Question

Read rabindranath tagore's story "Punishment" and critically analyze the way the text engages a significant issue of social responsibility. You should anchor the paper’s argument with a clearly articulated thesis statement and use careful analysis of textual evidence from the story or novel to support your claims. While you analyze the story, you should consider how the social issue from the story relates to a local issue in your own community or to a significant regional, national, or global issue. How does the text help you understand better the social issue or the issue of social responsibility in the contemporary world? Do you observe similarities or differences or both between the social issue in the story and in your own world?

Answer 1

"Punishment" by Tagore is a complex story. It is a story of two brothers. Their names are Chidam and Dukhiram. They use to work in agricultural fields as labours. Both of them are married and live with their wives. Chidam's wife's name is Chandara.

She is young and quite pretty. Dukhiram's wife is Radha. She is older and unkempt. She also uses to make fun of her husband. Her husband remains irritated on her. One day Dukhiram returns from his work in field and sees that his wife Radha has not prepared food for him.

He becomes angry and decides to kill her with a knife in her head. He kills his wife according to the plan in his mind. Their landlord comes to know about all these and Chidam falsely tells his landlord that his wife Chandara has killed Radha and not his brother.

He says so because in his thoughts it is better to loose his wife than his brother. He tells his wife that he will make some arrangements to save her. Later on, the whole matter gets very complicated and Chandara takes whole blame on herself. Both Chidam and Dukhiram try to save her but she keeps on confessing.

This story is a story which depicts the Indian dilemma. Both the brothers were slaved for whole day. It tells the problems of labours in modern world also. People are forced to work with limited resources. They are paid in such a manner which only allows them to live a miserable life.

It also tells the family problems. It talks about various emotional problems which take place due to sarcasm and immoral behaviour. It also describes the dimensions of interpersonal relationships. It also tells the impact of beauty of external morphology.

It tells the importance of blood relations and secondary relations. It describes the complexities in various relations. It is a story about love, attraction, greed, emotions and valuable life affecting actions. It tells the impact of jealousy and mental tension on thought process.

It is true in modern world also. These are the base of crimes in modern world. It also produces a dilemma of selection between blood relation and close relation. It is also a story of revenge where a person feel dejected and does not want to go to that person who is responsible for all sufferings.

It also tells about the mental torture. It talks about stress and its impact on our daily life. It is also evident in our present time. Stress is causing depression. It is causing isolation and suppression. It causes major health issues.

It destroys the happiness of human lives. It also tells the ill effects of negative emotions. Negative emotions are major cause of modern day sufferings.