Yesha Bhatt Department of English M. K. Bhavnagar University

1. The Home and
The World

2. Rabindranath Tagore – 1861 - 1941
 A Bengali polymath who worked as a poet,
writer, playwright, composer, philosopher,
social reformer and painter.
 He reshaped Bengali literature and music as
well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of
the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful"
poetry of Gitanjali
 1913 - the first non-European and the first
lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
 His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and
essays spoke to both topics political and
personal

3. The Home and The World– 1916
 Originally was in Bengali - Ghare Baire
 The battle Tagore had with himself, between
the ideas of Western culture and revolution
against the Western culture.
 Set in early 20th century India
 National Independence Movement – 1905
Partition of Bengal – Swadeshi Movement
 Ancient India - modern-day India.
 Personal struggle of all three characters
 Character development of Bimala –
Womanhood

4. Bimala
• Womanhood – Both ways – Home - World
• Psychological growth of Bimala
• Beginning and end of the story
• Impact of Sandip’s revolutionary ideas
• Represents traditional Indian Culture
• Image of Mother India – Bengal - Bimala
• “Men can only think. Women have a way
of understanding without thinking. Woman
was created out of God's own fancy. Man,
He had to hammer into shape.”

5. Nikhil and Sandip
• ‘Enlightened, introspective, upper-
caste young zamindar’
• Ideological
• Alternative conception of
masculinity
• A modern husband – not
passionate
• Moderate one
• Represents balanced ideology of
Home and the world
• Rationalism than Nationalism
• Charismatic swadeshi
• A fiery nationalist leader
• The mainstream aggressive
• A passionate leader and
lover
• Extreme one
• Talks about home more but
indulged with world
• Nationalism for personal
benefit - intoxicant political
views

6. Gender
• Questions of women’s choices and desires.
• The novel in a way tried to construct a new
kind of conjugality based on the recognition of
equality of men and women. (Bimala was
conservative and Nikhil was modern)
• “It was difficult for me to ignore the fact that
the same month of August had come round
again this year. Does Bimala remember it, I
wonder? —she has given me no reminder.
Everything is mute about me”. – Nikhil
• Tagore’s ‘new woman’ – Educated,
sophisticated and loud – public life – still lives
in limited sphere (provided not gained)
• Women’s dependence on men should not be
seen as an obstruction to their liberty rather it
is to be viewed as an act of Dharma or greater
morality.

7. • Both male protagonists tried to construct Bimala. They tried to treat Bimala as
their extended colony where each in a way created their own sphere of
influence and expected Bimala to act in accordance to their wishes.
• Tagore tried to project that nationalism in whichever form is practiced, ultimately
lands up in pursuing own self-interest, be it a nation or an individual.
• Tagore’s disregard for nationalism and strong recommendation in favor of
cosmopolitanism finds an underlying manifestation through the novel.
• Book represents Failure of Indian nationalism to accept tradition and modernity,
home and the world, together.
• The nationalist imagination will be gained by going beyond every form of ideological
prejudice and separation, and by synthesizing every conceivable value that could
be useful for the development and maintenance of the nation
• Conflicts within the Indian Congress - divisions within the movement: the extremists
and the moderates

8. Tradition v/s Modernity
• Active involvement of the colonizers in the
cultural, economic and administrative life of the
colonized.
• Ghare Baire has questioned the stereotyped
mainstream conjugality of the then Bengali
society which may be relevant even now.
• “Female virtue” connected with “home” became a
central point in nationalist thinking – Women –
Educated, British culture
• It is the British policy to barbarise Indian culture
and decorate it with Western techniques and
modernity – The Home and the World
• An inappropriate hybridity of so-called modernity
and flimsy intellectual abilities in uneducated
women – Bimala
• “Tradition” (women’s virtues built by the
nationalist projects) and “colonialism” (the echo
of modernity).

9. Political novel
• The Swadeshi background of Tagore’s novel
• Nationalism as ‘emotional factor’ rather than ‘economical’
• Bimala deifies nationalist terms and ideologies like a religious follower
deifies her God
• Political thoughts, confrontations and problems
• National uprising of 1905, particularly in Bengal – repercussions – the
dangers of political extremism
• Sandip’s catchy, agitative speeches and the reckless burning of foreign
clothes at his incitement
• Negative aspect of the movement, which had been given birth by sincere
patriotic thoughts.
• India versus India
• “You should not waste even the tenth part of your energy in the destructive
excitement.” - Nikhil

10. Narrative technique
• First person point of view
• Each narrator shares his/her own feelings
and thoughts
• Individual perspective towards other
characters
• Conversations – readers can get
thoughts
• Story telling technique
• Involvement (background) of Swadeshi
Movement and struggle of people
• Interaction, thoughts, judgments by
different narrators

11. Thank You