Page 282 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 21: ‘Chitra’ by Rabindranath Tagore:
Theme and Plot Construction

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
21.1 Chitra as a Play
21.2 Plot Construction
21.3 Dialogue
21.4 Conflict
21.5 Theme
21.6 Supernatural Devices
21.7 Soliloquy
21.8 Summary
21.9 Key-Words
21.10 Review Questions
21.11 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this unit students will be able to:
• Understand Chitra’s theme.
• Discuss Plot Construction of ‘Chitra’

Introduction

Tagore was seized by the idea of presenting the evolution of human love from the physical to the
spiritual. He also found an appropriate story. In the Mahabharata, Arjuna during his travels weds
Princess Chitrangada of Manipur, and their son becomes the longed-for male heir of the King. When
Tagore fused the soul of the idea with the body of the story, it became the play Chitrangada and in the
English form it is a somewhat shortened dramatic sequence in nine scenes.
Chitra, the princess of Manipura. brought up as a warrior, for the first time feels that she is a woman
when Arjuna in his ascetic robes glances at her. She becomes conscious of the fact that she was not
beautiful enough to win the heart of Arjuna. She vainly woos Arjuna but is rejected by him on grounds
of his vow of celibacy. She does not give up her love. She is not the kind of woman who nourishes her
despair in lonely silence.
Tagore in an aptly symbolic way shows how the flower of her desire refuses to drop before it has
ripened into a fruit. Chitra finds that it is the labour of a life time to make one’s true self fully known
and honoured. Therefore she chooses the easy path of illusion which is the first step to reality that is
the acquired splendour of beauty, bestowed upon her by the gods Madana and Vasanta. This is the
phase where Chitra fascinates and wins the heart of Arjuna.
As has been aptly pointed out by a critic, “Chitra is a play built on many levels. It is a drama of youth; it is
a drama of growth. One can actually hear the sure but silent flowering of the Dryad girl and her fruition into a
sublime order of self-consciousness adjusting itself to the ambivalence of illusion and reality.”
We have in Chitra a realisation of the diviner element of life and soul, a heaven-sent message to the
human soul as to what is the meaning of love in the true sense of the term.

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