A Study Guide for Rabindranath Tagore's "The Post Office"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Rabindranath Tagore's "The Post Office," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535838955

Book preview

09

The Post Office

Rabindranath Tagore

1913

Introduction

Rabindranath Tagore, an Indian writer of all forms of literature (as well as a painter and composer), predominantly wrote in Bengali, though several of his poems and plays have been translated into English. Originally written in Bengali in 1912, Dak Ghar was translated into English as The Post Office and performed in 1913 by the Abbey Theatre Company in Dublin, Ireland, and London, England. The play was then published in English in 1914. To this day, The Post Office is the most renowned and beloved of Tagore's dramatic works, and it is still regularly produced in the United States and abroad. The play is about a small boy who is chronically ill. On account of his sickness, the boy is confined to his bed, and he sits by his window, watching life go by without him. Only by dying is the boy finally set free. In this manner, the play is primarily a metaphor for spiritual freedom, for death as a beginning rather than an ending. The play also presents a social commentary on class structure through the servants who surround the boy during his illness. Having remained in print for almost one hundred years, The Post Office is available in a 1998 paperback edition of Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology.

Author Biography

Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 7, 1861, in Calcutta, India, which was then under British rule. His mother was named Sarada Devi, and his father, Debendranath Tagore, was a scholar, religious reformer, philosopher, and writer. Tagore began writing at an early age, publishing poetry in various magazines and journals by the age of thirteen. By the age of sixteen he had already gained recognition for his poetry. He is the author of the first short story ever to be written in Bengali, Bhikharini (1877, The Beggar Woman). He continued to write poetry and verse plays at this time, and he also began composing Hindu devotionals. In 1879, Tagore left India to pursue his studies at the University College of London, but he did not enjoy attending school and returned home without a degree in 1880.

Tagore married Mrinalini Devi Raichaudhuri on December 9, 1883. The couple had three daughters, Madhurilata (nicknamed Bela), Renuka, and Mira; and two sons, Rathindranath and Samindranath. Two of the children did not live until adulthood; his wife died around 1902. While his family was