Skip to main content

Describe the character of the Postmaster in Tagore's "The Postmaster?"

In Tagore's short story, the postmaster is very concerned with his own welfare.


The postmaster has been relocated from Calcutta to the small village of Ulapur.  From the start of the narrative, he is restless.  His interactions with Ratan, a village orphan, interrupt his boredom.  Even though he converses with her, he seems to do so to occupy his time.  He teaches her how to read, more as a way to occupy time at a place where he "had nothing to do."  The postmaster fails to understand the emotional connection Ratan develops to him, something that is tightened when she nurses him back to health when he becomes ill due to the rains.


In the meantime, the postmaster's thoughts focus on leaving.  When his leave is granted, he joyfully tells Ratan of his plans.  She asks if she could go with him, and while he does not directly say so, it is clear that he considers it an "absurd idea." As he leaves, the postmaster feels some misgivings about abandoning Ratan. However, he ends up rationalizing these feelings away with "philosophical reflections" about how people are in a state of constant passing.


In terms of his character, the postmaster does not see past his own reality. While he can be seen as self-indulgent, I think that Tagore creates a character who is focused on his own needs.  This is why he cannot understand Ratan's request to go with him.  We get the impression that the postmaster will find success because he will always take care of his needs before anything else. In this way, he is different from Ratan, who wanders around the village in search for her "Dada."  Tagore's postmaster would never experience such hurt or yearning because of his self-interested character.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more