RED OLEANDERS
Tagore's
Red Oleanders
(1923)
is
an
apocalyptic
play
which deals with the conflict between liberty and tyranny.
The
play scans the growing malaise gnawing the vitality of Man and
the modern society and offers
individual effort and sacrifice
as the remedy.
M.K. Naik hails the play as "the triumph of humanistic
values
over
soul-killing Mammonism"
(M.K.
Naik
102).
Krishna
Kripalani asserts the play's increasing concern with the basic
problems of modern world.
.. .
He observes:
this one raises the more fundamental issue of
the
free
terrible
spirit
of
machine
machanized
life
of
a
society which
reducing names
set
against
highly
turns
to numbers.
the
more
organised
and
men
into
The age-old struggle
between the individual and the state,
liberative
between
free
intellect,
with
is
impulse
and
the
intelligence
theme
of
this
allegorical,
and
compulsive
and
will,
calculating
scientific
play.
characteristically Tagorean,
other
between the
which has assumed sinister proportions
the development of the
the
robots,
The
technique
treatment
half realistic,
is
half
logic
and
mysticism
weakening
each
making
the
dramatic
conflict
more
suggestive than convincing.
(Kripalani 306-7)
187
The
play
Srinivasa
is
a
multi-layered
Iyengar
the conflict
is of
and
multi-dirnentional
parable.
the opinion that the play deals with
between the
temporal
power
and
spiritual
power.
He comments:
Neither the old-world religious persecution at its
cruellest
nor
technological
the
modern
'God
ruthlessness
State'
could
with
its
permanently
suppress the immortal spirit of Man or the eternal
values of freedom; beauty,
justice,
love.
This is
the Faith that so powerfully sustains plays
like
Natir-Puja, Red Oleanders and MxAtta-dhara.
(Iyengar, Rabirxiranath Tagore 66)
Yakshapuri is an enclosed town ruled by a police chief.
There is one invisible king who lives behind a network.
forget
their
original
digging out gold.
home,
the
lap
of
nature
and
People
live
by
Like the modern workers in a big industry,
they have no personal identity, they are mere numbers.
To this
disgusting hole comes Nandini bringing with her-the red fire of
revolution.
and
the
The fire of revolution leaps from one to another
entire
consummation.
The
town
glows
in
the
fire
of
apocalyptic
iron bars and shackles are broken down and
188
the
people
happiness
are
and
restored
to
innocence.
the
original
Ranjan,
state
Nandini's
of
paradisal
lover
dies
as
a
victim to the oppressors and Nandini follows suit to be united
with him in death.
The mythos of the fall into the Yaksha town is similar
to
the
fall
of
Adam
and
Eve
consequently became heathen
in
cities.
the
wilderness
In both the
which
myths,
the
entire fallen population is lifted up to its original state at
the cost of the deliverer's life.
The mythos found in the myth
of Abraham is similar, to that of Red Oleanders.
called
out
promised
of
the
fallen
land in the
oppressive
threatening
city
West.
of
The
servitude
Ur
in
Mesopotamia
rebellious
to
power
Abraham was
Exodus
is
to
from
a
the
another mythos
prefiguring the mythos of Red Oleanders. The play Red Oleanders
shares the narrative flow of Blake's "Prologue to the play on
King John" where a revolt takes place to destroy the tyranny in
one's own country.
In another of Blake's ballad,
"Gwin,
King
of Norway" there is a similar mythos of a revolution by Gordred
against
an
oppressive
king.
In
his
French Revolution
American Revolution the revolutionary impulse bursts forth
release
the
people from tyranny and oppression.
revolutionary
enters
the
city
from
out
and
and
to
Nandini the
liberates
the
suffering mass as Samson Agonistes who goes into the cities of
Philistines
martyred.
to
liberate
the
slaves
though
he
himself
is
This revolutionary act which recurs frequently in
189
the
course
of
history
is
nowhere
Shelley's The Revolt of Islam.
clearly
classified
as
in
Fk; calls this recurrent act a
ritual, which in turn is naturally associated with the cyclical
repetition.
.....
the eve of that great day whereon
The many nations at whose call
The chains of earth like mist melted away,
Decreed to hold a sacred Festival
A rite to attest the equality of all
who live .... _
(V 2044-49)
Frye elaborates this mythos in The Great Code: the Bible
and Literature.
Frye asserts:
The entire Bible, viewed as a
'divine comedy',
is
contained within a U-shaped story of this sort,
one in which man, as explained, loses the tree and
water of life at the beginning of Genesis and gets
them back at the end of Revelation.
(TGC 169)
The narrative of Red Oleanders is classified as the U-shaped
narrative of the Bible, studied under this light.
points
of
the
U-shaped
narrative
are
the
The top most
happy
states
of
innocence which the people of Yakshapuri enjoyed before their
fall
into
the
points occurs
pit
of
illusion,
industrialism.
In
between
anxiety and tyranny.
these
two
Reality is far
190
away from these states of confusion and tyranny.
The people of
Yaksha torwn lose this state of identity which is the state of
innocence.
The loss and recovery of reality and identity is
the divine comedy of the mythical world.
Red Oleanders is a
displaced romance with this basic mythical pattern.
It is existence "once upon a time", and subsequent
to
"and
they
lived
happily
ever
happens in between are adventures,
with
external
circumstances,
and
identity is a release from the
circumstances.
after".
What
or collisions
the
return
to
tyranny of these
Illusion for romance,
then is an
order of existence that is best called alienation.
Most romances end happily,
with a return to the
state of identity, and begin with a departure from
it.
(The Secular Scripture 54)
This
narrative
realistic stories.
pattern
can
The downward,
be
observed
in
the
plunging movement
mechanised society is not shown in Red Oleanders.
most
into
the
The fallen
state of the Yaksha town is portrayed vividly.
The action of
the
conception of
play
bounces
history as
upwards
an undulated
at
the
end.
Frye's
flow
in
time
provides
a
structural
basis by which the mythos of Red Oleanders could be understood.
There
is
deserts.
a
series of
falls
and
rises
from happy
states
to
The starting movement is from Eden to the wilderness,
191
the latter historically located as Ur, the city of Cain.
there
it goes
up to
the
promised
pastoral
land
From
of Abraham.
There is again a falling movement landing Man in a pit,
Egypt, a wilderness ruled by Pharaoh.
up by Moses,
the Messiah,
second one of
i.e.,
From there Man is lifted
to the Promised Lend, which is the
this kind.
There
are
the
rising and
falling
movements which go from philistine cities to Zerusalem;
from
Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar to Rebuilt Temple; from Rome of Nero
to Jesus' spiritual kingdom.
This sequence of mythoi is only indirectly historical
and all high points and low points are related to each other
metaphorically.
The climax of Red Oleanders is metaphorically
identified with the zeniths of all the rising movements in the
U-shaped narrative sequence of the Bible.
"That is, the Garden
of
and
Eden,
the
Promised
interchangeable
Land,
synonyms
for
Zerusalem,
the
home
Christian imagery they are all identical,
of
Mount
the
soul,
Zion
are
and
in
in their "spiritual"
form (which we remember means metaphorically, whatever else it
may also mean),
(TGC
171).
with the kingdom of God spoken of by Jesus"
Metaphorically
seen
the
culminations
of
the
descending movements in history end with the fallen cities like
Egypt,
Babylon
and
Rome
which
are
the prototypes of Yaksha
town.
Nandini and Ranjan can also be
identified with
their
prototypes - Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the Judges, David, Soloman
192
and Jesus.
The anagogic meaning
of
Red Oleanders
illustrated
in the words of Dante is "In exitu Israel de Aegypto"
(Dante 49)
- the exile of the holy soul from the corruption and slavery to
the liberty of everlasting glory.
The situation and characterisation which constitute the
ethos
of
Red Oleanders
construction
and
are
have
also
strong
archetypal
Biblical
in
their
connotations.
Yakshapuri,
the closed city provides an appropriate locale for
the
of
mythos
fall
and
revolution.
tumorous cities - Nineveh, Babylon,
It
Rome,
resembles
Tyre etc.,
the consolidation of the tyrannical mind of men.
of
old
age
comes
over
population consolidates
The
philistine
cities
consolidated human
historical
cycle
the
historical
itself
of
in
is
found
the
which are
the
human
lifeless mechanised cities.
The
in
huge
As the chill
cycle,
Samson Agonistes
societies.
the
are
also
concept of descent
writings
of
Yeats,
such
into a
Joyce's
Fennegans Wake and Grave's The White Goddess.
In the plays Chitra, Mukta-dhara and The Cycle of Spring
the descent motif is related with the hero's descent into the
mystery of ritual sleep or death and his knowledge of human and
vegetable cycles.
the
In Red Oleanders it is the historical cycle:
descent of men
emergence
from
materialism
and
it.
into the
labyrinthine
Humanity
slavery.
By
falls
the
processes Man's organic growth is
into
c.i ty and his
the
external
chilled to
bleak
and
its
final
world
of
mechanical
core
and he
193
suffers a spiritual death.
sure
unity
centre.
the
fallen
In order to enforce a strong and
humanity
has
to
create
a
paramount
The town Yakshapuri is the concentration of the State
Power.
The descent into the state power is reminiscent of the
descent of Joseph into the pit.
Man has forsaken his original
home of nature and fallen under the domination of tyranny and
oppression.
The Yaksha town, seen from outside, looks like the
pit of Joseph which ultimately leads the people into prison.
It also looks like Plato's Cave,
the fallen physical universe
which is the underworld of the mind.
is a walled enclosure.
In Women in Love, life of the miners is
beholden as the fall into the pit.
the coal pit.
pits
and
The city in Zamyatin's We
Here nothing matters but
In Red Oleanders it is the gold mines.
mines
man's
natural
tendency
to
sink
By the
deeper
automatic acceptance of tyranny is aptly symbolised.
into
In Women
in Love the miners sink into the pit of accepting mechanical
organization.
It was the first great step in undoing,
great
phase
mechanical
of
chaos,
principle
destruction of
the
the
for
organic
the first
substi tui tion
the
of
organic,
purpose,
the
the
the
organic
unity, and the Subordination of every organic unit
to
the
great
mechanical
purpose.
It
was
pure
194
organic
disintegration
organization.
of chaos.
and
pure
mechanical
This is the first and finest state
(D. H, Lawrence: Selected Novels 44/.)
In Camus' Lapeste the city is plague - stricken and barricaded,
with its infected rats and mounting corpses and night convoys
to the quicklime pits.
The
Yaksha
town
is
similar
to
Babylon,
Babylonia mentioned many times in the Bible.
its fall
into hell (14:4; 21:9).
capital
of
Isaiah prophecies
Poe's "The City in the sea"
reflects the grandeur and fall of such cities.
The city is not
seen by "rays from the holy heaven come down",
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently Gleams up the pinnacles far and free
Up domes - up spires - up kingly halls Up fanes - up Babylon-like walls And he concludes
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
(Poe 149-50)
Yaksha town is enclosed by a solid wall and Nandini is amazed
to see the dark atmosphere:
195
I'm amazed to see the entire town submerge
its head underground and grope its way
in the dark.
Here
the
higher
subjection
of
(136)
form
self,
of
to
a
being
is
deteriorated
mechanical
neaessary for mere survival.
impersonal
into
the
discipline
Men in Yaksha town are reduced to
the level of stupid insects in a dense hole, engrossed in heavy
work.
Bishu says:
We have neither the sky, nor the time;
so
we've
distilled the'essence of all the laughter,
and
sunlight
of
liquid fire.
twelve
hours
into
one
songs
sip
of
(147)
The loss of one’s identity is lamented by Bishu:
All this time, since I entered Yakshapuri,
to think I'd lost the sky from my life.
think they had ground me
under
I used
I used to
a husking pedal
into a thick heap with the other fragmented people
here.
Within it there were no openings.
(153)
This feeling of being ground under a husking pedal denotes life
imprisoned in death,
of hell.
lightless heat or the orthodox conception
This state is narrated in Blake's Four Zoas.
But in the Wine presses the Human Grapes sing not
nor dance,
They
howl
and
writhe
in shoals of torment, in
fierce flames consuming,
196
In chains of
iron and
in dungeons circled with
ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of
torment and woe;
(IX. 748-751)
This tormenting scene occurs in Samson Aqonistes where the hero
is made to suffer in the mill.
...... and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds and Philistian Yoke;
(Samson Agonistes 40-42)
This state of being crushed under a husking pedal is the state
of Yaksha people.
To sum up the meaning of this symbol in the
words of Frye:
The mill also represents the dissolving of "living
form", and the "dark Satanic mills" in Blake mean
any
unimaginative
logical
method
machinery
universe,
of
that
mathematical
the
mechanism,
Aristotle,
requires
the
mechanical
the
industrial
slave-labour,
co-ordination
of
mechanical
ability
the
to
the
Newtonian
turn
out
uninspired art - anything that compels Albion, of
whom Samson is in reminiscence, to remain "Eyeless
in Gaza at the mills with slaves".
(FS 290)
19?
The paradisal state Man had lost after the fall and the
recovery of it are the happenings of a common day.
reality is mental and it
something
pertaining
to
is
The core of
concerned with the present,
physical
and
the
past.
The
not
modern
civilisation is on the point of subsiding into the phase of
metropolitan imperialism, which is spatially projected in the
enclosed
Yaksha
predecessors.
town.
T.S.
Nineveh
Eliot's
and
'unreal
Tyre
are
city'
its
historical
London,
a
similar
city in Baudelaire are the literary archetypes of Yaksha town.
They
put
T.S.
Eliot's
taken
in
from
our
"I
minds
similar
had not
Dante's
crowds
in
Dante's
Inferno.
thought Death had done so many"
Inferno.
Thus
Inferno,
Nineveh,
is
Tyre,
London, Paris and Yaksha town are metaphorically the same place
where loss of spirituality has always resulted in sterility and
spiritual death.
They do not live,
they merely exist,
as do
dead things.
the
In
twentieth
dystopian
centuries
education
challenged .
must
The
the
belief
eventuate
society
societies depicted by H.G.
Sleeper Awakes.
writings
that
in
of
the
nine t;eenth
science,
boundless
a
Yaksha
Wells
of
town
is
and
technology and
happiness
similar
to
is
the
in A Modern Utopia and The
These societies are buttressed by a pervasive
conformism to hierarchical
division.
exists in the Yakshapuri dividing
This
sort
of
division
the ideal Universal Man of
198
Tagore
into
fragments.
Jack
London's
Iron Heel
depicts
a
society similar to Yaksha society where people are afraid of
the institution which would engulf them in its cavernous and
slime-dipping maw.
Every one in Yaksha town is watched and heard by Sardar
who resembles the Thought Police of Orwell's 1984.
We
is
State.
set
in
the
twenty-sixth
century known
as
Zamyatin's
the
Single
Aldoux Huxley's Brave New World has its Alphas, Eetas,
all of whom exist within societies dominated by an overpowering
dictator.
his
It is ruled* by a dictator called the Benefactor and
secret
police who maintain strict social order.
In all
these mechanised societies Man has lost his pastoral home and
privacy and always has an uneasy feeling of being watched by
some
superior
authority.
Such
a
society
curbs
growth of Man and reduces him to mere tool.
independent
satellite
entity
with
the
control
at
his
of
system
but
organic
He is no longer an
is
somebody.
the
perceived
Human
as
world,
a
human
action, praxis, has been transformed completely into the social
world of commodities ;* Man
will;
That
is
why
is an object to be manipulated at
the
excavators
in
Red Oleanders
compelled to pull carts.
There
is
a
cattle
plague
shortage of bullocks to pull
in
the
carts.
section,
a
No matter,
the excavators can be pressed into service.
(175)
are
199
The diggers lose their identity and individuality and
become non-entities in the crowd.,
Man becomes a cog
gigantic wheel of industrialisation,
industrialism
and
headlong
depersonalises man.
The
day
day
I
show the
comes
still
day
yard
gold,
three.
I
end of our days.
two,
after
follow
pile
the
figures
bring
third.
up
people.
In
continuously
reaching any total.
two,
yard two followed
piles
and
after the first pile the second,
second
day
continue digging the tunnel,
yard one followed by yard two,
by
dehumanises
Bishu laments the loss of identity as:
one
three;
a mere automation.
mechanisation
calendar doesn't
After
in the
piles
after the
Yakshapuri
in
of
figures
rows,
never
That's why for them we're not
We're only numbers.
Brother Bhagu, what
number are you?
Bhagulal: It's painted on the clothes of my back,
I'm 47-P.
Bishu
: I'm
69-U.
person,
In
the
village
I
was
a
here I've become one square in
the game of
10-25.
upon fny chest.
Gambling continues
(148-49)
The
and
200
They are like the inhabitants of the glass city of We who are
also known by their numbers.
Tagore's Universal Man or Blake's Albion is shattered
to
pieces.
They
are
known
either
as
rulers
or
phraseology of Orwell Proles or ordinary workers.
of
Red Oleanders
unquestioning
or
mass
gold
miners
subjected
exploitation and tyranny.
are
to
faceless,
the
The proles
passive
relentless
Yaksha town,
in
and
oppression,
like Coketown of Hard
Times is a bastion of egotistic materialism.
"It contained several large streets all very like
one
another,
and many
small
streets
still more
like one another, inhabited by people equally like
one another, who all went in and out at the same
hours, with the same sound upon the same pavement,
to do the same work ..." (Dickens 22)
Bishu's remark about Yaksha town is pertinent.
The air of Yakshapuri breeds contempt for beauty,
that's
precisely the
danger.
There's
beauty
in
hell too, but no one there can understand beauty;
that's the greatest punishment of all
living in hell.
for
those
(146)
Everyone desperately feels he necessity of being freed
away from this bleak atmosphere.
They are nostalgic of the
201
unfallen
state
of
pastoral
life
and
they
mourn.
Bishu
laments:
From one direction hunger whips us,
us;
they inflict pain - they say,
thirst whips
do your work.
In the other direction the forests' green spreads
maya,
the
sun's
gold
spreads
maya,
they ignite
intoxication - they say, freedom, freedom.
Romance
has
two
levels
of
experience;
(146)
one above
level of ordinary experience, the other below it.
Yaksha
town
is
a
demonic
ordinary experience.
night
world
below
the
The world of
the
level
of
The world outside the Yaksha town is a
pastoral one from where gusts of songs float into the portals
of Yakshapuri.
lurking at
Yaksha
The
image of the
a corner of
people.
country side which remains
the memory brings
Nandini
beckons
the
a
king
fermentation
to
hear
in
the
harvester's songs and break open the self-imposed prison.
Paush
is calling for you - oh, come along.
Her basket's full with ripe harvest today.
She
questions
the
king whether
he
could
see
(140)
the
Paush
spreading the gracefulness of the ripe rice across the sky.
Intoxicated by the winds
The spirits rise in the fields,
The gold of sunlight streams upon the anchal of
the earth. (140)
4343,1
sun
202
It
is
an
idyllic
world,
a
world
associated
with
happiness,
security,
privacy and peace.
The chief image of this world is
harvest.
Instead of amassing gold in the pit like Yaksha town
they can rise up to the level of innocence and glory so as to
reap the corn and share the rhythm of the seasons.
It is similar to the experience of the poet of "Ode to
a Nightingale" who wants to get away from the anxieties of the
sick city, to
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret ...
("Ode to a Nightingale")
This is the thirst for the recovery of
D.H.
Lawrence's "Pan in America":
Pan-consciousness
in
the vibrating consciousness
of the earth-power, the tree-spirit, the bird-energy and their
interpenetration into one's life.
The miraculous escape or ascent of the masses and their
rediscovery of true home and identity are brought forth by a
process of metamorphosis.
There is a growing sense of identity
and casting off of whatever has concealed or frustrated it.
metamorphosis
is
taking
place
in
the
society
which is dramatised in the person of the king.
London and Dostoevski's Petersburg,
of
A
Yakshapuri
As in Dicker's
the guilt of Yakshapuri is
203
distributive arising from a sick way of life.
Catering to the
need of dramatic demands of narrative, it is centred upon the
king, who is the representative mar.
The invisible Raja - King is a very ambiguous character
in the play.
netted
He is a fearsome mighty person living behind a
screen.
While
talking
about
the
significance
complexity of the king A.N. Gupta remarks, "....
and
Red Oleanders
is a remarkable drama principally because of the portrait of
the
king,
who
heartlessness
of
fittingly
modern
Rengacharya comments,
himself is
human,
industrialism"
power,
(Sharma
greed
147).
and
Adya
"Here is a king of a mechanical age who
imprisoned by his own organisation.
He is hardly
since right upto the end he is just a voice hidden to
all eyes" (Rangacharya 124).
is
symbolises
Till the end of the play the king
invisible and talks from behind a screen.
At the outset
Nandini describes the king as an inhuman giant.
I saw a man, but gigantic.
The forehead like the
gateway of a huge seven-sectioned building.
two arms
fort.
the
iron
bolts
of
some
The
unapproachable
It seemed like somebody from the Ramayana
or Mahabharatha had come down.
(155)
Perceived as a human and a super-human being, the king
is identified with a mighty architectural structure.
He is an
204
enigmatic
person
giant structure.
in
Red Oleanders ■
The
human
is
seen
as
a
Monstrous powers are bestowed upon him by the
monstrous institution for which he is the head.
This enigma is resolved when the king is considered as
the integration of the people into a higher unit or body of
life.
The ideal of the integrated individual some times gives
way to certain larger bodies such as nations, cities, towns and
races.
Blake is of the opinion that even in the fallen world
the human aggregates are beholden with an inspired loyalty.
He
writes in "A Vision of the Last Judgement*.
It ought to be understood that the Persons, Moses
and Abraham,
are not here meant,
signified by those
Names,
the
but the States
Individuals
being
representatives or Visions of those States as they
were reveal'd to Mortal Mar. in the senes of Divine
Revelations as they are written in the Bible;
these various States I have seen in my
Imagination; which distant they appear as
One
Man,
but
as
you
approach
they
appear
Multitudes of Nations.
("A Vision of the Last Judgement" 76-77)
The
individual.
king
of
Red Oleanders
appears
to
be
a
single
But he is really the people - their state of mind
205
which is represented in his person.
The king,
for instance
to express
the
is
his
descent,
historical
the
imaginative
society in a single man.
to
Frye observes:
shape
idea of
attempt
the unity of
The king owes his title
which
of
selfhood's
shows
the
the
idea,
legal
and
he
and
often
descends from an even profound parody of the One
Man,
The
the
eponymous
entire
nation
Loins".
(FS 395)
hidden
Yakshapuri
symbolised
king
buried
in
is
has
the
ancestor,
been
drawn
hidden
in their works
his
person.
through
into
humanity:
whom
an
"One
Man's
the
people
of
of digging and hoarding are
Milton
suggests
this
when
he
comments:
.....
a commonwealth ought to be but as one huge
Christian
personage,
one
mighty
growth,
and
k
stature of an honest man.
Interpreted
Royal Metaphor,
in
the
light
shed
by
Frye's
concept
of
expounded in his The Great Code: the Bible and
Literature, the king is understood perfectly in the traditional
Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in England. Book II
'Introduction'.
206
meaning
of
the
term.
individual with a class,
people of Yakshapuri.
The
Royal
Metaphor
identifies
here
the king with the self-centred
for
of
the
king
his
subjects,
is
primarily
the
unity of
to
their
society in an individual form.
Even yet Elizabeth
II
she
can
because
draw
crowds
there
appearance,
an
He observes:
function
represent,
The
is
but
wherever
appears,
anything
remarkable
because
she
about
dramatizes
metaphor of society as a single body.
not
her
the
'TGC 87)
The royal metaphor is considered as. a social force, that is why
a lot of labour and wealth are spent to construct the pyramid
for the Egyptian king,
as he is considered to be Horus in his
life and Osiris after his death..
The patterns of man, nature and society share a common
structure,
This
i.e.,
the
hierarchical
whole
is
culmination
with the image of the pyramid.
up
through
the
diminishing
a
is
unity
depending
explained
by
upon
John
parts.
F.
Danby
The structure of pyramid rises
multiplicities
of
the
classes
things into the one who is all.
So is man:
to a point,
he is a hierarchical
that point
the
unity that grows
'apex of
the mind1
-
the part of him most fitted to be regarded as his
of
207
highest and therefore his most real self.
Man’s
society is inevitably similar.
We rise upwards to
the
who
unity
of
that
single
passing through ranks
but
expand
as
to
man
is
the
king,
that dwindle as to numbers
importance,
and
significance.
The king finally stands for the whole.
(Danby
As the
is
'apex of mind'
considered to be
is the essential self,
representative Man.
behind the divine right theory.
Man of men in this sense.
169-170)
This
is
the
the king
concept
The king of Red Oleanders is a
Glouster in King Lear views the king
as representative man when he cries:
0 ruined piece of Nature, this great world
Shall so wear out to nought.
(IV. vi)
Considering the king as a masterpiece or apex of men not as a
fragment, Cleopatra says,
.......
Yet t'imagine
An Anthony were Natures piece,
'gainst Fancie.
(Anthony and Cleopatra
V.
ii, 98-99)
The king in Richard II exclaims the strength of the King.
asks:
He
208
Is not the King's name twenty thousand
names?
In the
same
(Ill, ii, 85)
play the captain predicts
the fall of
the king
after observing the undesirable signs in heaven and earth.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
The meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven,
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change,
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
Farewell: Our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assured Richard their king is dead.
(II, ii, 7-16)
Nandini's rueful comment about the hidden king as the
human aggregate of Yakshapuri is revelatory.
Then again,
you've kept your
She exclaims:
Raja hidden behind
this strange screen wall fearing that it will be
discovered he is human.
I want to open the dark
lid to those tunnels of yours and pour light into
them;
so also do I want to tear down that ugly
screen and liberate the man inside.
(137)
209
Professor's
confession
about
the
Raja
as
the
cluminative
personality of inhuman possessiveness expounds the application
of royal metaphor theory.
As
the
spirit
of
our
awesome
force,
so
does
dead
treasure
our
Raja,
possesses
strained
humanity, possesses equally fearsome might.
of
(136)
The inhuman pattern and awesome force of the people of
Yakshapuri are embodied in the king.
He is the fullest human
expression of the community that co-operates to maintain him.
The selfhood of each Yakshapuri citizen is retained in the king
and vice-versa.
To threaten to overthrow the selfhood in the
individual Yakshapuri citizen is to threaten to overthrow the
selfhood of the king.
In a town like Yakshapuri the king in
every man is submitting himself to the king behind the screen.
Every self-centred man of Yakshapuri
the
king
Realising
is
the
in
fact
what
potency
of
every
the
submits himself because
man
king
the
is
only
ancient
in
potency.
Tamil
Purananooru elevates the king as the soul of the people.
book
It
sings:
Neither the rice nor the water gives
Life to the people; but the king.
(Mosikeeranar
In
Kamba Ramayanam
King
Dhasaratha
considers
body containing the lives of the people.
186)
himself
as
the
210
The world is king's soul and the soul
Is borne by the body of the king.
(Ayodhya Kandam - Mandarai, 17)
In another context Karnban insists the same idea.
As he treats all lives as his own
He has become the body for their souls.
(Balakandam - Arasial, 10)
The
idea
of
the
king, has
an
inwardness
in
thinking, which is no longer relevant to us.
thought
is
from
the moral
to
the
political.
world every man considers himself as the King.
he discover and fulfill his true self.
the
traditional
The movement of
In his
little
Only then will
The kingly part of him
makes him capable of being called the image of God.
In Kamba
Ramayanam the divineness within oneself is felt by the people
of three worlds, when King Rama is crowned.
incarnation of the over-soul,
Rama, the divine
Paramatma born as
the king
is
recognised by the individual souls, the Jeevatmas at the event
of coronation festival.
Karnban says that when sage Vashista
places the crown on Rama's head, the people feel the crown on
their
own
assimilates
Mahishasura.
heads.
the
In
powers
Hindu
of
all
mythology,
beings
to
Goddess
kill
the
Dhurga
demon,
To gather and enforce the collective energy she
211
assumes the role of Queen.
When the Hindus celebrate Naoratri
or
with
Nine
Auspecious
Nights
Golu
★
or
display
of
idols,
Goddess Dhurga's idol as the queen is kept at the top of the
hierarchy.
It is called Dharbhar or King's Court.
The king not only represents the unity of his subjects
in their glory but also in their defeat.
It is said of the
unlucky Zedekiah, the last king of an independent Judah:
The
breath of our nostrils,
Lord,
the anointed of the
was taken in their pits,
of whom we said,
under his shadow we shall live among the heathens.
(Lamentations. 4 : 20)
In Alii Arasani Malai a curse befalls the Pandiya
result of his high-handedness.
King as
a
This reflects on the people and
consequently the whole country becomes sterile. What the people
are implicitly is expressed explicitly in the image of the king
and vice-versa.
It is the people of Yaksha town who mystify
the king, as mystification is a source of fear.
Nandini tells
the king:
The
business
of
people
here
is
to
frighten.
That's why they have surrounded you with a screen
and
dressed
ashamed
doll?
you
up
so
strongly.
to stay dressed up
like
Aren't
this,
a
you
voodoo
(160)
The dolls of gods, goddesses, humans, animals, birds and
vegetables are arranged according to their various ranks.
212
In Yakshapuri enormous revolutionary forces of life are
making their way through the deadened physical bodies of men.
The king's tearing asunder the screen reveals the liberation of
the mass
free
from their
themselves
imaginative
collective
from
impulse
materialistic
prison first.
tyranny
is
selfhood,
The
selfhood.
no
it
change
and
longer
is
the
is made
When they begin to
oppression
to
be
kirxj
to
be
as
contained
who
breaks
felt
their
in
the
open
his
at once
by the
workers as well as the scholars along with the king.
Even Sardar,
king
himself
is
the military force of the king,
not
able
revolutionary impulse.
for a remedy.
the
also
catches
(175).
asks for a remedy.
This
"It is
illness is not external,
Sardar worries about the disease and
Sardar is the defacto,
essentially
the
He worries about the symptoms and asks
irritation within himself.
is
disentangle
The doctor diagnoses a disease in Raja.
it's of the mind"
who
to
which the
active.
This
temporal authority
authority
feels
a
tremor
before the burst of a volcano.
The king or dejure or spiritual
authority has
and
contemplative.
something of
it
it
is
associated with the
The king as the spiritual and mental expression
of the people shows the symptom of change that is- going to take
place in the immediate future.
When
the
revolution
breaks
out,
Bhagulal
could
not
understand the king's sudden presence among the commoners.
He
213
asks
him,
We've
"But
come
out
Maharaja,
to
Surely
break
your
you
own
haven't
prison"
misunderstood?
(185).
The
Raja
replies, "Yes, my own prison, Both you and I will have to work
together.
It's not your work alone"
(185).
book-worm comes out of his study shouting,
come
out
after
so many
days
The professor, a
"...
the Raja has
having discovered
the greatest
heights of life - I left my books and papers and come to join
him" (185).
In Red Oleanders the king is drawn in the image of the
t
people.
He is the symbol of God in Tagore's plays like The King
of the Dark Chamber and The Post Office.
the king
death.
In The Cycle of Spring
is every man who suffers the pangs of the fear of
In Red Oleanders
bursting out from the
the
collective
shackles
finds expression in the
of their
liberated king.
force of
the people
individual
selfhood
In Mukta-dhara,
the
prince's body is divided among his subjects and he undergoes a
spiritual resurrection in those people for whom he dies.
The
mergence with the king is the objective of all these plays.
The
organic
tie
with
the
inner
spirit
attained at the end of these plays.
of
fellow-people
is
The anthropomorphism of
bringing together the public and private, political and moral,
individual and the universal is done very effectively through
the final mergence with the king.
214
The king's association of himself with rocks,
clouds,
deserts and snowy cliffs clearly marks his destructive Urizenic
fervour.
Whatever is fertile is lapped up by the destructive
urge of the Urizen.
He threatens,
"I am like the summit of a
mountain, bareness is my splendour" (140).
He calls himself a desert:
I am an enormous desert.
I extend my hand toward
a small blade of grass like you, saying,
"I am burning, I am empty.
I am weary".
Consumed by the fire of thirst this
desert has lapped up many fertile regions, so that
its extent ever increases,
The
destructive
urge
of
the
(142)
king
or
the
people
shares
the
characteristic qualities of Blake's Urizen who is a remote and
mysterious sky god.
In French Revolution he is described as:
An aged form,
white
Uncertain light.
In
"America"
the
as
snow,
hovering in mist,
weeping in the
(131-32)
Urizenic
imperialism
of
the
British
described in the imagery of remote sky-god.
. .
. and Urizen, who sat
Above all heavens, in thunders wrap'd, emerged his
leprous head
is
215
From
out
Fa1ling
And
his
holy
into
the
thunderous
shrine,,
tears
in
deluge
piteous
sublime;
flaged with
grey-brow' snows
deep
visages,
his
nis
jealous wings Wav'd
over the deep;
(Plate.
L6. 2-5)
Frye's comment on Blake's Urizen throws some light on the state
of mind of the people of Yakshapuri.
Urizen's
associations
rocks and deserts;
are
with
bleached
bones,
but actually Urizen being the
human belief in the objectivity of nature,
is an
abstraction, a hanghost that is always just going
to
take
definite
shape
and
never
.quite
does.
(FS 209-210)
The belief
in the objectivity of nature or
makes man possessive and self-centred.
believes in material superiority.
"out there" form
He is
accumulative and
He raises himself above from
others on the piles of gold and stands remote.
This alienation
from nature and from fellow-beings makes him highly suspicious,
since
he
suffers
a
state
of
insecurity.
The
king
and
the
people of Yakshapuri suffer under such a hallucination before
the arrival of ore principle among them.
216
With an iron hand the king
any
trace
town
a
of
kind
social
of
upheaval.
social
Urizenic perception.
things,
so as
They
have
organisation
achieved
consistent
in
Yaksha
with
their
They long fcr the predictability of all
to avoid the
establish a moral
and his hierarchy suopress
accidents
of
change.
The way to
law in society is essential for them.
They
do it in the hope that if it is made stringent enough it will
bring
life
down
to
the
automatism
of
physical
law.
So
the
power-oriented king and the Sardar adopt the method of imposing
mechanical uniformity on the people,
counting them as
robots.
state
In
Four Zoas
their
Urizenic
is
inhuman
expressed
by
Blake as:
And
Urizen
gave
life
and
sense
To all his engines of deceit:
by
that
his
immortal
power
linked chains
might run
Thro' ranks of War spontaneous; and that hooks and
boring screws
Might
act
according
to
their forms by innate
cruelty.
(131-134)
The process of metamorphosis in the king, is rather the
process
of
social
upheaval
people.
This is done by the dormant revolutionary Impulse,
in terms of Blake, Ore.
Blake's Ore.
king.
The
erupted
out
of
the
suppressed
or
Nandini in Red Oleanders is similar to
sudden approach
of
Ore
is described by the
217
Nandini,
one day in
a
distant
country
weary mountain just like myself.
I
saw
a
From the outside
I just couldn't make out "-hat all its rock pined
inwardly.
noise,
Late
as
one
if
night;
some
I
heard
demon's
had
sunk
force of an earthquake.
the
mountain
how
horrifying
long-suppressed
nightmare had suddenly broken.
saw the mountain
a
In the morning I
underground
from
the
J understand from seeing
the
burden
itself, unknown to itself.
of
power
crushes
(142-143)
The king's prison or the mighty structure of society crushes
down due to its unbearable dead weight.
Once a white mountain,
it now crushes down to relieve itself of its own selfhood.
The
dry desert which had lapped up many a fertile region becomes
itself fertile.
Such a dramatic and drastic change is brought by the
entry of
Nandini.
spring flower.
frequently
She wears
a
garland
of
red
oleanders,
a
The red flower Nandini wears is a recurring and
repeated
image
in
the
play.
The
power
bursting
forth from the dormant spiritual nadir erupts out like the red
fire of volcano.
of the play.
The red flower she wears forms the tonality
The red flower, a symbol of sudden volcanic power
acquires a thematic importance in the play as in the poems of
Blake.
While the king is associated with white cliffs, deserts
218
and
clouds,
Nandini
is
known
observation of the contrast
by
the
fiery
red.
Frye's
is relevant in understanding the
potentials of the king and Nandini as Blake's Urizen and Ore.
In the associations that Blake makes with Urizen
and Ore,
Urizen
and
Urizen is an old man and Ore a youth;
has
Ore
a
is
counter-revolutionary
a
revolutionary
colour
red.
white
Urizen
is
therefore associated with stdrile winter, bleached
bones, and clouds; Ore with summer, blood and sun.
The colours white and red suggest the bread and
wine of a final harvest and vintage, prophesied in
the
fourteenth
'underneath'
chapter
Urizen,
of
and
Revelation,
underneath
cliffs of Albion on the map are the
the
Palestine,
Esau,
the
the kingdom
rightful
heir.
of
the
is
white
'vineyards of
red France' in the throes of revolution.
of
Ore
In a map
red and hairy
Isaiah's
vision
of
a
Messiah appearing in Edom, with his body in blood
from treading the winepress of war, haunts nearly
all Blake's prophecies.
(TSS 180-81)
In this wasteland, a movement towards redemptive action is done
through invasion by some power from "outside".
or embodiment of that power is Nandini.
The messenger
219
The red garlanded Nandinl walks among the Urizenic dead
mass of the people like a harbinger of spring.
The wild-eyed
women of Yakshapuri throng around her path, emerging from their
dungeons.
Being
awakened
come from their dens.
from
the
nadir
of
oppression,
In Nandini they put their trust..
men
They
bend beneath her spell and are roused to rebel like the people
in The Revolt of Islam who are carried away by Cythna,
lady.
a fiery
Nandini's sudden arrival in the bleak town of Yakshapuri
can be compared with Cythna' s who is also the personification
of Ore principle emerging from the wintry death of tyranny.
Thou Friend, whose presence on ny wintry heart
Fell-like bright spring upon sorae herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of custom thou didst burst rend in twain,
And walked as free as light the clouds among.
(VII
Through
the
eyes
of
Cythna,
the
lamp
of
55-60)
vital
fire
internally in the soul is seen by the Urizenic energy.
describes
the Urizenic
energy as
a Victorious
Evil
burning
Shelley
which has
dispossessed man of his native power and made his fair children
torn.
The Evil has made men slaves to soothe his vile unrest
220
and eventually they become acclarratised to the atmosphere of
scorn.
In due course the bright flower of revolt blooms amidst
the woeful condition,
waste.
Dudley
Revolutions".
like the red
Randall
describes
lotus born from a marshy
this
in
his
"Roses
and
He sings:
Ttien washed in the brightness of this vision,
I
saw
how
in
its
radiance would grow and be
nourished and suddenly
burst into terrible and splendid bloom
the blood-red flower of revolution.
(Randall 868)
At various times in history there has been political
upheavals symbolised by the entry of Ore.
It is the protest of
human energy and desire, the desire to create a better world.
This Ore principle is sung by Blake as "The shadowy Daughter of
Urthona stood before red Ore" ("America", Plate I. 1).
The Ore
in "America", who is roused to threaten the king of England, is
blood-red in colour.
As human blood shooting its veins all
round the orbed heaven,
Red rose the clouds from the Atlantic in
vast wheels of blood,
And in the red clouds rose a wonder O'er
the Atlantic sea,
Intense ....! naked! a Human fire, fierce
glowing, as the wedge
221
Of iron heated in the furnace;
his terrible limbs were fire
With myriads of cloudy terrors
The king of England looking westward
trembles at the vision
("America"
The
king
fire.
of
Red Oleanders
describes
Plate. 4-5)
Nandini
as
a
planetary
The king trembles at the sight of the red flowers which
remind him of a planetary fire.
I see that bunch of flowers and
I think, the blood-red light of
my own Saturn has arrived here
in the form of flowers.
Sometimes
I want to snatch them from you and
tear them up; then again I think,
should Nandini someday with her own hands
adorn my head with that cluster, then -
(159)
The red-oleanders remind the king of "the blood-red light of
"his own Saturn.
The blood-red flower unites the disintegrated
people or the fallen Albion of Blake in the figure of Nandini
and this paves way for the sudden revolution.
Every one in the
Yaksha
the
town
feels
this
attraction
though they feel it as ominous.
the
redeemer's
blood
after
towards
red
flower,
As the redeemed get united by
crucification,
people
get
their
222
unity
after
the
counterpart.
valuable
violent
So
the
red
blood-intimacy the
dea:;h
in
of
Nandini's
Ranjan
Red Oleanders
modern man has
symbolises
lost.
It
the
reminds
him of the lost blood-intimacy and through the violent death of
the redeemer the scattered Universal Man
person.
The
flower
Bengali
clearly
title
connotes
is united as a single
Rakta-Karabi
the
meaning
blood-intimacy.
blood-red
As
Jesus
instituted the Eucharist by holding the red wine to denote the
blood-intimacy
red-oleanders
martyr.
and
salvation
prophecies
the
by
blood-drink,
blood
that was
slain to receive power,
strength,
gods
would
shed
as
a
The one who sheds blood :.s eligible in "The Revelation'
to open the book with seven seals.
5:12).
Ranjan
metaphorically
and honour,
referred to
in
Attis,
Golden Bough,
a
appear to create
this
is
the
lamb,
and wisdom,
and blessing
and
(The Revelation
Osiris and other dying
red
always associated with the God’s blood.
Land hyacinths
Worthy
and riches,
and glory,
In the rites of Adonis,
"...
or
purple
flower
is
In Eliot's The Was he
impression.
The
flower
red oleanders is the recurring and frequently repeated image in
the play forrsing the tonality of the play.
The world of water, the
assimilative element of the Universal Man ir. Red Oleanders is
represented
only
by
the
spilled
blood
of
Ranjan
Passion and in Dante's symbolic figure of history.
as
in
the
223
Nandini
willingly
Sardar's spear.
"Look,
front of his spear.
of
red
streak
to
get
herself
pierced
he has hung my garland of
jasmine
by
in
I'll go and make that garland the colour
oleanders
with
of
which
blood
goes
the
blood
unites
of
my
breast”
Nandini
with
(185).
Ranjan
The
is
the
•k
bloodied rakhi
final
uniting the king and the people together in the
consummation.
It
sacrificial symbolism in
is;
"Jerusalem":
passes over the howling Victim:
the
fair
side
Plato 66,
of
the
20-21).
similar
fair
"The
to
Knife
Blake's
of
flint
his blood / Gushes and stains
Daughters
of
Albion"
("Jerusalem"
As in the Pass:.on the heart is pierced and
pulled out and the individual expands into the universal.
streak
of
blood
ties
the
Martyrs
with
the
king.
The
The
Royal
Metaphor is the merger of the people with the martyrs and they
embody the Universal Man.
Amidst the people who have forgotten the blood-intimacy
Nandini
and Ranjan act
true unfallen state.
as
an
energy
This sense of
reminding
them of
their
identity with the greater
power or the heightened consciousness or an intense feeling of
communion ’is brought forth by the intrusion of Nandini, who can
be
called
Shelley.
as
That
the
is
vehicular
why
form
Nandini
is
of
energy
often
in
referred
to
term
of
as
the
boatman.
rakhi.
A piece of thread tied around the wrist usually by a
sister on her brother at a particular annual festival in
India to show their love and bond.
224
Who are you, boatman of my dreams?
The drunk wind strikes the sail.
The wild soul sings along.
Make me forget
By your swaying,
Carry me to your distant shore.
(145)
Nandini reminds Bishu of an ideal place from where he drifted
away
to
this
gruesome
Yakshapuri.
The
boisterously
sailing
boat is used in comparison with the moon which also sails
the vast sky.
in
Bishu sings:
0 moon,
the
tide of
tears
now strike the sea of
sorrow,
The whispers reach the brim of this shore and the
other
My
boat
was
The breezes
The
boat,
energy
the moon,
and
movement
on
known
took
and
it
the
from
banks,
to
the
breeze
one
its
edge
of
unknown.
are
state
mooring came
untied,
symbols
to
some
(155)
of
another.
vehicular
The
compares her arrival with the "sail spread to the wind"
The
Professor
by"
(165).
calls
The boat,
her movement
"the
breeze
of
her
king
(143).
passing
a romantic construct is evaluated by Frye as
the fragile container of something very precious.
225
...
the boat is usually in the position of Noah's
ark,
a
fragile
imaginative
container
values
of
and
a
chaotic
and
In Schopenhauer,
the
threatened
unconscious power below it.
world
sensitive
by
is an idea rides precariously on top of a
'World
practically
the
whole of existence in its moral indifference
....
In
as
Freud,
mythical
Will1
who
which
has
engulfs
noted
structure
to
the
resemblance
of
Schopenhauer's,
his
the
conscious ego struggles to keep afloat on a sea of
libidinous impulse.
(TSS
214-15)
Though threatened by the despotic king,
Nandini sails forth as
a fragile container of the higher values. The sage Parasura in
*
Mahabharatha depends on a woman ,
his
vedic
hidden
progeny
from
to
the
-
the
others
future.
subtle
understood and venerated by Guha,
a low-born,
of
journey.
In
boatman)
death
to
D.H.
carry
to promulgate
The Ramayana
divine
essence
the boatman.
Rama enfolds him among his brothers.
"The Ship of Death",
ship
(the
The
what
was
of Rama,
was
Though Guha is
In the poem,
Lawrence urges the reed to build the
the
soul
through
the
largest
night
This is the ark of faith carrying the soul across the
floods of chaos and oblivion to be reborn.
★
Matsya Gandhi - a boatman smelling like fish. When the boat
was in the middle of the Ganga, the union took place and the
very next moment the sage Vyasa was born carrying the Vedas
in his hands.
226
Now launch the small boat,
and life departs,
the
fragile
now as the body dies
launch cut, the fragile soul in
ship of
courage,
the
ark of
(Lawrence
In
Hemingway's
"Indian
Camp",
Nick
feels
the
faith,
327)
surety
of
continuous life while sailing in a boat with his father.
The metaphorical kernal of this archetype boat is the
experience
Dedalus
of
waking
speaks
from
a
of history as
trying to awake.
dream,
a
as
when
nightmare
Joyce's
Stephen
from which
is
Nandini makes an awakening among the people
of Yakshapuri and carries them away to another world.
victorious journey has begun from today.
that journey"
he
(183).
"Your
I'm the vehicle for
The symbolic voyage from the one to the
other world is carried out by the revolutionary thought.
This
thought disturbs the mass and Bishu sings as the mouthpiece of
the people.
You keep me awake so that I sing you songs,
0 destroyer of sleep.
So that's why you call me and startle my breast
0 awaker of grief.
Comes darkness around,
Birds come to their nests,
227
Boats come to the shore,
But only my heart can not find any rest,
0 awaker of grief.
(154)
The heightened consciousness of feeling the greater potentials
of oneself is brought forth by Nandini's influence.
For
Yakshapuri
-
a
wasteland,
the
movement
towards
redemption can take place only through invasion by some power
from "outside".
Nandini.
a
is
Her presence is like the feathery presence of a bird,
symbol
of
structure
of
his "...
The messenger or embodiment of that power
spiritual
the
transformation.
society
finding
its
The
apex
mighty
in
the
inhuman
king
with
two arms the iron bolt of some unapproachable force"
(157) confronts a power emanating from Nandini.
Transformed by
her touch, the mighty inhuman and inorganic structure becomes a
lively tree and feels the reverberation of life running through
its trunk.
She forces her into the curtain and' makes a novel
impact upon him.
A falcon
sat upon his right arm;
perch and kept staring
just
at
my
he set
face.
it c»n a
After
that,
like he'd been running his fingers down the
falcon's wing, he took my hand in the same way and
began stroking gently ...
his
hands
closed.
and
(156)
for
some
he held my open hair in
times
sat
with
eyes
228
The eyes do not see but
energy in the bird-like Nandini
the vibrating,
unifying life
is poured forth to the king.
Deeply absorbed in the instinctive, cognitive and non-rat,ionai
faculties,
the
king
at
once
feels
the
blood-intimacy of atonement or at-one-nent.
pulsation
of
The rationalised
public of Yakshapuri plunges for a while into the unified life
energy of the cosmos when the sense of sight or the medium of
abstractions remains closed for a while.
The bird is a common symbol of the emissary of power in
Indian
and
spiritual
Western
-literature.
transformation.
It
is
Marvell's
also
"Garden1'
a
symbol
identifies
of
the
human soul with a bird sitting on the branches of the Tree of
Life.
The
demon-king
who
Ramayana or Mahabharata"
forms.
The
encounter
Nandini a bird.
in
the
like
"somebody
the
(155) gets transformed into different
makes
the
king
look
his
Surapatman
oceanic
when
like
capital
Lord
and
Confronted by the divine force of Chevvel
transforms
from
a
tree
and
It resembles the drastic changes taking place
denK>n-king
Mahendrapuri,
seemed
himself
into
a
tree.
Muruga
fights
with
enters
him.
(Red God) Surapatman
Kachiappa
Sivachariyar's
Kanthapuranam narrates how the tree is broken into two parts
and
the
peacock.
broken
pieces
are
metamorphosed
into
a
cock
and
a
The birds symbolise the killing of the demonic ego in
229
Surapatman.
Nandini
who
feels
like
a
bird
brings
a
total
The universal concord of love is reminded to him.
From
change in the king.
I felt good.
Shall I tell you in what way?
He was like a thousand-year-old banyan tree,
I like a small bird.
If I swing a little
while on the tip of one of his branches,
surely he feels happy down to his marrow.
I wish to give this bit of happiness to that
lonely soul.
the bleak,
(156)
intolerable prison of materialistic death the king
or the people are elevated to
like entry of Nandini.
soul
realisation,
by
the
The arrival of Ranjan also is predicted
by a feather of a blue jay.
Nandini exclaims:
*
Everyday a blue jay comes and sits on the branch
of the pomegranate tree in front of my window.
As
soon as evening falls I pranam and tell the polar
star,
my
if a feather from ic corr*es and falls inside
room
Today,
then
I'll
know
my
Ranjan
will
in the morning as soon as I woke up,
a feather carried by the north wind
bed.
Here, see,
(161-62)
bird­
its'
lying
come.
I saw
in my
in my anchal over my breast.
230
Nantdini's imaginative transformation of herseif as a bird and
the
blue
birds
jay as
act
as
the
harbinger
conductors
of
of
a
Ranjan's
arrival
tremendous
show how
psychic
energy.
Bharathiar, the Tamil poet - creates a fire-chick of revolution
in his
poem,
trunk of a
burnt
"Fire-Chick"
tree.
down.
and
Within
Dorothy
places
it
some minutes
Van
Ghent's
in
the
the
dry,
hollow
entire forest
observation
of
the
is
bird
imagery is relevant in understanding the dramatic implications
of the bird symbol in Red Oleanders.
Birds
have
'a
unique
authenticity
as
the
transformative symbols or catalysts of spiritual
change.
They
have
themselves as 'gods’
of a hawk,
and
the
numina
life
been
sanctities,
not
(although Horus wore the head
Zeus appeared in the form of a swan,
Holy
or
always
Ghost
in
bird-spirits,
that
of
a
sharing
of all earthly creatures,
dove)
the
living
but
as
instinctive
in trees,
eating earthworms - but having an unearthly power
that other creatures lack,
to fly.
their wonderful power
(Ghent 252)
The earth bound Yakshapuri king or the people who always dig
and suffocate inside the earthly caverns are all of a sudden
drained
of
their
conscious
minds
and
turned
inside
to
231
concentrate
on
the
life
force
pulsating
within
creating a blood-intimacy between each other.
themselves
The bird like
Nandini is a numbing assault upon their rational minds.
'Ode
to
a
Nightingale'
sings
of
such
a
Keats'
psychological
transformation.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk ....
'
("Ode to a Nightingale")
In the king or the people the obscure love for humanity lurking
at a remote corner of the mind is kindled all of a sudden and
the bird gives a focus for such a psychic transformation.
The bird imagery is used to denote a higher, elevated
life impulse because the bird is able to fly.
the superior form of human existence,
If the bird is
the corresponding image
of nature would be the egg, a symbol of Blake's Mundane Shell
or the stone as it appears to the untrained eye.
tells:
A god's laughter is the light of the
Sun - it will melt ice, but
Won't move stone.
(137)
The Professor
232
When the stone is rolled away, the final apocalypse is at hand.
Reading with the Biblical terminology,
man must push away before he
the stone is the dragon,
attains resurrection.
From one
point of view individual human history is seer as a progression
from
dust
to
progression
dust.
from
A
stone
historical
to
stone.
cycle
The
Last
is
seen
Day of
as
Judgement
occurs when the buried bodies roll away the sepulchres.
Ramayana
the
fallen
sage-husband,
trample
on
Ahalya,
who
was
turned
to
the
stone
In The
by
her
regains her original form when Lord Rama’s feet
it.
When
the
stones
of
Yakshapuri
down, a terrible change is ahead of them.
are
shattered
The Puranic scholar
questions the Professor of this rolling away cf the stone.
Puranic
Scholar
:
Tell
me,
what's
going on inside?
Professor
:
this
terrible
disturbance
It is a horrifying noise!
The Raja has got angry with himself.
So he’s
shattering something of his own creation.
Puranic
Scholar
:
It seems like huge pillars are crushing down.
(164)
The huge pillars crushing down reminds one of the removal
the stone or death impulse.
of
Samson destroys himself with the
ruins of pillars or dead stones.
233
Now the stones are as near as we get to existence
without
life;
they are at tne
limit of opacity,
the reduction to the inorganic which in Blake's
symbolism is both death and Satan.
(FS 224)
Sleeping and keeping his head over a stone,
the
vision
of
apocalypse -
descending angels upon it.
a
ladder
with
Jacob has
ascending
and
Sysyphus rolls up the stone again
and again.
The rolling away of the stone is apocalypse, where
time
space
and
consummation.
bound
In
world
is
Red'Oleanders
lifting up of stone.
transcended
Professor
for
visualises
final
the
He tells the Scholar:
We had a lake surrounding the foot of that hill,
water
from the
Sankhini
collect in it.
river
used
to
come and
One day the mound of rock at its
left tilted and fell over, the stored water rushed
out
like
away.
days,
is
a
madman's
I think,
roaring
laughter
and
'went
after observing Raja for several
chat the rock around his hoarded reservoir
being
pushed
outwards,
and
the
bottom
has
eroded within. (164-65)
The Titan Atlas holds up the ruined Atlantis over his
head.
to
The ruined Atlantis is the physical world.
which
all
life
is
anchored.
Tagore
in
It is a rock
Red Oleanders,
234
visualises
life as
imprisoned within a rock.
Taking a dead
frog in his hands, the king tells Nandini:
One day this frog got inside a crevice in a rock.
Under
years.
that
cover
he
existed
for
three
thousand
From him I was learning the secret of how
to keep existing in this manner;
how to keep living, though.
more today,
he doesn't know
I didn't like it any
I smashed the rock cover,
freedom from endless
existing.
I gave him
Isn't
that good
news?
Nandini: For me too, your stone fortress will open
up
today
from
all
directions.
I'll meet Ranjan today.
I
know
(158-59)
In Indian Yogic system the latent cosmic power or "kundalini
shakti” is raised up from the lowest centre of the human body.
It ascends piercing the various centres of consciousness and in
the
upper
centre
(skull)
meets
the
cosmic
power.
It
is
believed that the meeting occurs when there is a breaking open
the centre at the top.
This is rolling away the stone of the
Mundane Shell which in turn stands for the embryonic and unborn
imagination.
The
'stony roof'
is the phrase used by Blake in
Jerusalem to denote this unimaginative state of the mind.
selfhood's
The
perception of the world as the "out there" form is
235
the
stone
kicked
away
by
the
king
and
once
this
dichotomy
between the subject and the object is rolled away Resurrection
in religion and the vision of Universal Man in an imaginative
person are at hand.
The dianoia or the "stand back" theory of Frye gives
the visual pattern of the Redeemer's descent into the belly of
a monster and his consequent ascent up with the redeemers.
dianoia of Red Oleanders
is
similar
to the
Biblical
The
dianoia
where Jesus leaps into^the "toothed gullet of the aged shark"
and rouses up the fallen humanity at
This visual
George
the
cost of his
life.
pattern is visible in The Faerie Queene when St.
liberates the church of England from the
which is seen as a dragon.
in Red Oleanders.
Finally
papal
power
This biblical pattern is observable
Bishu describes the Yaksha town as a dragon.
I
saw
that
if
you
enter
the
mouth
of
Yakshapuri its jaws close; now there's no path at
all except the path going into its belly.
I'm
digested
belly.
Professor
inside
that
hopeless
Today
lightless
(148)
tells
Nandini
that
the
town
is
swallowed
bv
the
:At
dragon,
Rahu
(138).
The dragon Killing therna is the central
In Hindu mythology Rahu,
"the; seizer", is a demon who
swallows the Sun and the Moon, thereby causing eclipses.
In
astronomy he is depicted as a dragon.
236
pattern
of
quest-romance.
"The
leviathan
is
the
source
of
social sterility, for it is identified with Egypt and Babylon,
the oppressors of Israel, and is described in the Book of Job
as "king over all the children of pride" (AC 189). In the Book
of Revelation the leviathan,
all
identified.
elaborate
The
dark
monster.
This
dragon
pits
-
Satan,
and the Edenic serpent are
identification
killing metaphor
of Yakshapuri
are
is
in
the
basis
for
an
Christian symbolism.
the dark
intestines of the
The wandering of the Yaksha people in the dark pit
can be compared to the people devoured by the monster.
They
have no way to escape until the arrival of the hero who pierces
open the body after entering it.
In the folk tale versions of
dragon-killing the victims come out of the dragon's body after
it is killed by the hero.
Secular versions of journeys inside monsters occur
from
Lucian
to
our
day,
and
perhaps
Trojan horse had originally some
same
theme.
The
labyrinth for
the
one,
that
and
one
image
of
monster's
belly
quests, notably that of Theseus.
In
Red Oleanders
spiritual
death.
the
people
During
the
are
dark
winding
is
natural
appears
a
in heroic
(AC 190)
released
struggle
the
links with the
the
frequently
even
with
from
slavery
and
the
monster
the
237
cycle in history takes up a turn and the characters move up
from the undesirable world to a desirable one.
Frye's archetypal approach helps
enigmas of the play.
happening
of
every
underground town,
in resolving certain
The mythos of Red Oleanders is not the
day
world
of
reality.
The
ethos
of
:he invisible king and Nandini are also
remote and remain a puzzle for critics and readers.
With the
help of the archetypal approach their significance is revealed
at
once
and
they
mythos and ethos.
are
conceived
The king,
as
the
perennially existing
the most elusive of all Tagore's
characters is understood as the representative man.
The theory
of dianoia or visual pattern is very helpful in categorising
the play as a displaced romance.
* ★★