner but discovers that he can exercise psychological power by understanding the teacher's vulnerability. The parents, meanwhile, demonstrate how family expectations and economic power can influence the classroom from outside it.

The story also challenges the idea that education is simply the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student. Through the concept of the hidden curriculum, the classroom becomes a place where students learn about power, behaviour, negotiation, and social relationships. Foucault's concept of disciplinary power helps explain the circulation of authority, while Freire's critique of the banking model helps us question rigid teacher-centred education. These theories do not provide a single meaning for Narayan's story; rather, they give us useful frameworks through which its classroom dynamics can be examined.

The comparative works make the issue even broader. Dickens's Hard Times questions education based excessively on facts and utility. Dahl's Matilda explores child agency against authoritarian adults. Williams's “The Use of Force” examines the conflict between adult authority and child resistance. Taare Zameen Par emphasizes understanding the individual learner, while 3 Idiots questions academic competition and institutional pressure. Hichki presents teaching as empathy and facilitation; Chhichhore questions the culture of failure and examination pressure; Nil Battey Sannata connects education with class and aspiration; and 12th Fail emphasizes persistence and student agency.

Similarly, Dead Poets Society explores independent thinking, Whiplash examines the dangerous edge of disciplinary teaching, and Good Will Hunting presents the teacher as listener and mentor. Sir Ken Robinson's “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” extends the discussion into contemporary educational thought by questioning systems that fail to nurture creativity.

All these examples demonstrate that the teacher–student relationship cannot be understood as a simple hierarchy in which the teacher always possesses power and the student simply obeys. Power can be negotiated, challenged, resisted, and redistributed. At the same time, student resistance does not automatically become genuine learning. The most productive educational relationship lies beyond both domination and rebellion: it depends on dialogue, understanding, responsibility, creativity, and mutual respect.

The central irony of Narayan's story is therefore its title and its ending. The teacher believes that he is there to teach the child, but the encounter teaches the teacher as well. The child learns something about adult vulnerability, while the teacher learns something about the limitations of force. The classroom thus becomes a place of mutual learning, even though neither character initially intends it to be.

The question “Who teaches whom?” consequently has no simple answer. Narayan's story suggests that education is not a one-way movement from teacher to student. It is a relationship in which teachers influence students, students influence teachers, parents influence both, and the classroom becomes a space where different forms of power meet and negotiate.

In the end, the most meaningful lesson of Crime and Punishment may be that a teacher does not lose authority by understanding a student, and a student does not gain genuine freedom merely by resisting authority. Education becomes meaningful when authority gives way to dialogue and when both teacher and student become capable of learning from one another.

Works Cited

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Dahl, Roald. Matilda. Jonathan Cape, 1988.

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times: For These Times. Bradbury and Evans, 1854.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, 2nd Vintage Books ed., Vintage Books, 1995.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, 30th anniversary ed., Bloomsbury Academic, 2000.

Hirani, Rajkumar, director. 3 Idiots. Vinod Chopra Films, 2009.

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Khanna, Radhika. “Taare Zameen Par—A Case Study: Pedagogical Use of Cinema and National Education Policy 2020.” Journal of Indian Education, vol. 48, no. 1, 2022, pp. 145–157. National Council of Educational Research and Training, https://ejournals.ncert.gov.in/index.php/jie/article/view/3167. Accessed 19 Sept. 2026.

Malhotra, Siddharth P., director. Hichki. Yash Raj Films, 2018.

Narayan, R. K. “Crime and Punishment.” Malgudi Days. Penguin Classics, 2006, pp. [insert page range].

Narayan, R. K. The English Teacher. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1945.

Robinson, Ken. “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” TED, TED Conferences, Feb. 2006, https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity. Accessed 19 Sept. 2026.

Tiwari, Nitesh, director. Chhichhore. Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, 2019.

Van Sant, Gus, director. Good Will Hunting. Miramax Films, 1997.

Weir, Peter, director. Dead Poets Society. Touchstone Pictures, 1989.

Williams, William Carlos. “The Use of Force.” Life Along the Passaic River. New Directions, 1938, pp. 33–40.