Bana-Phul: Rabindranath Tagore's first poetry book

"Bana-Phul" (বনফুল/বন-ফুল) is a Bengali poetry book written by Rabindranath Tagore. It was published in 1286 (March 9, 1880) when he was fifteen years old only. It is divided into eight cantos. The influence of Biharilal Chakraborty is clearly noticed in his writing. It is the first complete poetry book of Tagore’s initial phase as a poet. However, it was composed before "Kabi-Kahini" (The Tale of the Poet). Prior to Bana-Phul, Kabi-Kahini was published in 1878. 

 

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The meaning of the poem "Bana-Phul" is "The Flower of the Woods". It has 93 pages. This poem was not reprinted. It was published continuously in the monthly newspapers named Gyanankur (জ্ঞানাঙ্কুর) and Protibimbo (প্রতিবিম্ব) from Agrahayana of 1282 to Ashwin-Kartik of 1283. Though it was Rabindranath Tagore's first poem as a poet, there is very little information about it. 

Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay's relationship in A Tale of Two Cities

Their love and marriage: 
Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette are central characters of a novel titled A Tale of Two Cities. They first met each other on a ship while they were returning to England from France. Darnay accompanied Lucie and her father during their journey. He helped her sick father and there was a conversation between them. However, at their first meeting, they talked and behaved like strangers. 

The second time they came together when Darnay was on trial in England after being accused of treason. Lucie was present here as a witness. Lucie gave evidence in the court which went in favor of Darnay. It shows her sympathy for Darnay. However, Darnay was released from his charge. It became possible thanks to the lawyer, Stryver, and his assistant, Sydney Carton. In the trial scene, it was clear that Lucie felt sad and sorry for Darnay. At the same time, the readers can also understand that Lucie has started to fall in love with Darnay. Darnay did not understand it because he was busy saving his own life, but Sydney Carton realized it and he made fun with Darnay about it. 

After being released from charge, Darnay became friends with Dr. Manette and his daughter and frequently visited them. Darnay felt love for Lucie but did not openly express his feelings. After consulting with Dr. Manette, he proposed Lucie and Lucie accepted it. They got happily married. Their marriage was natural because both of them came from a respectable background and they were young. The readers find nothing abnormal about the love and marriage between Lucie and Darnay. 

Both Darnay and Lucie love each other very much. They are faithful to each other. They respected each other. Their love was beyond self-interest. Without knowing Darnay’s real identity, she married him. When Darnay was imprisoned in France, she went to France to save her husband. She was ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of her husband. 

As a husband and as a wife, Lucie and Darnay are ordinary but ideal. They love each other deeply and they care for each other. However, during that time women did not have a lot of freedom in England but this did not create any problem in the marriage life of Lucie and Darnay. Dickens has not given a lot of details about the marriage life. 

Darnay goes to Prison: 
Charles Darnay went to France to save his servant’s life. After going there, he was captured by the revolutionist. The only reason of his being imprisoned was being the heir of Evremonde family. 

Lucie a loving and dedicated wife: 
We find Lucie as a loving and dedicated wife. She loves her husband. She is a very reliable wife. Her husband also loves her. She is willing to sacrifice anything for her husband. When her husband was fighting with death in a French prison, she left for France to save his husband. She did not even think about what could happen to her. Her eagerness to sacrifice anything for her husband shows how much dedicated she is to her husband. She was aware that Sydney Carton was interested in her but she was always and really faithful to her husband. In fact, this is one quality of Lucie that perhaps attracted Sydney even more about her and this influenced him to sacrifice his life for her husband. 

Darnay a caring and faithful husband: 
Darnay is shown as a caring and faithful husband. He is also faithful to her wife. He cares and respects his wife. For his wife, he has left country, wealth, honor and many other things. He loves his wife. Though he knew that Lucie was an ordinary girl, he loved her and married her. 

Perhaps most readers will not notice that Darnay was not only a good husband but also a nobleman. He risked his life to save a servant of his family. He left the family long ago and did not take any benefit from this family. But when the servant was in trouble, he saved him. He would have just easily ignored to come to France and stay happily in England with his wife and child. Readers perhaps admire Sydney so much that they would forget the self-sacrifice of Darnay. 

Short biography of Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore is a well-known face to all Bengali readers. You will not find any Bengali who did not read any of his stories or poems in their lifetime. Crossing the local boundary, his fame spread all over the world. For this reason, he is known to his fans as the World Poet. He died many years ago, but his work has made him immortal. 

 

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On Baishakh 25, 1268 (May 7, 1861), Rabindranath Tagore was born in the Jorasanko Thakur Bari in Kolkata. His father's name was Debendranath Tagore and his grandfather's name was Dwarakanath Tagore. He was truly a genius person. At the age of fifteen, his poetry book titled 'Bana-Phul' was published. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali and became the first Asian to win this prestigious award. 

Rabindranath Tagore single-handedly improved all the branches of Bengali language and literature and established it in world literature. He is a writer, philosopher, educationist, music composer, drama producer and actor. His contribution enriched all the branches of the Bengali language- poem, short story, novel, article, song, drama etc. Among his many works, Manasi, Sonar Tori, Chitra, Kalpana, Khanika, Balaka, Punascha, Chokher Bali, Gora, Ghare Baire, Jogajog, Shesher Kobita, Visarjan, Dak Ghar, Raktakarabi, Golpoguchchho, Bichitra etc. are noteworthy. On Srabon 22, 1348, Rabindranath Tagore breathed his last in Kolkata. 

Love and marriage from a woman’s point of view in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

One of the most important features of the Victorian era was women’s movement. Women in the Victorian era did not have any rights. Their duty was to take care of the house, give birth to children, cooking and cleaning. Charlotte Bronte depicted the condition of Victorian women in her novel Jane Eyre. She tried to depict love and marriage from a woman’s point of view. Jane Eyre is an orphan girl. She had to go through a lot of troubles in her childhood. She fell in love with a rich man named Rochester. When she heard about Rochester’s marriage, she left his house. Eventually, she became self-dependent and had the opportunity to marry a man better than Rochester in every aspect. Yet, she returned to Rochester and took his care in his bad time. 

Was Jane Austen a Victorian writer?

If you are a student of English literature then you should have read Pride and Prejudice written by famous novelist Jane Austen. The main theme of this novel is love and marriage. The litterateur has dealt with this theme throughout her novel. 

Jane Austen belonged to the Romantic Age, but she hardly had anything similar to that time. Instead, her ideas were more or less similar to that of the Victorian time. Jane Austen lived mainly inside her house and did not go out that much. So, she was not that much influenced by events like the French Revolution- something that inspired Wordsworth and Coleridge to start the Romantic Movement in English literature. Instead, Jane Austen was concerned about the condition of women. She knew that for a girl, finding a suitable husband was more important than thinking about the ideas of the French Revolution- liberty, equality and fraternity. In Pride and Prejudice, we cannot find any other thing except the idea of love and marriage.

Theme of love and marriage

Love and marriage are the two most important themes that have been dealt with in almost all novels. It is hard to find any writer who did not show love or marriage in his or her novels. So, it can be easily said that these two themes are an inseparable part of any fiction. Without these two themes, the story seems boring and uninteresting. So, a great novel should have many characters who will fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. As an example of this, we can mention the name of some favorite books- Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale etc.

Married couples cannot be happy if there is a lack of love between them. Conjugal life without love is like a dish without salt. This thing is shown in these four novels. Writers have shown how characters fall in love and then go through several problems in their love life and in the end how they come together. Marriage does not always ensure a happy life which we can see in romantic novels.

However, love and marriage not only show love and marriage between fictional characters but also show the condition of women in society and their sufferings. This theme cannot be ignored. In one way or another, they play a very important role in shaping the characters. The writers have shown both good and bad reasons for love and marriage in their novels.

Abstract: Love and marriage in Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Lord Jim

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, Lord Jim- are written by four renowned novelists – Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Joseph Conrad. In my research paper, I discussed about the treatment of the theme of “Love and Marriage” in these four novels. Both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre depicted the condition of women of their time and what love and marriage meant to them. At that time, women did not have the right to earn money or own properties. Their main duty was to take care of the house, please their husbands and give birth and take care of the babies. Hence, when they grew up, their main concern was to get married to a man who can provide them a stable home. Love was not the most important thing. Yet, there were women with exceptional qualities who would value their own opinions and stood by them no matter what the situation is.

Pride and Prejudice shows what marriage meant to the women of her time. Mrs. Bennet’s only concern was to get her girls married to men with stable income. The same can be said about Charlotte who married Mr. Collins to get a stable home. Lidya’s marriage showed the ugly side of the desperation for marriage. Jane Bennet’s beauty and gentle behavior won her a rich husband, Mr. Bingley. The only exception is Elizabeth, who had a different idea about marriage. She is not beautiful but she is very intelligent women who lived by her own set of ideas. For her, falling in love is most important for marriage. She never compromised with her ideals. Hence, her marriage with Mr. Darcy can be called an ideal marriage.

Like Elizabeth, Jane Eyre is also a woman who never compromised with her ideals. What makes Jane Eyre a very interesting female character was her troubled childhood. She was an orphan girl who suffered great hardship in her childhood. She fell in love with Rochester, a rich man. When she hears that Rochester has a wife, she leaves the house. Eventually, she becomes self-dependent and had the opportunity to marry a man better than Rochester in every aspect. Yet, she returns to Rochester and takes care of her. Like Elizabeth, Jane Eyre followed her heart and valued love above everything else.

In Great Expectations, we see the love of a poor young man which led him to his suffering. Unlike Jane Eyre, Great Expectations do not show happy marriage and living happily ever after. Love and marriage is shown more like part of the overall experience of growing up. Pip falls in love with Estella, an arrogant girl, who only humiliated him from day one. Yet, Pip falls madly in love with her and wants to become rich and eligible to ask for her hand in marriage. His love for Estella sows the seed of ambition in his mind to move up in social status. However, in his quest to gain higher social status, he distances himself from the people who mattered most in his life. This ultimately ruins his life. None of the important characters of this novel had a happily married life except Joe and Biddy. In the end, Pip learns his lesson and reconciles with his friends and family.

Love and Marriage is not the main focus of Lord Jim but finding one’s identity. Jewel loves Jim and wanted to have a family with him but it does not happen. Jim’s past haunted him. He did not want to make the same mistake as he did in Patna. He eventually died. Like Great Expectations, this novel also did not have a happy ending.

However, love and marriage is very important in all these novels. The theme cannot be ignored. In one way or another, they played a role in shaping the characters. Hence, they are very important.

A short introduction about Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay was born on June 27, 1838, at Kanthalpara village under 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India. In 1858, he completed his B. A. degree from Calcutta University, and in the same year, he was appointed as a Deputy Collector and went on to become a Deputy Magistrate. After serving in the same position for 33 years, he retired from his post in 1891. He started practicing literature while he was a student. He showed extraordinary achievement as a pioneer writing Bengali novels based on western ideology. His first Bengali novel 'Durgeshnandini' published in 1865 opened a new possibility in Bengali literature.

 

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His other novels are Kapalkundala, Mrinalini, Bishabriksha, Indira, Jugalanguriya, Radharani, Chandrasekhar, Rajani, Krishnakanter Uil, Rajsingha, Ananda Math, Devi Chaudhurani and Sitaram. Bankimchandra also showed his skills in writing essays. Kamalakanter Daptar, Lok Rahasya, Krishna Charitra are his noteworty essays. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay passed away on April 8, 1894.