Problematizing Realism in Early Bengali Novels: The Prehistory of a Narrative Convention in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's Bishbriksha (The Poison Tree, 1872–73)

Abstract

This essay revisits the question of realism in early Bengali novels, with special attention to Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's Bishbriksha or The Poison Tree (1872–3) as a case study. The argument is twofold: First, I argue that the contingent form emerges through complex negotiations with the time of colonial modernity and the available literary tradition. Second, I demonstrate that Bankim uses certain irregularities of the form to force it into a conversation with his contemporary issues, most notably social reforms in nineteenth-century Bengal. Through the conjoined narrative of the normative and the irregular, there emerges a unique realism suitable for the narration of colonial modernity.