Page 256 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II

Notes family he acquired great knowledge from books and his antecedents. He had great access to the
sources of literature. His works include— The Sea Waves in 1887, Gitanjali in 1912 for which he won
the Nobel Prize, Gora in 1923 and many more. In the words of Edward Thompson, “He had summed
up in himself a whole age in which India had moved into the modern world”.
Symbolism in the broader sense signifies something else, which is not told directly for instance peacock
symbolizes pride, rising sun birth and setting sun with death. Shelly and Keats used a lot of symbolism.
The French and the American writers used a lot of symbolism in their writing. English and European
since World War I has been a notable era of symbolism in literature. Eliot’s waste land is a fine
example of symbolism. Tagore is an Indo Anglian writer who has exuberantly offered a symbolism
in ‘Chitra’ and ‘The Post Office’. Symbolism is an important aspect of his plays.
Symbolism is of two kinds: traditional and personal. Yeats says “symbolism gives dumb things voices and
bodiless things bodies”.

Chitra is the story of a young lady who is in guise of a warrior she experiences
womanhood for the first time when she confronts Arjuna in a forest. She tries to win his
heart by hook or by crook and so takes the help of the gods of spring and love or
Vasantha and Madana respectively. Arjuna who is undergoing a penance falls for her
but everything remains crystal clear when illusion vanishes.

Madana symbolizes love and it is through him that the love of Chitra becomes even more strong. In
the opening lines of the play he says ‘I am her who was the first born in the heart of the creator. I bind in
bonds of pain and bliss the lives of men and women’ Chitra falls in love because of the darts of Madana.
Throughout the play there is a help to Chitra from Madana until she gets married.
Vasantha symbolizes spring or new life beauty, strength, vigour and youth. Vasanta in the opening
lines of the play says ‘I am eternal youth’ she grants the boon of beauty to Chitra for a span of a year in
order to win the heart of Arjuna through her physical attraction.
Passion or love is symbolized with fire Chitra says to the God of love and beauty that she felt for the
first time the presence of man and love arose in her like a tongue of fire from ashes. She sees Arjuna
and at once discards her man’s attire. She dresses up herself with ornaments like bracelets, anklets,
waist chain and purple red saree which symbolizes womanhood and beauty, delicacy and
exquisiteness.
The diverted mind of Arjuna from the penance to the physical attraction of Chitra is symbolized with
the moon that dissolves the night’s row of obscurity. His extreme desire for her is further known
when he says “You are the wealth of the world and the end of all poverty and the goal of all efforts.”
Chitra is dejected when she knows that Arjuna loved her borrowed beauty. The illusion is symbolized
with the borrowed beauty. She compares that to a kinsuka flower which must die at one time or the
other, with a brief span of life. She knows that this borrowed beauty will naturally fall like petals
from an over blown flower. She gets vexed dressing up herself daily and asks Vasantha to take back
the boon. The Goddess consoles her saying “with the advent of autumn the flowering season is over then
comes the triumph of fruitage”.
When the year ends her beauty is renewed and is symbolized with Asoka leaves, white glow and the
fragrance of jasmine. Now Arjuna hears about the warrior Chitra and is anxious to know about her.
His anxiety is symbolized to a traveller who comes to a strange land and is eager to get some
information about it.
But everything is reconciled illusion to truth, finite to infinite.
The final transformation or the realization from physical attraction to spiritual love of Arjuna and the
disguised Chitra shedding off her boon and revealing her trueself is symbolized with a bloomed
flower loading to fruitage Arjuna says “Beloved, my life is full”

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