Indian English Literature - Pre Independence
Paper - 201
Name - Nehalba Gohil
Roll no - 15
Enrollment no - 4069206420210009
Email ID - nehalbagohil26@gmail.com
Batch - 2021 - 23
MA - sem 3
Submitted to - S.B. Gardi Department of English M.K Bhavnagar University.
The Home and the world by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore's novel The Home and the World (1916) is set in India during the early twentieth century, a time when England still held power over the country. Tagore writes each chapter from the perspective of either Nikhil, Bimala, or Sandip to reflect the political turmoil and lack of unity in India at the time the novel is set.
The Home and the World is set during the height of the Swadeshi movement, a boycott of British goods that was initiated in 1905 as a protest against Great Britain’s arbitrary division of Bengal into two parts. At first, Tagore was one of the leaders of Swadeshi, but when protests evolved into violent conflicts between Muslims and Hindus, Tagore left the movement. In The Home and the World, he explained why he did not approve of what Swadeshi had become.
Summary :-
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore is an interesting allegory of Indian politics in the early twentieth century. As a means of encouraging his wife, Bimala, to emerge into the outer world, Nikhil introduces her to Sandip, an active leader in the Swadeshi movement. Bimala soon becomes immersed in the revolutionary fervour of Swadeshi and finds herself torn between the duties of home and the world. The Home and the World is a tragic example of the conflict between realism and idealism.
Though Nikhil and Bimala enjoy a peaceful marriage, Nikhil wants her to enter the outer world, believing their love is true only if they recognize one another in the outer world. When Bimala attends a Swadeshi rally led by Sandip Babu, she insists he visit Nikhil's estate. Bimala and Sandip are attracted to one another, so Sandip decides to make his headquarters at the estate.
Bimala becomes intimately involved with the Swadeshi movement because of her desire to work with Sandip. Sandip is obviously interested in Bimala, and Bimala begins to question her marriage to Nikhil because Sandip represents everything she wants in a man. At Sandip's request, Bimala steals 6000 rupees from Nikhil's safe for the Cause, but Sandip's subsequent behavior makes her feel torn as though she is two people, one who is appalled by Sandip and one who is attracted to him.
Though Nikhil is distraught at losing Bimala, he grants her the freedom to choose her own life. Guilt-ridden about her theft, Bimala sends Amulya, a young disciple of Sandip's, to sell her jewels so she can replace the 6000 rupees, but instead, Amulya steals the money from Nikhil's treasury. Nikhil forgives Bimala's deceit, causing her to realize her husband is the one who truly loves her. When there is a Swadeshi riot in Bengal, Sandip flees the city while Nikhil goes into town to try to calm matters. Nikhil is shot in the head, and Amulya is killed by a bullet through his heart.
Characters :-
Bimala
Bimala is the protagonist of the novel. She arguably undergoes the most transformation in the story, beginning as a devoted worshiper of her husband until Sandip appears. She realizes she is bored of her husband and is easily seduced by the passionate Sandip, though she consistently feels shame for this and occasionally longs to feel the way she once did about her husband. She discovers Sandip’s treachery and manipulation when he convinces her to steal money from her husband and ultimately grows to feel personally empowered when she rejects Sandip and admits to stealing Nikhil’s money. As the story progresses, she takes on different ideological stances, experimenting with Sandip’s ways of thinking, but ultimately develops a moderate way of thinking somewhere in between her husband’s moral humanist and Sandip’s Machiavellian approaches to life.
Nikhil :-
Nikhil is Bimala’s well-to-do husband, a merchant who owns an estate and two marketplaces in Bengal. He is educated and described as “modern” and progressive in his outlook. He sees his wife as his equal, and he would go to great pains to see her happy, even if that means her leaving him. As the story progresses, he begins to feel as though he is not enough for his wife. As a result, he grows more and more melancholy, distancing himself from her and focusing on improving himself as he anticipates her leaving. Nikhil is a humanist, and he sees dignity in all people, even his enemies. Such a view allows him to be taken advantage of, such as by his sister and Sandip. Nikhil’s humanist stance also prevents him from siding with one particular faction; he sees value in both traditionally Indian and English ways of thinking. This becomes problematic for him as the story progresses, because his inability to explicitly denounce European colonialism leads some to think he sides with European colonialism. Similarly, his humanist stance is problematic in that it leads to low self-worth. Nikhil rarely asserts himself when people take advantage of him because he often feels he has no power or right to his own possessions or thoughts.
Sandip :-
Sandip is an Indian revolutionary driven by his passions. Early in the story, he comes to live with Bimala and Nikhil, despite the fact that he disagrees a great deal with Nikhil’s notion of an Indian revolution. If Nikhil represents temperance and logic, Sandip represents extreme thought and passion. He is a Machiavellian or even Nietzschean figure, believing that certain individuals stand outside the purview of normal justice or righteousness; truly great figures, he believes, do not show justice or sympathy but take what they are owed by the world. He sees some of his own passion and beliefs about reclaiming India in Bimala, and he intends to seduce her both as his political counterpart and lover, but his compunctions prevent him from acting on the latter. Although he is skilled in maintaining composure during philosophical arguments, he does not like to feel powerless or foolish, and this is shown when he grows angry as Bimala begins to pull away from him after his initial seduction of her.
Bara Rani :-
Rani is the widowed sister of Nikhil. She resents Bimala for marrying her brother and is manipulative and vindictive toward her. Throughout the story, she finds ways to insult or provide backhanded compliments to Bimala on a regular basis. She also orchestrates events designed to frustrate or anger Bimala. She further seems to take advantage of her brother’s kindness, taking money and gifts from him while knowing that he will not retaliate for her treatment of Bimala. In the final chapter, Nikhil realizes that this resentment is because she has no relationships or friendships with anyone other than Nikhil. Still, by the end of the story, it seems that Bimala and Raini have developed a fragile understanding of one another. Once Bimala acts subserviently to Rani, the backhanded compliments become fewer, and Rani even wants to help celebrate Bimala’s birthday. Even after this, there is still tension in the relationship, and Rani ultimately blames Bimala for sending Nikhil to the Muslim uprising at the end of the story.
Chandranath Babu :-
Chandranath is Nikhil’s schoolmaster. Both Chandranath and Nikhil believe in giving people individual freedoms over dogmatic doctrines, such as swadeshi. He regularly gives Nikhil advice. Like Nikhil, his principled way of thinking alienates him from those he is trying to help. For instance, while he provides Panchu with a loan and a home, Panchu ultimately loses respect for Chandranath, because Chandranath does not ultimately help him to reach a better place in life.
Panchu :-
Panchu is a destitute older man who lives in Bengal selling found trinkets for food. Nikhil sometimes tries to help him monetarily and provide him advice, but there is little that Nikhil can do to fix Panchu’s situation. As the story progresses, Panchu experiences greater and greater degrees of abuse at the hands of both landowners and people tied to the swadeshi movement. Panchu may be seen as a metaphor for India itself, which loses when polarized factions are fighting for its loyalty.
Amulya :-
Amulya is a disciple of Sandip. He plays an important role in the second half of the story, as he both adopts and exhibits the implications of Sandip’s thinking. He has no qualms, for instance, in suggesting that he and Bimala kill a cashier for six thousand rupees. As Bimala takes a more maternal or sisterly role toward him, she is able to convince him of Sandip’s villainy, and he attempts to reform himself and renounce Sandip’s extreme views.
Themes:-
Moderation versus Extremism
Throughout the novel, characters like Chandranath and Nikhil almost religiously ascribe to moderation in all facets of life, whereas characters like Bimala and Sandip take more extreme approaches. For instance, early in the story, Bimala wants to burn her foreign dresses in solidarity with the Swadeshi movement. Nikhil suggests that she should simply store them away and focus on building up something rather than destruction, but Bimala responds that the excitement of destruction will help them build. This exchange seems to sum up the main conflict in the story: Nikhil attempts to make change through slow progress and moderation, whereas Sandip’s philosophy is to take through bloodshed what he believes to be rightfully his. This is also seen when Sandip talks about poetry versus prose. He says that Nikhil is interested in poetry, which deals in the world of abstractions and ideals. Poetry can also be interpreted in various ways. On the other hand, Sandip talks about prose as weapons that will help them attain their goal. There is no room for relativity or other opinions in Sandip’s approach.
Tradition versus Progressivism :-
The Home and the World also explores the theme of tradition versus progressivism. This story takes place in the early 1900s during the height of British colonialism, when India was just beginning to reclaim its independence from the British. In the story, Nikhil’s approach to resistance anticipates Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement, which was a form of civil disobedience while building up Indian infrastructure. This is seen in Nikhil’s own investment of money into Indian banks or when Bimala offers to burn her British clothes early in the story, when she is still aligned with her husband’s ways of thinking. Burning clothes was also a form of emerging nonviolent protest at the time. We might say that this less passionate approach, driven by symbols, politics and economy, aligns with a postcolonial way of thinking.
The Roles of Women in Society :-
Throughout the novel, there are various statements about women and the roles they occupy, many of them conflicting and potentially troubling. Early in the text, Bimala becomes a kind of “everywoman” as Sandip calls her the Shakti of the country—that is, someone who represents femininity in India altogether. Bimala’s feelings toward Sandip become complicated, and even as she grows to detest him, his charismatic nature often forces her to doubt herself. Women’s roles are frequently framed in terms of the idea of subservience: while Bimala’s husband wants her to be his equal, she feels she must worship him regardless of his “modern” views. It is additionally through subservience that she eventually reconciles with her sister-in-law, and she regularly bows to her husband and other men, taking the dust from their feet. It is unclear to what extent the novel—and Tagore—condone such a view of women’s roles.
Important to note is that many of the statements made in the text are from men’s point of view. In fact, it is Sandip, whose own opinions about women are notably misogynistic, who names Bimala the Shakti. He makes numerous troubling statements about women related to their impulsiveness and the idea that for a woman to truly be fulfilled, she must be giving to the men around her: “for men to accept is truly to give: for women to give is truly to gain.” In light of Sandip’s bigoted words, it seems Bimala represents his ideal of what a woman should be rather than an attempt to represent womanhood in general.
