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the spirit of humanism in the Hindu way of life, in which there had been a
liberal streak, always trying to assimilate other ways of living, thinking and
relating. She conducted herself as one who desired to enhance and enrich
our growth as human beings, without which religions, societies, customs,
ideologies with all progressive or reactionary ideas can become a terrible
bondage.
Most of Tagores women protagonists exhibit the womans intellectual
dilemma. Literature is the key to liberation and the protagonist is consumed
by a longing for literacy and for books.Sucharita, in Gora, resorted to
reading whenever she felt restless oThrough this essay I am exploring
Tagorespowerfully convincing women characters, him being one of the
earliest to describe them in such exquisite social and psychological detail.
Throughout human history, the woman has been portrayed as a symbol of
fertility, a Goddess representing the Motherland, or even as a class of people
whose best place is in the kitchen and within the house. The woman was
never viewed as an individual but she is always represented in opposite
extremes only. iIn the then patriarchal Bengali society, Tagore did something
unheard of before. He reconstructed the traditional stereotypical feminine
figure in his works.This reveals the vast and humane philosophy that lies at
the base of Tagores writing. As Humayun Kabir has stated, Rabindranath
remained fervently committed to a universal humanism and the individuals
freedom to choose his own way of serving the cause of social and political
emancipation.iiI will also try to draw a comparison between the women
characters in Bankims novels and those in Tagores.
r disturbed. In A Wifes Letter Mrinalini finds in the writing of poetry a
refuge from her in-laws petty persecution and their jealousy of her superior
education. The accuracy of Tagores descriptions of these heroines and their
struggles is the fruit of long years of observing the consequences of Indias
failure to make use of her womens talents.
Another noteworthy observation is that it is always a man, or a social
situation that ratifies male domination of home and community, which is
seen precipitating or perpetuating intolerable situations. The man is always a
destroyer (esp. in Chokher Bali, Mahendra creates a lot of trouble in his
household all because of his spoiled and self centered nature), but seldom
destroys out of malevolence or sheer wickedness; he does so as the result of
a mode of behavior that is expected, or that he thinks, by the men (and
sometimes by the women as well) around him. Sometimes out of sheer
pompous stupidity, vanity, triviality men destroy the hopes for a new life of
placed in the middle of a marble temple. This is what the mother will become
when the country is restored to its original grandeur. With Shantis character,
Bankim defies the then prevalent stereotype of wifehood and domesticity.
Circumstances in Shantis life cause her to be educated in Sanskrit, roam the
forests in the garb of a sannyasiand later train in marshal arts, she is selfsufficient, independent and capable of defendingherself. The ease with which
Shanti unhorses the English Lindley and rides away on his horse could put
any modern feminist to shame. Shanti decides to perform her wife's role by
the side of her ascetic husband Jibananda by donning the male Sannyasi's
disguise and fighting by his side. Shanti is left free to contribute her full
strength to the heroic life of her sannyasi husband.
To sum up the main argument, it must be noted that Tagore had a
unique understanding of feminism, and was decades ahead of his time, as he
was in his views on education, politics, and agricultural economy. By painting
the stereotypical image of the woman, Tagore effectively highlighted the ill
effects of the society and how the women learnt to cope with it. Feminism at
an accelerated pace only annoyed the people of India then. The sudden
outcry for freedom and dissolution of woman from Hindu society would get
them very little real progress. Tagore is largely responsible for the growth of
a humane outlook in India. He believed that, only through the gradual
percolation of education and social freedom, would the women of India would
find their place in society.
Works Cited
Mary M Logo. :Tagores Liberated Women, Asian Studies Center, Michigan
State University, 17/03/2013
Christine Garlough (2007): Transfiguring Criminality: Eclectic
Representationsof a Female Bandit in Indian Nationalist and Feminist
Rhetoric, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 93:3,253-278, 12/04/2013
Jasodhara Bagchi :Positivism and Nationalism: Womanhood and Crisis in
Nationalist Fiction Bankimchandra'sAnandmath, Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 43 (Oct. 26, 1985), pp. WS58-WS62, 12/04/2013
Foot-Notes
i Quoted by Rajarshi Singh in his essay: The Feminine Individual in Tagores Gora, Web,
17/03/2013
ii See the paper by Humayun Kabir: Mysticism and Humanity of Tagore, Istituto Italiano
per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO), 17/03/2013
iii Christine Garlough (2007): Transfiguring Criminality: Eclectic Representations of a
Female Bandit in Indian Nationalist and Feminist Rhetoric