Was Tagore a Feminist? Re‐evaluating Selected Fiction and Their Film Adaptations

This paper focuses on the stories of Tagore that profess strong feminist values and also their representations in certain cinematic adaptations of the same. Although Tagore was a visionary and believed in many ideas that were much ahead of his time, the paper discusses how Tagore's feminist beliefs and his treatment of women characters were not consistent throughout his writing career. As far as the point of view of women was concerned, it moved between conservatism and radicalism, and so, in some stories, the marginalized woman finds a voice and challenges her position, while in others, she is compelled to conform to patriarchal boundaries. As this study shows, the film adaptations in Bengali cinema that continue to be inspired by Tagore's fiction illustrate the modern day relevance of Tagore's concerns and ideas in relation to a woman's position in society and the challenges she offers to social expectations of her gendered role and at the same time also embodies the ambivalent attitude to women that is evident in society today

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Art · Bengali · Conservatism · Literature · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Relevance (law · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts