University of Alberta

University of Alberta Indeterminacy in Rabindranath Tagore's Representation of Women and Minorities by Srabonee Mustafiz A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Department of English and Film Studies ©Srabonee Mustafiz Fall 2012 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. 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Canada Abstract This dissertation analyzes the position of women in Rabindranath Tagore's Gora and The Home and the World written in the early decades of twentieth century. Moreover, it examines the presentation of Muslim community in The Home and the World. I argue that though Rabindranath glorifies women and sympathizes with the Muslim minority, his novels marginalize them who were significant elements in the national space. Thus, Rabindranath's imagined national sphere is unsettled and questioned as a secular and equitable domain. Acknowledgement I am grateful to the Almighty for the blessings that always have been my strength to initiate, focus and complete a work. I am thankful to Professor Shyamal Bagchee for his constant supervision, advice and encouragement during the course of this research. Our countless hours of discussion have indeed enriched this work. I would like to extend my appreciation to the reader Professor Neil Dalai and the examiner Professor Onookome Okome for giving their time to go through my dissertation. I convey my thanks to Professor Teresa Zackodnik, Professor Corrinne Harol and Kim Brown for their support whenever I needed during my graduate program. I express my sincere gratitude to my parents, brother and sister-in-law, who helped me to keep confidence throughout the program. I am indebted to the department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta for providing me with financial support during my graduate program. I would also like to thank the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (FGSR) for the financial assistance provided by the Sarah Nettie Christie Travel Bursary. Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO The "New Women" and the Mother in Gora 12 2.1 Women in Gora: Literature Review 15 2.2 Theorizing women in Gora 24 2.3 Sucharita's Position in Gora 32 2.4 Anandamoyi's Position in Gora 45 2.5 Lolita's Position in Gora 58 CHAPTER THREE Bimala and the Muslim community in The Home and the World 67 3.1 Bimala's Reception: Literature Review 71 3.2 Indeterminacy in the Representation of Woman in The Home and the World ! 74 3.3 An Alternative View of the Muslim Minority in The Home and the World 92 Conclusion 105 Work Cited 107 1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction This dissertation focuses on the representation of women and the Muslim minority in Rabindranath Tagore's (1861-1941) political novels Gora and The Home and the World. Rabindranath1 wrote these novels in the early decades of the twentieth century when the stirring of nationalism in British India, particularly in Bengali society—Calcutta was considered the second capital of the British empire—took organized shape through the formation of political parties. In particular, the last half of the nineteenth century experienced the emergence of cultural nationalism reflected in the reformation of the indigenous Hindu religion, revitalization of the classical past of ancient India, modernization of Indian women, and experimentation with the native language as a literary channel. Some notable intellectuals and initiatives that contributed to the growth of nationalism in Bengal—or the Bengal renaissance—were Raja Rammohan Roy's reformed religious group Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath Tagore's Tattvabodhini Sabha and Tattvabodhini Patrika, Bankimchandra Chatterji's novels and Bangadarshan literary journal, Is war Chandra Vidyasagar's women-emancipation projects, and Swami Vivekananda's preaching of Hindu nationalism. Through these religious and social reform endeavors, associations, and literary attempts, the glorious past of Indian civilization was recreated, indigenous language and culture were appreciated, and ancient religion was reformed from prejudices and evil customs that often embarrassed native society in the eyes of its colonial master.2 Consequently, the cultural change in educated elite and middle-class intelligentsia 2 stimulated it to imagine a space, sovereign in its tradition and modern in its outlook. In other words, this space was the desired national space named India, which the intellectuals defined in various ways. Among them Rabindranath was an important figure. This dissertation explores how Rabindranath's two political novels—Gora and The Home and the World—feature indigenous women and the Muslim community in the national collectivity of India. One of the important aspects of cultural nationalism in nineteenth-century Bengal was the appearance of the novel as a literary genre in Bengali society. Even though appropriating the form from the West, the novels derived subject matters from native elements (R. Ray 67). For example, Bankimchandra Chatteiji's novels responded to cultural nationalism by presenting indigenous history, man-woman relationships, domesticity, philosophy of Hindu religion, and so on (S. Gupta 68-77). Rajat Kanta Ray writes: The Bengal Renaissance ... was the product of a characteristically home-grown blend of Western and traditional elements that was strikingly depicted in the Bengali fiction of the age. The renaissance and its fiction drew sustenance from a deeply indigenous realization of the nature of man, the nature of woman, and the dynamics of their interaction in a changing society which nonetheless remained firmly rooted in its identity. (67-68) In a situation like this—it can be easily surmised—novels portrayed an internal and external picture of Indian society, which formed a commonality different from its English rulers' by religion, language, tradition, history, and emotion. This 3 different and individual formation reflected the national consciousness of India as sensed by the novelists. Rajat kanta Ray's remark is relevant here: "There was not a single major novelist in Bengal, male or female, who was not a nationalist" (73). Likewise, the two narratives—Gora and The Home and the World— reflect the contemporary responsibility of a literary intellectual to imagine and distinguish a national (or individual) space. This dissertation examines the position of the major women characters and the Muslim minority in these two novels and argues that the texts exhibit the women uncertainly. As the products of a historical time of cultural nationalism and gender reformation, these two novels trace signs of women's emancipation—such as intellectual improvement, rational and liberal thinking, sexual freedom—and identify the importance of unity among indigenous religious communities. But while I read the texts, I sense an internal tension intervening them. The texts of these two novels, as this dissertation particularly argues, establish an unequal, often inferior

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