Rabindranath Tagore Was the First

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian writer to receive a Nobel Price and one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Bengalese by origin, many of his stories and novels are a reflection of the Indian society of the 20th century, of the conflict between traditionalism and modernism, between nationalism and the Western civilization and of the woman's role in the Indian society.

The novel "The Home and the World" lies very much on the same facture, with an accurate description of the Indian society of the times and an interesting perspective on the personality and evolution of the main characters involved, Bimala, Bimala's husband, Nikhil, and Bimala's mentor, Sandip. The main characters follow a linear transformation, but the most spectacular one is Bimala's, who turns from the obedient, traditional Indian wife to an outright protester against her husband's beliefs, a serious contester of his philosophy.

The story itself is organized as three different stories, from three different point-of-views: Bimala's, Nikhil's and Sandip's, each with their own perspective, each with their own philosophical ideas and their conception about life. It is useful to lay out a brief description of each character in part.

On one hand, we have Bimala, the wife. Married to Nikhil without being of extraordinary beauty or intelligence, the mediocre type, she lives with her husband and her husband's relatives. The image we have at the beginning is that of an obedient, humble wife. For example, as a sign of deep care and humility, she dusts her husband's feet each morning: "I distinctly remember after my marriage, when, early in the morning, I would cautiously and silently get up and take the dust of my husband's feet without waking him."

This is revelatory for her behavior, as well as the shame she feels when her husband does wake up. Worship is the key word here: "it was my woman's heart, which must worship in order to love." The wife knows how to attend to the household duties and she has no desire to move into the city or to adopt Occidental views and beliefs. Her duties are only towards her husband.

I have given this brief description of Bimala in order to point out towards the fact that she is a true Indian wife, in the old traditional way, in the same traditional way that burns the wife of the deceased with him after he is gone. Her mind is locked to any worldly stimulus (this seems most interesting in the title of the book: the female character migrates from home, her only universe in the beginning of the book, to the world, immediately after Sandip's arrival).

Nikhil, on the other hand, is a liberal, well-educated Indian, an Indian that has not been living in the traditional Indian way and that has adopted a Western education, with a Bachelor Degree and a Master Degree obtained in Calcutta. Although he "could not break completely with the old-time traditions which prevailed in our family," he was, nevertheless, an Indian that had adopted many of the Western habits and that was treating his wife more like his equal than many others.

In my opinion, Nikhil's character makes the connection between "The Home and the World" and "Banjo" by Claude McKay. Born in Jamaica, in 1860, Claude McKay spent most of his life in the United States, absorbing and analyzing the different traits of character of the African-American population. A significant contributor to the realist American Negro novel, as well as a fighter for the rights of the black population, he makes a strong tie between education and emancipation. In fact, he believes in education as the only possible mechanism and direction towards the emancipation of the African-American population.

The tragedy is that this mechanism has serious flaws and these are presented, coming to life, in his novel "Banjo." The significant flaw is that the educated negroes are more than happy to have an education, but they are less available after receiving it to actually use it for the interest of their people. This is the actual issue in "Banjo," even if expressed often as an anecdote. The overall individualistic perspective of the educated African - American society is a direct cause for the underexploitation of the advantages that may have derived from an increased overall level of education among this category of citizens.

Vous etes une bande perdue, vous, les noirs instruits" - you are a lost bunch, you, the educated Negroes. This seems to me the key phrase of the entire novel. In Claude McKay's belief, education should be one of the most important ways by which you can help your people obtain a better life. Even more than this, you are bound and, somehow, obligated to respect this, because you were lucky to be one of those who could enjoy an education. It is a debt that you have to repay to your people, who has suffered and has chosen you to represent their interest.

What is the educated Negro's respond to this? Claude McKay again tells us rather bluntly: "You receive a white man's education and you learn how to despise your own people." Remarkable! Not only is there no intention of repaying the debt, not only is there no moral obligation recognized to use the education received in order to help and lead the people towards an emancipated form of life, it becomes a way of becoming like the white society. It is a mean and a mechanism to further prosper as an individual and not to help the cause. Even more so, many blacks used the education they had obtained as a mean to "look down on the other blacks."

In my opinion, this is the connection between the two novels: education and the role education plays in each case. In "The Home and the World," we have Nikhil, the educated, young Indian. Instead of being an action man, instead of leading his people and instead of implementing the philosophy of a strong person (as we should admit that education should make a person stronger), instead of passing on to his fellow Indians some of the learning, his philosophy is that of renouncing. Giving up goods and giving away money, he insists on the idea that people can live better if they are given the material possibility to do so. However, his renunciation philosophy not only partially makes him appear weak, but also gives out the same image of the educated individual who was able to be provided for and gain several degrees at the university, but prefers to use this education for his own individual gain. In the "Banjo," it was a material and social gain. In "The Home and the World," it is a spiritual and philosophical gain, similarly blamed. Tagore makes a note out of his character as a person who is not socially and politically implicated and, even more, engaged.

Somewhat differently are things with Sandip. He uses his knowledge to bring change to the Indian people. However, the way he does this is not beneficial and he ends up hurting the people he was supposed to emancipate. He is the other extreme of non-implication. In my opinion, there are three possible levels referred to in the two novels by which education can be used.

The first level is presented in "Banjo" and this refers to the African-American population who not only does not believe in education as a way towards emancipation and refuse to use it as such, but apply it as a mean to look down on the people they belong to. The second level is the Nikhil level in "The Home and the World." This is the educated character who does not believe in social engagement and uses education as a mean towards his own redemption. Finally, we have the Sandip level. This is the extreme solution, applied by the principle that the people do not understand what is good for them and, as such, they should be forcefully persuaded to follow the means that others, more educated have discovered and are implementing.