Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Locale: CretePrincipal characters

Zorba, a Greek miner, a man of passion and vigor

The Narrator, called “the boss,” Zorba’s employer

Madame Hortense, an aging and vibrant harlot

The Widow,

Pavli, a young man in love with the widowThe 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

café and starts a conversation with him. Enchanted by Zorba’s 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 narrator’s 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.

Zorba’s 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 Zorba’s physicality but continues his meditations on philosophy and psychology,

always searching for analytic explanations. The narrator is amused by Madame Hortense’s 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 Zorba’s 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 town’s 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 God’s eyes. The narrator buries his nose in a Buddhist

manuscript, refusing to submit to temptation, although Zorba’s 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 widow’s 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 Pavli’s friends. They blame the widow’s liaison with the narrator for Pavli’s death.

As Pavli’s 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 widow’s 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 Zorba’s 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 Kazantzakis’s 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 Kazantzakis’s 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 naïve, 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 Zorba’s effect on the narrator. Nothing changes in Zorba, but he changes

everything he touches.

Kazantzakis assigned great importance to Zorba’s character and to his philosophy, which was Kazantzakis’s

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 Nietzsche’s 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 Zorba’s thrilling dances, delightful indulgences,

and childlike fascination with nature. It is Zorba’s 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 narrator’s abstract mentality.

The novel sings the praises of paganism and animal vitality but is firmly in the grip of Kazantzakis’s 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 Kazantzakis’s most famous novel, Zorba the Greek, represents an

apparent reversal of the author’s 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 élan vital. The Boss withdraws from commitment;

Zorba seeks it. 

The mining venture in which the two men engage is Kazantzakis’s 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 Boss’s 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 Boss’s affection for books is paralleled by Zorba’s 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.

Zorba’s 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 1880’s,

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 Boss’s hut The Boss’s 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 men’s 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 Hortense’s hotel Madame Hortense’s hotel. Located in the village, Madame Hortense’s 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

Kazantzakis’s 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 Zorba’s 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 boss’s 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 child’s 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. Zorba’s ecstatic dancing and pagan

theology, Madam Hortense’s musings about love, and Crete’s 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 Zorba’s 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 Zorba’s 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. Pavli’s father disapproves of his son’s 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 Kālidāsa का�लि�दा�स in Ritu

Ritusamhara ऋतुसहा�र, a poem written by him.

Ritusamhara ऋतुसहा�र is a long poem or mini-epic in Sanskrit. The word ‘Ritu’ ऋतु means seasons in

the Hindu calendar and ‘saṃhāra’ सहा�र 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 (ग्री�ष्मः , summer), Varsha (वर्षाः�� , monsoon/rains),  Sharat (शरतु�, autumn),

Hemanta (हा�मःन्तु , cool),  Shishira (लिशलिशर , winter), and Vasanta (वसन्तु , spring). It is generally considered to

be Kālidāsa ‘s का�लि�दा�स 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 beloved’s 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.