LEC052022. GOPIKA.N. The subtle feminist ingredients in Tagore's "The Broken Nest"
Gopika. N
Dr. Joseph Koyippally
LEC 5104
03 February 2021
The subtle feminist ingredients in Tagore's 'The Broken Nest'.
Rabindranath Tagore is one of the greatest writers of the era. His works are phenomenal and exceptional creative expressions of raw human lives and emotions. And the closeness of his stories with the smell of ordinary human conflicts and purposes makes those, very intimate literary pieces for readers from around the world. Most of Tagore’s stories are set in the culturally and traditionally rich, unpartitioned Bengal where art and literature had their space in the soul and body of people. As we observe the female protagonists of Tagore, most of them are women who are bold enough to stand up for their rights and voice their opinions. As far as the upper-class society or the Bhadraloks of the unpartitioned Bengal were concerned, women were highly educated. They were trained in singing, dancing, painting and were extremely talented literature enthusiasts. But most girls were married off at a very tender age, to men much older than them. Their opinions and likes weren’t a matter of concern. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, hailing from a Bengali Brahmin family, carefully penned many such issues faced by women during the imperial period, in his works like Chokher Bali, Strir Patra, Maanbhanjan etc. The Broken Nest or Nastanirh is one of the most famous novellas of Tagore, which gives an emotional portrayal of the women’s lives inside the walls of huge mansions.
Women have been disparaged by the society since time immemorial. Patriarchy have been marginalizing women for so long, curtailing their very basic and equal rights. Feminist waves propagated in the west, and did spread to different parts of the world, to ensure social, political and economic equality of women. The first wave of feminism was initiated in the 19th century, and since then, wide range of activisms are happening around the globe for women’s rights to bodily integrity and autonomy, abortion rights, reproductive rights, access to contraception and proper prenatal care, equal wages, right to education, safety at workplace, protection of girls and women from sexual harassments in workplace, household, rape and many more gender-specific discrimination against women. In the Indian context, the role of feminism is extremely important due to culture specific patriarchy and inherent laws prevalent in the society since ages. Despite the long running feminist movements in India since ages, even today, women face very serious issues, a lot of which are inherited from the colonial past. The Britishers brought in Missionaries to India, which in turn, played its own part in imposing domestic works on women. One prominent action they took was the introduction of home science, a subject that exclusively teaches domestic works to women. “The women's movement in India did not concentrate on male supremacy to the exclusion of foreign domination as the cause of their inequality, for in India male domination alone did not account for women's subordination. The colonists both improved women's position and worsened it in particular ways, but their actions were dictated, not out of concern for women, but out of the desire to maintain their financial interests and political power in the foreign country.” (Gender and Imperialism in British India).
Set in the backdrop of the Bengal renaissance, it is slightly ironical that how women are jailed inside homes, as men yell for freedom, in the streets. Charulata, the major protagonist of the novella is a lonely housewife, who is strangled amid her own thoughts, in a mansion packed with servants. Her husband, Bhupati is a journalist who is working day and night to make his dream newspaper come true, but Charulata is left forlorn. It was then, Amal, Bhupati’s cousin, visited them. Charulata whose love for music and poetry which was left unappreciated and unnurtured since ages, were reborn as Amal came into her life. Just like any other woman, who wishes for recognition, love and support, Charulata fell for Amal. Tagore beautifully portrayed the image of Charu silently falling in love with Amal. But soon, Amal had to leave her, and for Charu, the pain of separation was beyond explanation. On realizing how much Charu’s eyes are wishing to see Amal coming back, Bhupati recognizes the love she had for Amal. Though he tried his best to get Charu back, she wasn’t willing to stick back to her husband, as the loneliness and trauma in which she was put in by him, during all those years of their unsuccessful marriage affected Charu greatly. Keeping her self-respect high, she refuses to move to a new city with Bhupati to start a new life.
He came up to Charu and said: “No, I won’t be able to
take you with me.”
Instantly, he noticed her face, pale,
bloodless, like white paper, as she clutched the edges of the bed.
Bhupati changed his mind at that instant.
“Charu, get ready. Come along with me,” he said.
“No, let it be.” Charu replied, sternly. (Banerjee, Ch
18)
Charulata in The Broken Nest is a representative of every Indian
woman. Just like many other characters of Tagore, Charulata too is timeless. She is left
unidentified, her voice is silenced and dreams are wet paper boats. She is
the woman, whom we have come across at least once in our lives. She is the
abandoned wife, who seeks refuge in a soul who could understand here. A beautiful
relationship like the songs she sang along with Amal, and not an illicit
extra-marital affair. In the novella, we can see two highly contradicting female
characters – Charulata and Manda. While Charu is an intelligent woman, who is
sensitive as well as sensible, Manda is an uneducated woman
with crude ideas. Tagore specifies the importance of education through this
subtle representation of highly refuting female characters.
"Rabi’s women questioned society, its archaic and unfair rules, and became the voice of a generation of women who were raised to adhere to societal norms and conventions. On one hand, his stories followed the nationalist ethos of the country prevalent at that point of time and on the other, he drew a parallel to the lack of freedom that Indian women enjoyed in the same society that wanted to emancipate itself from the clutches of a foreign, imperial power. His women were rooted in their contemporary surroundings, but their stories surpassed the boundaries of time because their struggles are still socially relevant."(Debarati) Tagore rightly pointed out the nationalist ethos in the British colony, where societal norms and patriarchy made it a much worse place for women to live in. The emergence of the new woman by the end of the 19th century is a result of the collective efforts put in by writers and reformers like Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore, is hence, one of the bravest writers who put forward the concept of feminism to the main stream attention in an era of brutal silencing of women. He also depicted the beautiful relationship between a married yet unsatisfied and unhappy woman and a young man, which the society blames as an illicit relationship. This idea, which probably is a retelling of his own relationship with his sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi, was thrown at the face of the 19th century patriarchy. Satyajith Ray, recreated the story of Charulata in his 1964 film, as a tribute to Tagore. Through Charulata, Tagore reveals the very subtle underlying layer of feminism to an audience, to whom, it is certainly a novel idea. The way in which these aspects are intertwined with the aesthetics of the work, makes it a timeless and remarkable work.
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