The Home and the World 1919 Tagore Tagore 18611941 Poet novelist painter Iconic man of lettersNobel Prize for literature in 1913 A modernist humanist and internationalist antiimperialist and critic of extremist violent nationalism ID: 324838
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Slide1
Rabindranath Tagore
The Home and the World
(1919)
Slide2
TagoreSlide3
Tagore 1861-1941
Poet, novelist,
painter
Iconic man of letters—Nobel Prize for literature in
1913
A modernist, humanist and internationalist (anti-imperialist and critic of extremist, violent nationalism
)
Set up the famous
Viswa
Bharati
University in
Santiniketan
in 1921, a radical experiment in education
Benevolent
paternalism: born into an elite Bengali family; landed gentry that combined traditional
zamindari
(landlordism) with modern education and progressive ideals and politics
(
rural
upliftment
). Tagore’s father was
a leading proponent of the
Brahmo
Samaj
, a reformist Hindu
movement)
Renounced his knighthood following the 1919
Jallianwala
Bagh
massacreSlide4
Jallianwala
Bagh
Massacre (1919)Slide5
Historical background to the novel
1905: Lord Curzon’s Partition of Bengal, along communal lines (“divide and rule”)
1905-1908: The
Swadeshi
movement—first popular anti-colonial movement in India that took place in Bengal
Extremists and
moderates
Criticised
for being elitist
Boycott of foreign goods (cloth imported from Britain that impoverished local weavers)
Stirred nationalist sentiment but also aroused communal tension between Hindus and Muslims (middle-class
Swadeshi
activists and peasants and petty traders)Slide6
Swadeshi MovementSlide7
Tagore’s politics
Tagore’s disappointment with extremist nationalist politics (high-handed, misdirected) and its communal
colour
Nationalism (World War)
vs
internationalism (universal values of truth, justice and human relationships; culture of diversity; mental growth through cultural contact)
Truth and justice as keystones of anti-colonial struggle (anticipated Gandhi)Slide8
The Home and the World (
Ghare
Baire
)
First serialized in the avant-garde Bengali journal
Sabuj
Patra
in 1915-1916
Serialized in
The Modern Review
from Dec
1918
Intersection of two sets of preoccupations: global and national/local
Tradition and modernity
Form
:
--Traces of the 19
th
c novel—concerns with domesticity, gender relations; self-conscious emphasis on newness that nevertheless was based on tradition
novel of ideas—intellectual deliberation
--Modernist: discontinuity and rupture
(
Sabuj
Patra
: shocking and jolting), a stance inimical to preservation of
tradition; emphasis on newness
Everyday languageSlide9
Historical rupture
Bimala
:
“…the new epoch came in like a flood, breaking down the dykes and sweeping all our prudence and fear before it. We had no time even to think about , or understand, what had happened, or what was about to happen.
My sight and my mind, my hopes and my desires, became red with the passion of this new age. Though, up to this time, the walls of my home remained unbroken, yet I stood looking over into the distance, and I heard a voice from the far horizon , whose meaning was not perfectly clear to me, but whose call went straight to my heart” (26).Slide10
Language of modernity
Language of modernity: reading and writing (
Bimala
on writing, p. 19)
The making of the self—esp. women’s choices and desires (women’s self-assertion to help build the nation); Nation: created, not
inherited;
Norms can no longer be taken for granted
Individual voice capable of asserting its distinctiveness against the authority of an unjust tradition—interiority and psychological depth
Women negotiating tradition and modernity within home and marriage, but also creating alternate lives (Tagore’s short stories in
SP
)
Modern conjugal love: Nikhil writes letters to
Bimala
(19); love based not on worship and devotion, but on love and companionship
“I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality. Merely going on with your household duties, living all your life in the world of household conventions and the drudgery of household tasks—you were not made for that! If we meet, and
recognise
each other, in the real world, then only will our love be true” (Nikhil to
Bimala
, 23)
Public and private
intertwined
Intersubjectivity
as basis of new selfSlide11
The subalterns
Middle-class homes and life collide with the social worlds of the poor and the
marginalised
(turning point in the novel)
Encounter with
Panchu
and
Mirjan
changes the course of the
swadeshi
movement and destroys the already uneasy balance between husband, wife and loverSlide12
Gendering modernity
Women as individual subjects negotiating tradition and modernity
Women’s role in building the nation—goddess and the everyday woman
Politics and desire—merging of the erotic and the nationalist
Setting up a conjugal home in the citySlide13
Bimala: ideal wife/modern woman
Bimala
: imagining different possibilities
Traditional heroine of Hindu revivalism who is also modern
“ideal wife” (devotion) led into modernity by her progressive
husband
“Everyone says that I resemble my mother. In my childhood I used to resent this. It made me angry with my mirror… All that remained for me to ask of my God in reparation was, that I might grow up to be a model of what woman should be, as one reads it in some epic poem.
When the proposal came for my marriage, an astrologer…said, ‘This girl has good signs. She will become an ideal wife” (17).
L
iterate; reads stories from English books to the grandmother; writes: self-representation
P
ublic
role for domestic virtues; wife and nationalist icon
Self-assertion, but becomes an instrument for male power
“return to Nikhil”: shot through with ambiguity
Slide14
Nikhil and Sandip
Nikhil: a wealthy landowner who is modern (cf. his brother’s addiction to alcohol; women and song)
—educated in the city, rational
, benevolent, decent, believes in equality b/w men and women in conjugal life and love (
Bimala
is not beautiful); in women’s education; modern
dressing bought from European shops; modern house
Desire to take wife to the threshold of the home and the
world
His suffering—gender
dimensions; to be so good is not to be entirely manly (22)
Looks at himself through
Bimala’s
eyes
Possibilities and limits of male reformism
Sandip
: fiery revolutionary for whom ends justify the means; charismatic but unscrupulous
Novel mounts a critique of his nationalism based on ideas of divinity
The erotic: test of his power (control over women/control over life)
Bimala
confirms his power (even as he is servile towards her)
Masculinity at the heart of his nationalism
Lives on Nikhil’s patronage—does not “work”
Confronts his lack through violenceSlide15
Subordinate characters
Figure of Miss
Gilby
: transnational feminism
Brought in by Nikhil to teach
Bimala
and to be her companion
“I had never bothered myself before whether Miss
Gilby
was European or Indian, but I began to do so now. I said to my husband, ‘We must get rid of Miss
Gilby
’.
“I cannot look upon Miss
Gilby
through a mist of abstraction, just because she is English” (28).
Panchu
and
Mirjan
: challenge the self-absorbed nationalism of
Sandip
; problems of livelihood and social difference