Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature

An international peer-reviewed open-access journal [ISSN: 0975-8828]

Volume 9 – Number 2 – April 2018

Emancipation of Women in Tagore’s The Wife’s Letter

Dr. Sresha Yadav Nee Ghosh
[ELTAI Donor Member – 30010794]
Assistant Professor, IIIT-Naya Raipur, Naya Raipur- 493661, India
Email: [email protected]

Received: 16 March 2018 Peer-reviewed: 10 April 2018 Resubmitted: 11 April 2018

Accepted: 18 April 2018 Published Online: 30 April 2018

ABSTRACT
Rabindranath Tagore’s fictional oeuvre, especially the collection of his short stories, paints a
vivid picture of the emancipation of women in the nineteenth-century colonial Bengal. His
writings not only voice the pathos and sufferings of the female protagonists but also act as an
interface to liberate them from the oppressive social bondage. His women characters’ struggle to
break the barriers of patriarchal social conventions is well represented in his short stories. His
women characters are intelligent, educated, and at par equal to their male counterparts. They
break the conventional set of rules laid by the society and find a way to emancipate from social
restrictions. Hence, this paper attempts to explore and analyse, from a feminist perspective,
Tagore’s contribution to the liberation of women with reference to his women characters in his
short story, The Wife’s Letter.
KEYWORDS
Emancipation; liberate; predicament; feminist

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was volunteered by Raja Rammohan Ray and

born in Calcutta and was the youngest of Ishvar Chandra Vidyasagar. They raised their
Debendranath Tagore and Sarada Devis’ voices against widow immolation and
fourteen children. He was born into a wealthy sanctioning of widow marriage. (Zafar 2014).
Brahmin family and inherited the culture of Moreover, “a literary revolution” pioneered by
liberated humanist ideals of Brahmo Samaj. At Bankimchandra and a “nationalist movement
the age of seventeen, he was sent to England against the colonial rule” during this era
by his father to study law. While in England, impacted his writings to a large extent (Ray
Tagore was not enthused to pursue a career in 2010). Tagore’s contemporary scenario of
law and returned to India to pursue a career of nineteenth-century colonial Bengal greatly
his own choice. He pursued his career as a influenced his writings by evoking empathy
writer and poet and was honoured with Nobel and social consciousness not only towards
Prize for Literature in the year 1913. uprooting social evils but especially towards
In the nineteenth-century colonial women emancipation. Be it the novels/short
Bengal, various patriarchal ideologies stories he has written or the poems/plays he
governing the lives of women were gradually has created, or the artworks he has sketched, a
challenged by many social reforms vivid picture of the women related social

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issues were put forth before the inhabitants of I understand that I also have other
Young Bengal. His writings not only voice the relationships, with the world and the
pathos and sufferings of the female World-keeper. So I find the courage to
protagonists but also act as an interface to write this letter. This is not the letter
liberate them from the oppressive social from your family’s Mejo-Bou. Not from
bondage. His portrayal of female characters the second wife. (Tagore 1)
and their predicaments to break the She says that since birth she has been a
patriarchal social conventions is well victim of the patriarchal society and being
represented through his short stories. As oppressed by the social norms of the then
rightly asserted, Tagore’s representation of prevailing patriarchal society. Referring to one
female characters in his short stories depicts such incident, she says that once during her
three facets of women’s lives, “i.) the romance childhood days she and her brother both had
between men and women, ii) social suffered from typhoid fever. Unable to cope,
oppression of women …iii) the birth of the – her brother died and her parents and
new woman- that is, a woman who challenges neighbours said that “Mrinal is a girl, that’s
convention and seeks to make decisions about why she lived. If she’d been a boy, she couldn’t
her own life”. (Ray 69) have been saved. Jom-Raj is wise in his deadly
This paper attempts to explore and robbery: he only takes things of value” (Tagore
analyze Tagore’s contribution to liberate his 1).
female characters in one of his selected short Narrating some of her experiences,
stories—The Wife’s Letter from a feminist Mrinal voices out the patriarchal oppressions
perspective. His female characters are she faced as a ‘Mejo-Bou’ in her in-law’s house.
intelligent, educated, and at par equal to their She mentioned how her in-laws raised a
male counterparts. They break the question about her parental lineage when she
conventional set of rules laid by the society used to take care of cattle in the cowshed,
and find a way to emancipate from social “they say—all cowherds” (Tagore 2).
restrictions. Unearthing the next episode of her life, giving
“The Wife’s Letter” is a story written by birth to her daughter, she says “I had the grief
Tagore in an epistle form. Mrinal, the of becoming a mother, but not the freedom”
protagonist, has written a letter to her (Tagore 2). She felt isolated and grieved when
husband by addressing him as “auspicious they confined her to a small room after she
lotus-feet” (Tagore 1). She calls Husband as gave birth to a baby girl, who dies at birth.
auspicious lotus feet as it refers a general Even the English doctor who’s taking care of
cultural practice in Bengal that “a wife in Mrinal was surprised by entering that dark
Bengal cannot utter her husband’s name as and dingy room. Further, she questions her
this is both impolite and unlucky” (Lal 2010). husband, if this is the general practice of their
She finds the courage to write a letter to her family then it is better to let women suffer and
husband and narrates a story of her journey neglect than to show love and affection to
from childhood to marriage and her sufferings them which in turn worsen their sufferings.
first as a daughter then as a wife. She claims Mrinal is not only beautiful but also
that she is not writing the letter as a Mejo-Bou intelligent and loves to write poems secretly
of the family but as Mrinal herself. She says: which she considers the only window to her
I am Mejo-Bou, the second bride in freedom, where she can find her true self. But
your joint family. Today, fifteen years her husband never recognizes that Mrinal
later, standing at the edge of the ocean, writes a poem. Expressing her mental agony

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she says that in all these fifteen years no one an ancestral custom to conduct a wedding at
has ever cared about her true self, no one groom’s place. Mrinal’s in-laws have arranged
knew that she is a poet. She tells her husband Bindu’s wedding to a mentally challenged
that “I had beauty, it didn’t take you long to person and on the very next day of her
forget. But you were reminded, every step of wedding, she comes back to Mrinal for
the way, that I also had intelligence” (Tagore protection. However, Mrinal failed to rescue
2). Through this particular incident, Tagore and protect Bindu. She is oppressed by the
voices his genuine concern about women’s patriarchal norms being put forth by husband
freedom of expression. He tries to portray that and in-laws. Finally, Bindu was sent to her
during that particular contemporary period it husband’s house. Unable to cope with her
was unacceptable for a woman to freely mentally-challenged husband, Bindu
express herself in the boundaries of committed suicide, she sets fire to her clothes
patriarchal spaces. He firmly believes that and killed herself. This particular episode of
women can only be emancipated if we provide Bindu’s immolation, left Mrinal devastated.
education to them. They need to express She blamed herself for Bindu’s death, that it
themselves freely and thus think beyond the was her fault that she couldn’t save and
boundaries of patriarchal spaces. protect Bindu from the clenches of patriarchal
Unable to cope with the mental agony societal norms. Thus, she takes a stern step
resulted from the confines of patriarchal and left her husband’s place to seek solace in
oppression, Mrinal finds peace and harmony Puri. At the end of the letter, she says,
in mentoring the hapless orphan, Bindu, her “Removed from the shelter of your feet”
elder sister –in-law’s sister. She tries to (Tagore 12).
protect and preserve Bindu. Both developed a
bond of eternal love and friendship. Mrinal Conclusion
admits that Bindus’ love and affection for her Tagore’s empathetic representation of
reminds her true self, she says “I used to be Mrinal’s helplessness in Bindu’s death and her
angry at her, but through her love, I saw a side stern step of determination to leave her
of myself that I’d never seen before. It was my husband’s house makes us feel empathetic
true self, my free self” (Tagore 5). Mrinal’s in- towards the status of contemporary women of
laws arranged for Bindu’s wedding and they that period. In this present short story, Tagore
want Bindu to leave their household as early impersonates his voice through the character
as possible. They have fixed the wedding in a of Mrinal and raises some of the important
hurry and have arranged all the rituals at questions by challenging the societal norms of
groom’s place. Mrinal wanted the wedding to that period. “The Wife’s Letter” acknowledges
be conducted at their own house but all personal space and voice of freedom for the
opposed to her decision by saying that it was contemporary women.

WORKS CITED
Lal, Malashri. “Tagore, Imaging the ‘Other’: Reflections on The Wife’s Letter & Kabuliwala.”Asian
and African Studies. XIV. 1 (2010): 1-8. Print.
Tagore, Rabindranath. The Wife’s Letter (Translated from Bengali by Prasenjit Gupta), 2009.
Web 15 Feb 2018. https://www.parabaas.com/translation/database/translations
/stories/gStreerPatra1.html
Ray, Bharati. “New Women in Rabindranath Tagore’s Short Stories: An Interrogation of
Laboratory.” Asiatic. 4. 2 (2010): 68-80. Print.

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Zafar, Manmay. “Social Reform in Colonial Bengal Revising Vidyasagar.” Philosophy and Progress
LV.LVI (2014):109-120. Print.

Dr Sresha Yadav nee Ghosh is an Assistant Professor of English, HSS Discipline, IIIT-NR. Prior
to joining IIIT-NR, she was an Assistant Professor at GITAM University, Bangalore. She has
qualified UGC-NET and received MHRD IIT Roorkee scholarship assistance during her Ph.D.
research. She has published several research articles in edited books and reputed MLA indexed
journals. She is a member of Melow-India and ELTAI. She can be reached at
[email protected]

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