Seven things to keep in mind about Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

  1. Born into a weathy Brahmin, landowner family (which had also fallen into some debt). It was a family that was already prominent intellectually and literarily.
  2. Bengal Renaissance--tried to hold onto the best asects of Hinduism while ridding the nation of the supersitious and (what they saw as) backwards elements. Positive elements would be the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, negative would be the practice of sati (widow burning), the rigid caste system, the worship of a thousand gods. Also, inclined to also accept from the west that which would make India stronger--technology, science, the English language--while rejecting elements from the west that seemed immoral and corrupt.
  3. Tagore becomes musician and composer (author of the national anthem of both India and Bangladesh), poet, short story writer, noelist, essayist, painter, and a competent table tennis player.
  4. Earns the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, primarily based of a book of mis-translated poems, Gitanjali. Supported by such writers as W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound.
  5. Knighted as a British Knight in 1916. Rejected the honor after the 1919 Amritsar Massacre in India.
  6. An early supporter of Gandhi--it was Tagore who gave him the title of Mahatma.
Family difficulties, including the suicide of his cherished sister-in-law when Tagore was 23, and also the death at a young age of 3 of his children and his wife.

"The Postmaster"

     In "The Postmaster we have themes of alienation and aloneness, of social stratification leading to further alienation, of the importance of family, of education. And the regretable fact of the difficulty of making the most important sand essential kinds of human connections.
     Elements of realism in his writing--the rather humble and even non-descript characters at the center of the story. I think it is possible to see continued strains of Romanticism in this story in particular--in the descriptions of nature and the way that nature becomes a kind of reflection of himan emotions. Look at the passage on 30-31.
     The joy of the story in the way the pair begin to share in each other's lives. The problem may be that most of this life is seen to have occired elsewhere, or in a different time. So it is that his family becomes the basis for quite a bit of what they share. And that her fondest mamory is a time spent, many years ago, with her brother. Why is it taht, despite what they share, he cannot recognize her as "a human figure that was the tender object of love"?
     There is a subtle commentary on class differences here, as despite what they share, he doesn't feel that there is a bond that he has to recognize, or that she would have feelings that he should take into consideration. It is only as he is inexorably bourne by the wind on the boat that will take him away from the village that he feels any sense of connection that we might expect.
    How might they have had a continuing relationship. As a servant that he would bring home with him to serve in his mother's house? As man and wife?

"The Conclusion"

    This Mrinmayi begins as one of the more interesting characters in literature. Does her eventual "taming" continue this idea that she is interesting to the modern reader (for whom a woman's chices are important, essential, sacrosanct)? Or has she merely been exposed to the harsh reality that a woman doesn't have any choices?
     What has made their relationship difficult in the first place? The social divisions between the two? The fact that she is precisely the kind of spirited independent woman that appeals to him (but makes for a poor servant/wife). The difference in their ages? His high regard for his self (his position, accomplishments, cosmopolitanism). Despite whatever faults we find in him, is there not something very admirable about him?

    What elements are shared by these stories? The unequal social position of the man in relationship to the woman/ man to the girl. A divide between the man with experience (the city) and the naive female (village/jungle). The force of tradition.