Saturday, April 19, 2014

Justify the title of the story, "The Postmaster", written by Rabindranath Tagore.

I think that the title of the work is relevant.  Although,
I feel it is relevant for different reasons that traditionally held.  Tagore’s work
forces the reader to examine the moral and ethical standing of the postmaster.  At the
start of the work, the reader understands, to a certain extent, the difficulties endured
with this cosmopolitan postmaster being transferred to this village where he is,
literally, foreign to its way of life.  Yet, Tagore plays off of this and forces us to
really change our understanding of the postmaster through his depiction of Ratan.  In my
mind, the reason why the title is justified is because when we understand more of Ratan,
we end up viewing the postmaster differently than when we did at the outset of the
work.  Whereas we had sympathy for the postmaster at the start, we end up having more
respect for Ratan .  She proves to be stronger, more durable, and a heck of lot more
loyal than the postmaster.  She may be “just an orphan,” but she possesses more
redemptive qualities than the postmaster, who comes across as kind of a jerk by the end
of the story.  Hence, the title is something that is almost reflexive in that it shows
us, in an odd way, how our perceptions have changed over the course of reading the
story.

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