THE SOVEREIGN METAMORPHOSIS: SUMITRA AS A PARAMOUNT EXAMPLE OF FEMALE AUTHORITY IN TAGORE'S THE KING AND THE QUEEN (original) (raw)

ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN IN THE SELECTED PLAYS OF MANJULA PADMANABHAN, POILE SENGUPTA AND KISHWAR DESAI

IAEME PUBLICATION, 2024

This paper explores the portrayal and attitude towards women in the works of Manjula Padmanabhan, Poile Sengupta, and Kishwar Desai, eminent figures in Indian literature. Their stories mostly centre on the lives of women, questioning and challenging established gender conventions and prejudices in Indian culture. We identify a common theme of female empowerment and opposition to conventional patriarchal limitations via a thorough examination of the plays they chose. We witness a brave tale that criticises the monetization of the human body in a dystopian future in Manjula Padmanabhan's "Harvest." A testimony to Padmanabhan's belief that women are strong, resilient people is the female protagonist's capacity to take charge of her family and make important choices. Poile Sengupta's "Inner Laws," in contrast, is a psychological examination of an everyday housewife who struggles with patriarchal domination and social conventions. Sengupta's passion for understanding and embracing the diversity of women's emotional landscapes is reflected in the play's introspective examination of a woman's psyche and celebration of her resilience in the face of tragedy. We then review Kishwar Desai's whole corpus of work. Desai is mostly a writer, but her representations of women are important. Her stories often show women as strong, competent, and multifaceted characters who transcend stereotyped preconceptions. In conclusion, the works of Padmanabhan, Sengupta, and Desai stress women's empowerment while questioning patriarchal conventions and emphasising the emotional, psychological, and sociological experiences of women.

Rethinking Femininity: Tagore's Chitra and Divakaruni's Draupadi as Paradoxical Portrait of Traditional Submissiveness

Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature (JTREL)., 2024

This Paper delves into the nuanced exploration of femininity as portrayed in two distinct literary works: Rabindranath Tagore's Chitra and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's The Palace of Illusions. The paper critically examines the paradoxical nature of feminine roles depicted in these narratives, challenging conventional expectations and stereotypes. Tagore's Chitra and Divakaruni's Draupadi are analyzed as representations that subvert traditional notions of submissiveness, offering a multifaceted perspective on the complex nature of women's roles in society. The paper aims to provide insights into the authors' innovative approaches to rethinking femininity, inviting readers to reconsider preconceived ideas and fostering a deeper understanding of the diverse facets within the discourse of gender and identity.

A New Historical Criticism of the Heroines in Indian Drama

2016

Literature and history are inseparable as the influence of the one on the other is perennial. History of the past shapes the present Literature and it runs into the making of the future history in turn. The literary artist also either deliberately or inadvertently responds to the contemporaneous events of significance and also to the ideas prevalent in his or her society. Hence, theorizing the literature of all ages from historic view becomes a prudent choice. Drama, being the genre of humanity, records the socioeconomic political changes that changed the thematic convergence of modern literature. By realistically depicting the whole gamut of life, it stirred up the emergence of several theories such as feminism, eco-feminism, gender-criticism, humanism, etc. This article focuses on studying the evolution of the theory of Indian feminism in the backdrop of new-historicism. And, it also illustrates how this approach helps in the comprehensive understanding of the status of women as p...

Woman in Tales of Love, Sex and Danger; A Study of the Representation of Women in Tagore's Three 'Domestic Novels'

Muse India, 2015

The paper is about the story of man and woman in a country under foreign rule – about a nation and its rising nationalist consciousness, trying to come to terms with its political subjugation on one hand and its problematic negotiations with the ‘colonial modernity’ on the other. The ‘colonial’ brand of modernity was largely responsible changes in civic space, social modes of behaviour, emergence of ‘clock-time’, new kinds of economic activities and most importantly changing equations between the ‘home’ and the ‘world’ (ghar o bahir). These changes were happening throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century and its impact was still strongly felt in Bengal in the first half of the twentieth. The main focus of my paper, however, will be a study of the portrayal of Tagore’s ‘women’ (and the dynamics embedded in their relationships with men) in his three novels, Chokher Bali (1903), Chaturanga, (1916), Yogayog (1929). Critics most often pay attention to Tagore’s three other more celebrated novels, Gora (1909), Ghare Baire (1916) and Char Adhyay (1934). They single out these three novels, as his quintessentially ‘political’ novels where nationalist concerns and issues are dealt with in a consistent manner. But my contention is that alongside the three ‘political novels’, it is absolutely essential also to closely look into his three other major novels (which I wish to categorize as Tagore’s ‘domestic’ novels as opposed to the ‘political’ ones) in order to get the full picture.

Women, Gender and India: Reading Dattani's Bravely Fought the Queen

Ankur Konar ed. Discourses on Indian Drama in English. Kolkata: Avenel Press, 2013

For a playwright like Dattani, an authentic representation of the contemporary times through concerted theatrical ploys has been the chief concern. His acute and sensitive portrayal of contemporary India's dilemmas, hypocrisies, tensions and conflicts, especially of the marginalized people, have earned him a place among the foremost playwrights of the country, because and despite of, the language of his communication. In plays like Bravely Fought the Queen, Dattani 'takes up cudgels for women' and though amply critiqued and theorized, such texts always seem to open up positions for fresher inquiries and interpretations. This paper is an attempt to take a fresh look at such multiple and intersecting domains as women, contemporary India and gender constructions vis-àvis Bravely Fought the Queen.

Female Voice, Male Discourse and the Nation: A Study of Tagore's Three 'Political Novels'

Towards Tagore, 2014

In my paper I have tried to unravel the close and intricate relationship between the project of ‘nation building’ and the reformation-project of women in a ‘new age’ as it gets recorded in Tagore’ novels. My primary focus would be the portrayal of Tagore’s ‘women’ in his three 'political' novels, Gora (1909), Ghare Baire (1916) and Char Adhyay (1934). The ‘colonial’ brand of modernity was largely responsible for the changing equations between the ‘home’ and the ‘world’. My contention is that in these three novels the act of 'fashioning' (‘recovering’) a ‘self’ during the period of colonial subjugation is a very important motif as it runs through the twists and turns of the plots of the novels. These texts are a testimony of how the overtly ‘political’ issues get entwined with the act of 'self fashioning' and how the ‘troubled’ nature of the male ‘self’ of the colonized ‘subjects’ makes its mark on the man-woman relationship. The ‘private’ and even the ‘libidinal’ have a dialectical relationship with the ‘public’, and, therefore, with the ‘political’ in these novels.

RECONSTRUCTION OF WOMANHOOD IN TAGORE'S CHITRA: A STUDY IN STYLISTICS

LangLit, 2023

The Mahabharata tells stories of countless characters; varied are their personalities, as are the discourses surrounding them. The retellings of the epic or its select episodes, therefore, facilitate new interpretations, both of the stories and their characters. Similarly, Rabindranath Tagore's one-act play Chitra provides a new insight into the protagonist's character. Chitra, born a girl and raised as a 'prince', rediscovers her identity as a woman through her encounter and romantic relationship with Arjuna. This paper, by drawing upon theories of social construction of gender (West and Zimmerman 1987) and performativity (Butler 1990), seeks to trace how she asserts her identity as a woman and her sexuality, and how she redefines her womanhood, through a stylistic analysis of her final monologue in the play. The paper also attempts to understand how Tagore's language becomes instrumental in the formation of his heroine's gender identity and shows her gender as performative.

DEFYING THE CASTE AND CLASS HEGEMONY: A STUDY OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S PLAYS

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES (IJELR), 2021

Rabindranath Tagore's influence as a literary figure has been lauded internationally. Yet his ideas about Indian caste and class biases have received the least attention from historians. In his writings he was vocal about social and political issues, caste and class prejudice being one of them. During Tagore's formative years, caste was a factor to be reckoned with. The development of Tagore's ideas on caste and class issues kept getting more radical with time. Although himself a Brahmin he gradually came to realize the inhumanity of untouchability prevalent in Indian Hindu society. He could now see into the biasness of caste prerogatives and the social stagnation caused due to impermeability into irrational caste hierarchy. It is interesting to see how caste bias intersects with class hegemony as well. Tagore was overwhelmed by the economic, social and political misery in which the poor of society and peasants lived. He was deeply moved by the plight of the underdogs of society and stressed the need of making them aware of their exploitation at the hands of the powers that be. The present paper is a study of the theme of caste and class hegemony in his famous plays Natir Puja and Sanyasi. Both plays convey the message that a person must not be judged by his birth but by his deeds.