BRAVE YET BEAUTIFUL: NATIONALIST CONSTRUCTION OF THE INDIAN WOMAN IN TAGORE’S PLAYS (Pages 88-96) by Mr. Muruganandan. K in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

The nationalist movement in India made formidable attempts to re-define the role of the various Indian underprivileged sections during its vigorous phase of constructing a unique identity and citizenship for freedom struggle. The gender role of women and women’s questions were taken up by Gandhi and the nationalists with vital concern and with the spirit of re-defining their duties. The image of the Indian woman, as envisaged by the leaders of nationalist movement, had in it the quintessential characteristics of the modernity that got shaped in India with the hybridization of the traditional cultural traits and the colonial values. The new Indian woman was discursively constructed both as the preserver of the traditional culture and at the same time as a brave and determined subject with enormous potentiality and bravery for bringing liberation. She was told to be brave as well as beautiful, determinant but submissive when required, balanced yet full of womanly charm and love, and protector of the family and worshiper of the husband yet potential of vibrant action and participation in the public space—she was both an angel in the home as well as the pillar of the nation. This double-standard definition of womanhood was a commonality among almost all the leaders of the cultural, social, linguistic and political nationalist movements in India. Tagore, as a representative writer of the Indian cultural and socio-political spirit of that time, can be better understood while placed in this context. In the paper I propose, the select plays of Rabindranath Tagore will be taken for analyzing the construction of the woman as discursively defined by the nationalist movement and its leaders. The women characters in Tagore’s plays are often symbolic representations of the spirit and guidance of liberation in the physical, territorial and spiritual levels. The princess Chitra in the play by her very name, queen Sumitra in The King and the Queen, and Nandini in the play Red Oleander are the important among them who exhibit womanly beauty and feminine love and affection, but who also fight for their country, people and justice with manliness and courage even surpassing the men beside them. these women characters can be taken as the iconic representations of the new Indian woman retraced from the Indian myths, cultural traditions and history. The young girls Malini and Vasanti in the plays Malini and The Sanyasi or the Ascetic respectively are portrayed as the symbols of spiritual awakening and moral and philosophical guru. the above mentioned five plays of Tagore in English translation will be taken for analyzing how these women characters iconize and symbolically represent the nationalist idea of the new Indian woman. this analysis is intended to throw some more light upon Tagore’s idea of women and the gender role of those women from his pen in the context of nationalist politico-cultural movement. Key-words: Tagore’s women characters, plays of Tagore, nationalist movement, Indian women in drama, defining Indian womanhood, portrayal of femininity in literature.