The Restoration of Feminist Subjectivity in Henrik Ibsen and Rabindranath Tagore

Abstract

Henrik Ibsen (i828-1906) focuses, among other issues, on the individuality in his play A Doll’s House. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), in some of his short stories, depicts the struggle by women to assert their individuality in the patriarchal social structure of the Indian subcontinent. Ibsen and Tagore are from different cultures, but still they have much in common regarding feminist subjectivity. They reveal the anguish of the women of their times and their treatment by the elements of the society. What unites these two writers is that women in society not only become the victims: of oppression but also find a way out of that oppression, and try to establish themselves as individuals. Such struggle attributes universality to the subject-matter in the writings of these two authors. This paper aims at finding the thread that binds together the writings of Ibsen and Tagore from the feminist point of view, and how their female characters fight to assert their individuality in an adverse environment.