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Rahul De
Professor Kumar Sankar Bhattacharya
Studies in Bengal Renaissance
April 10, 2013
Rahul De, 2
needed in the world of affairs as well, but she will not achieve her place and
purpose there if she indulges in strident masculine protest and behaviour.
Tagore gives feminism a meaning of his own; he provides his leads to
find themselves in the face of society without hurting others. In Gora we see
Tagores philosophy that if the educational approach is right and imaginative
and if there be a spirit like Tagore to inspire and guide, there is no height that
the individual may not reach. Under Poreshbabus guidance, we see both
Sucharita and Lalita emerge through their struggles to become, in addition to
a domestic being, an independent intellectual being. Tagore introduces
Sucharita, a central female character as a symbol of nature, and as the novel
progresses, slowly but imperceptibly. He transforms this symbol into a form
and figure, and provides her with a very independent and individual mind.
The aggressive Gora is offset against the quieter and more humane
Sucharita, a symbol of female power, who herself can bring a man to his
knees and change the society with her innocent charm. Then there is the
free spirited Lalita, who is not shy of revolting against her own family and
society, for following her hearts desires and true calling. Goras idea of
womanhood is extremely stereotypical and is prevalent until this day. The
Mother is the highest pedestal offered to a woman under such scheme. The
Feminine Individual is not given the individual status. The Indian woman
could be at best be the home-maker or a force like Kali, ready to step out and
destroy all evils, but never as an ordinary woman in the then educated
Bengali society. Gora preaches the ideology of placing women at a Mothers
mantle, yet he forgets to pay his respects to a woman, Lachmiya who
mothered him along with Anandamoyi. As the narrator notes, The
statement of a concept no longer has the same certainty when applied to
a person. We see Tagores vision of Bharatvarsha in the noble hearted, allforgiving, liberal minded Hindu mother, Anandamoyi. She was much ahead of
her time and society in understanding 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 or disturbed. In A Wifes Letter Mrinalini
finds in the writing of poetry a refuge from her in-laws petty persecution and
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Works Cited
Mary M Logo. : Tagores Liberated Women, Asian Studies Center, Michigan
State University, 17/03/2013
Christine Garlough (2007): Transfiguring Criminality: Eclectic Representations
of 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's Anandmath, Economic and Political
Weekly, Vol. 20, No. 43 (Oct. 26, 1985), pp. WS58-WS62, 12/04/2013
Humayun Kabir: Mysticism and Humanity of Tagore, Istituto Italiano per
l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO), 17/03/2013
Rajarshi Singh: The Feminine Individual in Tagores Gora, Web, 17/03/2013
Gender and Nationalism in Tagores Home and the World, Author: Indrani
Mitra, Modern Fiction Studies 41.2 (1995) 243-264
The Runaway and Other Stories by Tagore, Review by Massimo Scaligero
Gora, Trans: Radha Chakravarty, 2009, Penguin Books India, 2011
Home and the World, Trans: Sreejata Guha, 2005, Penguin Books India, 2011
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