"No, Let It Be": A Psychological Study of Female Interiority, Desire, and Self-Assertion Across Novels, Stories, and Plays of Tagore

Abstract

The literary works of Rabindranath Tagore have long been read in terms of his idealised heroines, the self-sacrificing Chitra, the transcendental Nandini, the radiant Sumitra, the compassionate Aparna, the devotional Srimati, and the introspective Prakriti; these women sacrifice themselves for love, family, nation, devotion, etc. In this paper, I propose a counter-reading, an investigation of an equivalent, less acclaimed and psychologically more complex group of Tagorean women: Binodini (Chokher Bali), Charulata (Nastanirh), Mrinal (Strir Patra), Bimala (Ghare Baire), Mrinmoyee (Samapti), and Giribala. These womenfolk are not willing to give themselves up to men, ideals, and institutions. In its place, they claim themselves, insist on emotional and intellectual recognition, bargain desire on their conditions and, in the face of rejection, prefer to leave rather than to dissipate. The paper, based on object-relations theory of Winnicott, Horney, Gilligan’s feminist psychology, and postcolonial discourse of gender, contends that Tagore engaged in a long-term literary experimentation of what would later be theorised by Abraham Maslow as self-actualisation, a need of human personhood to be acknowledged as not a function but a self. The paper also argues that Tagore himself is ambivalent about these women; his somewhat hesitant regret at the conclusion of Chokher Bali, his structured portrayal of Bimla’s harassment, has shown not misogyny but rather the tension of a writer whose imagination exceeded his historical time. This is a contribution to Tagore studies, feminist literary criticism and psychology of literary character.