Tagore’s “Broken Nest”: Fantasy Vs Reality

Abstract

This story instantly takes us back to 1879 Calcutta to explore the seeds of India’s early movement for independence from England and to examine the restrictions placed on educated Indian women. It’s like Victorian England but instead it’s Victorian India in which a neglected wife, on the point of breaking through to self-awareness, begins to perceive male dominion as a hollow façade of beards, braces and boredom. “The Broken Nest” is one of Tagore’s best works. Rabindranath Tagore is a legend in Indian English Literature. He has portrayed his characters in such a way as to teach a moral lesson to society through them. Its chief asset is a subtle and deep analysis of the psychology and interpersonal relationships of its characters. The unadulterated love and longing of an intelligent woman , Charulata, for her younger brother-in-law ,while the husband is pursuing his intellectual hobby of running a radical English newspaper in Calcutta, Charulata is left to confide her creative passions with her artistic and poetic brother-in-law, it is difficult to define where this crosses the line from admiration to love.