Justify the title of the story ‘The Wife’s Letter’.
Justify the title of the
story ‘The Wife’s Letter’.
Ans. The journal ‘Sabujpatra’
(The Green Leaf) was launched in 1914 on the eve of Rabindranath’s birthday, 25
Vaishakh (usually 8th May) by Pramatha Choudhuri, married to Poet’s
niece Indira Debi Choudhuri. Out of ten remarkable short stories that the poet
wrote for ‘Sabujpatra’ ‘The Wife’s Letter’ had occupied an important position
due to its intellectual inner perception and irony and symbols. The story sets
out to free the self from the tyranny of conformity.
Standing on the shore of the vast ocean Mrinal comes to know
the truth, the truth which was so long caged in the darkening rooms at number
27, Makhan Baral Lane.
She is capable of breaking the family cord and finds the path eternal ;
“Mirabai too was a woman like me. Her fetters were not light
either, but she did not need to die in order to live.”
If Mrinal would come out from the boundary of family life out
of anger it would be unjust. She responds to the call of life.
Through the letter Mrinal declares openly her quest for self or
the discovery of self. She had to take the confined family life. During fifteen
years’ toil and moil she can not find relief. Her soul was chained. She in
every pause of life protests against the tradition, tries to express her
individuality and struggles hard to establish her identity. The result of those
was the conflict. This conflict gives birth a revolt and Mrinal abandons her
family and sojourns to discover herself to begin a free life where she could
draw forth the cool air of life.
It was Bindu who was responsible to open the eyes of Mrinal.
Bindu was the sister of Mrinal’s elder sister-in-law. After the death of her
widowed mother Bindu was driven by her cousins. She gradually became infatuated
with Mrinal and Mrinal loved her like a mother. Sometimes Bindu’s love made her
uneasy but “that love made me glimpse a true image of myself, one that I had
never seen before. This was the image of my free self.” The suicide of Bindu
made Mrinal to cross her limits, the ties for which she could not free herself.
The death of Bindu opened a new vista to Mrinal. She finally won the game of
representing her existence.
Mrinal through a letter describes her new journey for a new
life as well as her efforts to establish her identity. Moreover the letter
helps the reader to understand the female psychology and the true picture of
women’s quarter of the then time. Mrinal sketches the characters from her own
point of view and probes deep into their psychology also. Moreover what we can
not speak face freely we can write down them. Thus Mrinal through the letter
makes her husband to know those which she perhaps could not utter before him.
So the title is the manifesto of the central character and hence apt.
Comments
Post a Comment