35 pages • 1 hour read
Rabindranath TagoreThe Home and the World
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1916A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Orchid
Bimala’s orchid bloomed once, and then never again. She has been trying to get it to flower again, with no success. She compares herself to the orchid after experiencing the passion of Sandip’s praise and presence. As with all infatuations, the euphoria of it was depressingly short-lived. Like the orchid, she is now frustrated with her own ability to bloom again, and increasingly aware that what worked for her once may never work again. Also like the orchid, the implication is that her ability to thrive may depend on who cares for her.
Vande Mataram
The national song of the Swadeshi enthusiasts appears in several contexts. For some, it is just a poem, or a tune, or a mere series of musical notes without any intrinsic meaning. For people like Sandip and his agitators, it is a piece of propaganda. It is a slogan that can immediately summon anger and other strong emotions, and that can galvanize those who have been conditioned to believe in its power to action. When a slogan is repeated often enough, it loses most of its meaning and becomes a mere chanting of sounds. The song is an example of how ambitious, unscrupulous people can appropriate art to advance their own prosperity and legend.
Fire
Fire is interchangeable with passion in the novel. It is the substance of Sandip’s speeches, the impetus for Bimala’s obsession with him, and the hot anger of the rioters. However, fire also brings warmth to a home and provides heat for the cooking of food. Its value depends on how it is used. When the Swadeshi movement burns effigies of Nikhil, or throws piles of foreign wool onto a bonfire, the flames become weapons in the war against the ideas of those who oppose Swadeshi.
Guns
Amulya’s pistol has a holy purpose as a reverence offering, and also offers Bimala an escape from her plight, if she is willing to take her own life. It is also used to wound the guard during the robbery. Amulya is killed by a gun at the end of the novel. A gun exists primarily to destroy, wound, or kill, but Bimala’s view of the pistol as her only memento of Amulya is an insightful change of perception. Objects have little value outside of the stories that humans tell themselves about them.
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By Rabindranath Tagore
