Exploring Gender in the Selected Short Stories of Rabindranath Tagore

Abstract

Human societies, since the time immemorial, have always tended to assign different roles, codes of behavior and morality, and even different feelings and thoughts to men and women based on the biological distinction of sex (between male and female) thereby leading to the construction of the social distinction of gender (between masculine and feminine). As a literary genre, short story developed in the 19^th century and by the end of 20^thcentury occupied the role as one of the major literary forms. In the field of academia and literary circles, Rabindranath Tagore is mainly known as a bard, thinker, philosopher, painter and social activist but few know the first Asian Nobel laureate Tagore as a feminist, with gender issues forming the underlying theme in many of his works. Rabindranath Tagore is one of those pioneer short story writers whose writings reflect maturity. He is regarded as one of the progressive modern Indian short story writers. Tagore has been very successful in depicting woman psychology in his short stories and has made very scathing comments against gender suppression. The focus of this paper will be on the female protagonist of the short stories titled, “A Wife’s letter†and “Musolmanir Galpo†or “The story of a Muslim Woman,†by Tagore that how they remained unperturbed although the society in which they lived were dominated by male patriarchal norms and in what ways they have been successful in protecting their rights thereby becoming the champions for women mainly through their progressive thought, courage, and determination.