Scripting of a ‘New Woman’: Rabindranath Tagore’s Jogajog

Abstract

There has been a whole range of both male and female writers who have advocated the cause of women and portrayed the diverse shades of their personality in inventive works. Rabindranath Tagore has been the most countless-minded personality of modern India. He was the first writer to give equal or perhaps more place to women in his writings. The wave of new woman ideology was not only limited to the Western world. It affected women around the world and even men who were sensitive to women’s issues. Rabindranath Tagore was a personality who clearly dealt with issues like women’s will, their rights and freedoms in his novels. The approach adopted in the present study is not a follow-up to Western feminist ideas, but a synthesis of the concepts available within the Indian sociological system. In India, feminism is a debatable concept. Indian feminist researchers or women studies researchers have not been able to define what Indian feminism exactly is? Indian feminists are not very comfortable in creating a strict definition of theories such as writing and Western feminism. He was a personality who dealt with issues such as women’s will, their rights and freedoms clearly in his novels. In Tagore’s narrative, there is a reflection of courageous women in women. One can call them the ‘New Women’. Keywords: New Woman, Feminine, Indian Society, Marriage and Family, Man-Woman Relationship, Sexuality