MODERN 20TH CENTURY INDIA

Modern 20th century India

Comparison between Rabindranath Tagore's book, "Home and the World" and Satyajit Ray's movie, "Home and the World"

Introduction

This paper will present an analysis and comparison of Rabindranath Tagore's book, "Home and the World" and Satyajit Ray's cinematic interpretation of it in "Home and the World”. Both the books, as well as the movie were a huge success of their time. The discussion given below, will give a clearer picture of comparison between the two different forms of Home and the World.

Discussion

The Home and the World is a famous book written by Rabindranath Tagore's in the year 1916. Allegories in the literary context may be simply defined as stories that attempt, through the use of their characters and events, to symbolize generalizations about reality or everyday life. In the case of The Home and the World, Tagore's tale could be read as an allegory of Bengalese nationalism. To label any text as allegorical is troublesome, as a large part of that allegorical nature is subject to the interpretation of the audience, who may recognize and attach greater significance to familiar traits, themes and events in the novel than the author does. In other words, texts such as Tagore's novel can only be nationalist allegories because even in the telling of stories pertaining to private individuals, there will always be the inescapable element of nationalism to be found somewhere within the text. From there, we may proceed to a closer analysis and examination of The Home and the World, in order to ascertain whether it deserves the label that has been so forcefully bestowed upon it (Zitrom, 2002).

If anything, allegory is achieved through the conceptualization of love and nationhood through the interplay between the three main characters, and the different approaches to nationalism espoused by each of them. Political stance, therefore, become inextricably intertwined with the relationships that are being threshed out as the story develops. For example, we may take the change that we observe in Bimala, from the traditionalist point of view she offers in the beginning to what transpires later on in the narrative (Ehrlich, 2004). To what extent is the change in her a result of Nikhil's attempts to modernize or alter the way she is through the introduction of Western influences? Each modulation of affection and change in the nature of relations between the three main characters entails a larger significance that can be related to the Bengalese struggle for national identity, and this is the very definition of a national allegory. Going by the tenets of his thesis, it would be impossible for us as an audience to even read Tagore's texts and the works of others from the 'Third World' without automatically tying in the stories being told to nationalism, in one way or another. And to some extent, in our consideration of this novel in situ at least, that thesis can be said to hold true (Wall, 2004).For example, even the institution of marriage and the conjugal ties that exist ...