Allegory and Symbolism in Tagores the Post Office - Essay Example

Allegory and Symbolism in “The Post Office” Introduction Rabindranath Tagore the literary genius of India, composed the play “Dak Ghar” or “The Post Office” in the year 1912. Before throwing light on the precise text of “Dak Ghar” or “The Post Office”, it is essential for the better understanding of the play to explore and discuss the literary period and other works of the dramatic genius that preceded “The Post Office”. Before writing the play “The Post Office”, Tagore wrote sequel of dramas like ‘Sarodatsab’ in 1908, a play which centres round celebrating nature and its austerity to break free from the rigidities of the western tradition. This play was followed by ‘Raja’ or ‘The King of the Dark Chambers’ in the year 1910. The play, “The Post Office” was followed by the play, “Phalguni” in the year 1915. With the production of “Phalguni”, Tagore was able to complete and set a new genre and trend in the canon of Bengali Drama. He was able to perfect the form of theatre that he was surging to establish, free from the “western mania”, which was guided by the practice of exact imitation of the form and technical accessories of the western theatre (Das, “History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956, Struggle for Freedom: Triumph and Tragedy”). The play, “The Post Office” therefore bears the mark of Tagore’s new set of ideas and rebellion in the canon of theatre in India in general and Bengal in particular. Decked up with symbols and allegories, the play is casted with the rich and inherent Eastern, and to be more precise Indian spirituality and tradition. He was H “The Post Office”: An In-depth Anaysis The play “The Post Office” can be easily treated as Tagore’s marvellous contribution in the genre of child literature. But the deeper implication of the play surpasses all the ideas of life and death and transports its readers into a new realm of spirituality. In this subtle representation of thought lies the actual interplay of allegory and symbols of the play. The play, “The Post Office” was successfully dramatised at London just after a year of its publication in 1913. W. B. Yeats, who was present in the show as an audience commented that “on the stage the little play shows that it is perfectly constructed.” Another critic of Tagore, Thompson who actually made a critical analysis of the play from a very harsh perspective also noticed a worth mentioning aspect of the dramatic genius. Thompson commented about ‘The Post Office’ that ‘it does successfully what both Shakespeare and Kalidasa failed to do’. By such comment Thompson wanted to point out the genius representation of a child on the stage who for the first time does neither “shows off” nor is “silly”. At this juncture or through this innumerable intricate and subtle representation, the play “The Post Office” was actually able to evolve its allegory and symbols explicitly percolating through the aesthetic minds, making a warm space and leaving a pertinent impression there (Das, “History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956, Struggle for Freedom: Triumph and Tragedy”). The play, “The Post Office” narrates a story of a small boy Amal who is confined in his adopted uncle’s home due to some incurable disease. But this confinement could actually never captivate the vibrant and ever fleeting imaginative frenzy and mind of the innocent kid. Amal stands at the Madhav’s courtyard to communicate with the passer-bys. He had a peculiar habit of asking the travellers about their destinations. The construction of the new post office in the village aggravated the imaginary mind of the sick child, Amal and he started thinking that off late he will receive a letter from the King. The Headman of the village in order to mock Amal frames up a story where he pretends that the King has send him a letter bearing the fact that he will soon send the Royal Physician to attend the sick boy. The end of the play is more pathetic as the heralds come along with the physician to announce the arrival of the King. But by then Amal has already collapsed into the inevitable hours of cruel death. The only friend of Amal, Sudha who used to bring flower for the sick boy everyday was punctual in her duty only to find the fact that the fulfilment of Amal’s wish will never be witnessed by the dream-maker himself. Apparently, the play, “The Post Office” deals with the ardent cry of human soul for freedom at the spiritual plane. It captures the craving for the freedom by the sick boy Amal. Freedom according to Tagore could be only attained through death and it is the only apparatus through which the soul can lead a journey of eternal joy emancipating it from all sorts of worldly materialism and certified creeds. Allegory and Symbolism in the play “The Post Office” Allegory in Tagore’s “The Post Office” is expressed through the interplay of the explicit and the implicit meaning peeking in and out throughout the play like the playful banter of clouds and sun on a monsoon day. The fact that the approach of Tagore towards the theatre was poetical and he always wanted his readers and essentially the audience to comprehend “the inner reality of things” cannot be neglected at any plane. Tagore requested time and again to perceive the play, “The Post Office” through the eyes of the child protagonist, Amal who is central to the events culminating within the plot structure of the play. But this fact and the utter discouragement of the ardent patron and critic of Tagore, W. B. Yeats to post-mortem the play, “The Post Office” in order to dig out the inherent symbols within the play, never precludes the fact that the play does not contain different set of interpretations at multiple levels. In a similar fashion like Shakespeare, Tagore had employed symbols throughout the play manifesting them through myriad objects, characters, phrases and words. These are made obvious by the recurrent appearance and redundant use of images, repetition of words and phrases throughout the play projecting them as echoing keynotes bearing certain agendas and objectives (Ray, “Studies on Rabindranath Tagore, Volume 1”). Allegory and symbols overlap each other in the play, “The Post Office” and the neat distinction between two rhetorical devices become very obscure here. Allegory in the play can be found in the overall treatment of the theme and within the text, it is manifested through symbols which suffice and establish the allegorical motif of the play. Apparently, the play, “The Post Office” seems to be a story of a child in agony and his desire to break-free form the confinement he is subjected to due to some fatal disease. But beneath this simple story framed by imagination and agony, there is an inherent desire of man to establish union with God. The soul or “atman” seeks unification with the “param-atman” or the infinite. The elevation takes place through the union of the finite with the infinite and Tagore finds it through the paradigm of death or ultimate freedom or “nirvana”. This procedure and its manifestation are illustrated in a bizarre and unorganised way throughout the text through myriad symbols. For example, if the readers throw a keen introspection on the following lines from the text which try to establish a bridge between the comprehended and the un-comprehended. “AMAL: See that far away hill from the window. I often long to go beyond those hills and right away. MADHAV: Oh! You silly! As if there is nothing more to be done but just get up to the top of the hill and away.” “The Post Office” itself provides a platform where the amalgamation of the spiritual and the material world is manifested. Amal, the spiritualist believes that there is a world beyond the hills. He wants to take the taste of that unknown world. On the other hand, Madhav, the hard-core pragmatic and out and out materialist feels that the very thought of the other world is a silly matter, The characters of Amal and Madhav, who are interlinked with each other and build up the conflict in the play centripetally, are actually symbolic. Amal stands for the imaginative self of the man who is captivated in the physical world and whose soul longs to get the freedom into the Great Beyond. Amal is an extremely imaginative and sensitive child, a typical concept of Tagore’s ideal child and childhood. Madhav is a typical work-a-day crude materialist who fails to look beyond the existence of the physical reality. An incarnation of matter and at a constant logger head with the spiritual element in the play represented by Amal, Madhav is symbolic representative of those people who constantly suppress the limitless imagination of mind conceived by imaginative people like Amal. The doctors who treat Amal are also representative of two realms of entity. The ordinary physician tries to treat the disease of body and is unable to cure and locate. The Royal Physician is able to transcend the barrier of physical reality. He is truly able to locate and cure the disease of Amal which is exquisitely psychological. The two doctors again with two different lines of treatment represent different realms of materialism and spirituality. Watchman and Gaffer both act as an anti-dote to Madhav in the play and like a sincere catalyst aggravating the reaction of Amal to break-free the shackles of confinement there by giving him enough encouragement and confidence to step into the world outside Amal’s confinement. The symbol of the newly constructed Post Office in the play, which also imparts title to it, is a major symbol. The symbol of Post Office is of a complex kind and operates at a multiple level throughout the play. At the initial and very simple level, the Post Office stands for a kind of microcosm of the world as S. K. Desai, eminent Tagore scholar also views it under the same light. And the King can be connoted as the omnipotent God sending messages and instruction to everyone according to their respective capacity of reception. Communication is the very basic form of ventilation and post office being the strongest medium of communication prior to the invention of the electronic medium of communication stands for the liberty from physical, psychological emotional and spiritual bondage. Very subtly, the Post Master of the post office is not a mundane Post master. He is the God himself instructing everybody through his divine message, the proper way of life. Amal wants to be one of his Postman, the symbolism for God’s Angel and wants to wander far to send the messages from the Post Office. The repetition of the desire and obvious intention of Amal to be one of the King’s Postmen is quite evident from the play: “Make me your postman that I may go about, lantern in hand, delivering your letters from door to door” (Desai, “Symbolism in Tagore’s Plays”). There is a very classic image of time which is presented as a symbol and manifested through the watchman in the play. The symbol revolves around time and its conquest which is only possible through pain and suffering. Amal is continuously suffering therefore to redeem himself from the agonizing eternal coil of time from which he wants to attain freedom. The purpose of sounding the gong by the Watchman is well explained when Amal asks him, thereby indicating clearly that time can be conquered but the path to the successful conquest of the time is not very easy: “Watchman: That’s not possible; I strike up the gong only when it is time. Amal: Yes I love to hear your gong [...]. Tell me, why does your gong sound? Watchman: My gong sounds to tell the people. Time waits for none, but goes on forever.” The play is also overcastted with the symbols of Death and Sleep which find its proper exposition during the final hours of the play. When Sudha enquires the time of Amal’s wake, the enquiry by Sudha to the Royal Physician, it was left unanswered. The reason is Death is viewed in the play as physical sleep as Sudha asks the physician the time of Amal’s wake from his sleep. Spiritually Amal is aware and awake. Spiritual conscience cannot be robbed by the physical death like the light of the physical oil-lamp was extinguished during the final hour of Amal’s physical death but the starlight, the symbol of eternity and spiritual light helped to enlighten the dark room of Amal’s mind and helped him to reach the Great Beyond. And Sudha, which means “nectar” in Bengali, is also symbolic here. The play ends with her instructive dialogue towards the Royal Physician which states, “Tell him Sudha has not forgotten him”. It actually means that Amal is spiritually awake to drink the immortal nectar. Conclusion The implementation of symbolism as a device has deviated in the play, “The Post Office” to a large extent from its predecessors like ‘Sanyasi’, ‘Red Oleanders’ and ‘Chitra’. The symbolisms, very coherent with the theme and overtone of the play, have moved from the concrete to ethereal and then to a space where comprehension is just mere a perception. Tagore has drawn upon almost all the elements from setting to characters to language and phrases in order to imply his motif and objectives at the symbolic plane. The play, “The Post Office” at an apparent level is a splendid tale to lure the minds of children but the deeper implication of the play transports the readers into an aura hallowed by the spirituality and proper vent-out for the communion of the soul with the God. References Das, S. K., History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956, Struggle for Freedom : Triumph and Tragedy. Sahitya Akademi, 1995. Desai, S. K., Symbolism in Tagore’s Plays Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English, Ed by Naik, Desai & Amar. Pg – 177 Ray, M. K., Studies on Rabindranath Tagore, Volume 1. Atlantic Publishers & Distri, 2004. Bibliography Natarajan, N. Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. Thompson, E. J. Rabindranath Tagore: His Life and Work. Kessinger Publishing, 2003. Read More