FNS 2017; 3(1): 158–178

Patrick Colm Hogan*

How an author’s mind made stories: Emotion
and ethics in Tagore’s short fiction

https://doi.org/10.1515/fns-2017-0010

Abstract: Authors may be understood as producing stories from their narrative

idiolects. Narrative idiolects are sets of principles that enable the simulation of
possible sequences of causally connected events. Such idiolects include proto-
types that define classes of stories. These prototypes or proto-stories are com-
plexes of cognitive and affective structures that guide the interpretation of real-
world events as well as the production of fictions. Like everyone, Rabindranath
Tagore had a range of proto-stories. But one was particularly important for him.
This was a proto-story based on attachment, the sort of bonding that first of all
characterizes the relations of parents and young children. This proto-story centers
on the formation and violation of attachment relations, with the ethical and
political issues that surround such violation. Specifically, Tagore’s ethical and
political imagination was largely guided by the norm of securely developing
attachment. It was elaborated into stories by reference to deviations from that
norm. Those deviations are caused by attachment threat or loss. In connection
with these points, Tagore’s attachment proto-story suggests two key ethical
virtues – attachment sensitivity and attachment openness. These, in turn, may be
disturbed by the social production of shame, often in relation to gender ideology.
This essay examines Tagore’s attachment proto-story and its ethical and political
consequences.

Keywords: Attachment openness, attachment sensitivity, authorial imagination,

literary creation, narrative idiolect, proto-story, shame, simulation, Rabindranath
Tagore

All of us, as speakers, produce sentences from our linguistic idiolects, the com-
plexes of rules that define our individual, internalized grammars. Similarly, as I
have argued in How authors’ minds make stories (Hogan 2013), all of us, as story-
tellers, produce stories from our narrative idiolects, that is, from the complexes of
principles that allow us to tell tales. These narrative idiolects may be understood

*Corresponding author: Patrick Colm Hogan, Department of English, University of Connecticut,

215 Glenbrook Road, U-4025, Storrs, CT 06269-4025, E-Mail: patrick.hogan@uconn.edu
 How an author’s mind made stories 159

to include prototypes that define classes of stories – thus “proto-stories,” as we

might call them (Hogan 2015 [2011]). These proto-stories are complexes of cogni-
tive and affective structures that guide our interpretations of past and ongoing
events, our expectations of future events, and our simulations of hypothetical or
counterfactual events, as well as our emotional response to those events. Proto-
stories integrate more basic cognitive structures – episodic memories, semantic
prototypes, affective orientations, and so on – into larger, narrative complexes.
They bear on our construal of our lives, our assessment of our conditions and
prospects, and our moral evaluation of ourselves and others. It seems that we are
often guided by a limited number of such proto-stories, which are activated in
different contexts or in relation to different hopes or anxieties. These proto-stories
commonly parallel cross-cultural narrative structures, such as the romantic plot
of love, conflict with society, separation of the lovers, and so on. Despite such
common features, however, proto-stories may be recognizably idiosyncratic.
In the context of literary study, the crucial point about proto-stories is that
they not only guide how we understand our relations with parents or colleagues,
or how we evaluate the moral or immoral actions of politicians in our conversa-
tional storytelling. Beyond such quotidian uses, proto-stories guide the produc-
tion of literary narratives. Indeed, in examining some writers, we find that their
proto-stories are both highly consistent across works and highly distinctive. Of
course, if an author is successful, both points must be partially qualified. The
consistency across works must allow for adequate variation, if the author is not to
be seen as repeating himself or herself. We may understand this variation in terms
of the complex interaction of variables or parameters. Principles are common
across an author’s stories. However, each story will set the parameters somewhat
differently.1 As to the distinctiveness of proto-stories, it is clear that the complex
of principles governing a proto-story cannot be too idiosyncratic. Rather, the
cognitive and affective networks defining authorial proto-stories must be accessi-
ble to readers, so that they are able to follow through particular storylines,
experience appropriate emotions, and at least to some extent infer relevant
thematic implications.
Like everyone, Rabindranath Tagore had a range of proto-stories. These
guided his understanding of the world and his storytelling. But one proto-story,
or one type of proto-story, was particularly important for him, at least in much of

1 In saying this, I am obviously drawing on the model of Principles and Parameters theory in
linguistics, with some obvious differences (e.g., the principles are not innate and universal and
 

the parameters are not set enduringly in a critical period in early childhood). For a brief overview
of this theory, see Surányi 2011. I have elaborated on a principles and parameters model for
literary idiolects in chapter four of Hogan 2013.
160 Patrick Colm Hogan

his short fiction. This was a proto-story based on attachment, a story centering on
the formation and violation of attachment relations, with the ethical and political
issues that surround such violation. Attachment is the affectionate bonding that
occurs most obviously between parents and small children, what the Sanskrit
aestheticians referred to as vātsalya. This seems to have served as a sort of master
emotion for Tagore. In other words, it is the emotion with the most fundamental
explanatory role in his work and the emotion that is most important, not only
narratively, but also aesthetically, ethically, and even politically (e.g., in relation
 

to such issues as dowry).

More precisely, I have argued in earlier work that there are two principles that
are fundamental to Tagore’s ethics – attachment sensitivity and attachment open-
ness (Hogan 2015 [2011]; see also chapter seven of Hogan 2011b). Attachment
sensitivity is the recognition of and respect for attachment bonds, a respect that
recognizes the deep pain of their violation and that accepts their fundamental
importance for human wellbeing. Attachment openness is the acceptance of other
people as possible attachment figures independent of their social category or
status. Social categorization commonly involves placing some people in an out-
group (by caste, race, religion, nationality, or other identity category) in such a
way as to exclude them from possible attachment relations. This exclusion often
involves making out-group members into objects of disgust, which is the emo-
tional opposite of attachment.
In the following pages, I set out to extend this earlier work by more fully
outlining Tagore’s attachment proto-story, and its ethical and political conse-
quences. I have chosen to focus this discussion on Tagore for three principal
reasons. First, Tagore’s stories provide us with a great number of works that are
closely and clearly interrelated and adequately developed, but not overly lengthy.
Thus they do not have the disadvantages of, say, lyric poems (which are likely to
be underdeveloped in terms of their story structure) or novels (which are likely to
be overwhelming in their extent or too few in number). Second, Tagore’s stories
are to my mind among the great works of modern literature; they are works that
reward repeated and intensive study. Despite his Nobel Prize, Tagore’s work is
underappreciated outside Bengal and Bangladesh. Finally, I find myself person-
ally drawn to the emotional and ethical emphases of Tagore’s work. His emphasis
on attachment sensitivity and attachment openness, and his closely related
opposition to identity categorization, seem particularly salutary today.
 How an author’s mind made stories 161

1 Coercion and ideology: Fundamental parameters

of Tagore’s attachment proto-story

Like all proto-stories, Tagore’s attachment proto-story implies an idealized, comic

trajectory – roughly, how things would work out if no problems arose. In order to
define the structure of Tagore’s attachment proto-story, we need to begin by out-
lining this normative trajectory against which variations take on their significance.
This comic narrative begins with secure parent/child attachment or vātsalya and
develops naturally into marital love. In this version, the characters are guided by
ethically positive, but also to some extent natural propensities toward attachment
sensitivity and attachment openness. This basic narrative sequence would not,
usually, make a story. Its very presumption of naturalness makes it untellable. It is,
rather, a background for tellability, for a series of events that is likely to provoke
adequate interest in listeners or readers. Tellability occurs when there is some
disruption in the idealized trajectory – in Tagore’s case, when there is some threat
to the continuity or development of attachment (e.g., some threat to the mainte-
 

nance of parent/child attachment or to the substitution of marital for parental love).

There are many possible sources of such a threat. Those sources establish para-
meters for variation in the particularization of Tagore’s stories. For Tagore, there
are several such parameters. The first ones we might consider are a function of
social conditions and social norms – specifically, coercion and ideology.
By “coercion,” I am referring not only to physical force or literal policing, but
to material, prominently economic factors as well. In particular conditions, such
factors can disrupt parent/child attachment (as when a child is orphaned due to
poverty) or foreclose possibilities for marriage (as when a girl has no dowry). More
precisely, economic conditions may increase attachment vulnerability. One of the
remarkable aspects of this version of Tagore’s proto-story is that it does not stress
rapacious landlords or exploitative capitalists. Rather, Tagore tends to pair more
and less vulnerable characters. In one version, his proto-story stresses the attach-
ment insensitivity and withdrawal of the less vulnerable characters, along with
their subsequent rationalization. We see this in, for example, “The postmaster.”
In that story, the postmaster of the title remains oblivious to the growing attach-
ment feelings of the young, orphaned – and dowryless – girl, Ratan, who is his
assistant. He gains some vague sense of her pain only when he is leaving. After a
few moments of guilt over her pain at his departure, he salves his conscience by
“reflect[ing] philosophically that in life there are many separations”2.

2 Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Tagore refer to Radice 2005.

162 Patrick Colm Hogan

A further development of this version appears when the less vulnerable

character exhibits attachment sensitivity and openness, but there is no practical
possibility for sustaining the attachment. In this case, the result may be social
criticism, rather than rationalization. We see this in “The wife’s letter,” where the
wife of the title, Mrinal, recognizes and accepts the attachment shown by a young,
orphaned girl, Bindu. Unfortunately, this bond does not save Bindu from a
terrible marriage. After the tragedy of Bindu’s suicide, Mrinal does not simply
continue to support the ordinary social norms that led to this tragedy. She asserts
her own freedom as an initial act of rejecting those social norms.
The second type of threat comes from one’s own internalized ideology,
particularly gender ideology. Here, we encounter the social sources of attachment
insensitivity and withdrawal (thus lack of attachment openness). Such insensitiv-
ity and withdrawal are not natural, but tendencies trained by social agents who
behave with the opposite of attachment care. Specifically, in this version of
Tagore’s proto-story, we find characters that promote conformity to norms of
gender identity by humiliating others, thus by negating the natural development
of secure attachment. A striking case of this sort may be found in “Housewife.” In
that story, the young boy, Ashu, plays dolls with his little sister. For this breech of
male propriety, Ashu is socially humiliated by his teacher Shibnath. This shaming
is part of his induction into the ideology of masculinity.
The ideological version of the attachment prototype receives further elabora-
tion in a story such as “The notebook,” where the humiliated character is female
rather than male. The girl in this story manifests the normal desire to turn her
attachment relations into writing. In a natural development, that writing – care-
fully set down in her notebook – should be something she can convey to her
attachment figures, thus part of the crucial process of emotion sharing (on the
importance of emotion sharing, see Rimé, Le partage social des émotions). More-
over, her writing in part concerns attachment figures, including their insensitivity
and withdrawal. But her husband and in-laws take her notebook and shame her
into abandoning such imaginative expression. Here, again, we see something
noteworthy about Tagore’s proto-story. It is commonplace to depict society as
stifling attachment proneness for boys and men (as in Ashu’s case) while foster-
ing it for girls and women. But Tagore’s proto-story is more complex. It suggests
that social ideologies distort the naturally developing attachment propensities of
both sexes. The point is clear in “The wife’s letter” as well. There, too, Mrinal is
prevented from the natural development of emotion sharing in a secure attach-
ment relation or even the articulate working through of such emotion in imagina-
tive writing (“I used to write poems in secret. Whatever rubbish they were, the
walls of your women’s quarters had not grown round them” [Chaudhuri 2000:
207]). Indeed, this recognition is central to her eventual liberation.
 How an author’s mind made stories 163

2 Further extensions: Dominant, intermediate,

and dominated characters

This political division between coercion and ideology involving social hierar-
chies – particularly sex hierarchies – is of fundamental importance in the mani-
festation and specification of Tagore’s attachment proto-story. But there are
further parameters affecting just how this division is developed, already sug-
gested in the preceding reference to more and less vulnerable characters. One
such parameter concerns who falls into the dominant group and who falls into
the dominated group (e.g., who is male or female). Another parameter, which
 

interacts with the dominant/dominated parameter, concerns the question of

who takes on the role of moral agent, thus who is in a position to make moral
decisions.
Often, the character with primary moral agency is in the dominant position,
and he or she exhibits attachment insensitivity. We see this in the case of “The
postmaster.” The postmaster is dominant in sex, class, and age. He is also the one
who is in the position to make moral decisions, since there is very little that Ratan
can do regarding their relationship. It is also clear that he exhibits attachment
insensitivity. Moreover, that insensitivity manifests itself in a sort of unconscious
shaming or humiliation of Ratan. For example, he laughs when she asks him to
take her home with him. Then, “All night [...] Ratan felt the postmaster’s laugh
ringing in her ears” (Radice 2005: 45).
We also see this operation of dominant moral agency in Uma’s relation with
her elder brother in “Exercise-book.” One of the most affecting moments in the
story occurs when Uma is effectively trapped in her in-laws’ home. She writes a
note in her exercise book, “Dādā [elder brother], I beg you, take me home again
just once – I promise not to annoy you” (Radice 2005: 143). Of course, there is no
way that Gobindalal can read his sister’s note in the exercise book. But the literal
inaudibility of her plea is itself only a symptom of Gobindalal’s broader incapacity
to hear what she needs.
On the other hand, it would not be correct to say that all dominant figures
suffer from attachment insensitivity. Some dominant characters’ attitudes are in
effect changed by their own attachment experiences. Consider “The editor.” In
this story, a widower takes up a literary career to earn money, in part for his
daughter’s dowry. In this sense, the dowry system is at the root of their separa-
tion. However, he soon becomes caught up in the success of his satirical writing.
His obsession leads him to ignore and even mistreat his daughter, Prabha, who
becomes “scared” of him (Radice 2005: 123). The disruption of the attachment
relation is obvious and profound. Eventually, his daughter falls ill. Familiar with
164 Patrick Colm Hogan

the death of abandoned women and girls in Tagore’s stories, the reader fears the
worst. But there is no social constraint here, no dominant third party requiring a
sacrifice, no choice that faces the daughter. There are only the two people in the
attachment relation. When Prabha appeals to him, the father’s latent attachment
feelings are reawakened: “I realized now that the girl, distressed by the onset of
illness, had gone to her father longing with all her heart for his care and affection”
(Radice 2005: 124).
Here, the father is faced with a moral decision. He can either continue with
his career, or he can devote himself to his daughter, sacrificing narrow self-
interest. He decides on the sacrifice and makes “a bonfire” of his “papers” (Radice
2005: 124). Unlike the sacrifices of many women in Tagore’s stories, however, this
is not tragic. Indeed, it brings him “greater happiness than [he] had ever known”
(Radice 2005: 124).
This adds a further parametric value to our catalogue. The dominant figure in
an attachment relation need not merely be insensitive and rationalizing. When
subjected to no serious external constraint, a dominant figure may be affected by
the attachment relation in such a way as to awaken attachment sensitivity. This
may, in turn, lead to a comic sacrifice on his or her part.
Another story of this sort is “Kabuliwallah.” Indeed, this story is particularly
consequential because the attachment sensitivity it examines and values is not
within a family, but across nationalities and religions. This story has a particularly
complex plot. It concerns a poor Afghani man, Rahamat, and the family of an upper
middle class Bengali writer. Rahamat has come to Calcutta to make some money
for his family. His ethnicity, poverty, and lack of education place him below the
Bengali family and, indeed, mark him as an out-group member. Despite this, he
becomes good friends with the little girl of the house, Mini. They develop an
affectionate relationship that is somewhat anomalous. Rahamat gets into a dispute
with a client over payment and stabs the man. Rahamat ends up in prison. When he
is released after several years, he goes to the family’s house in the hope of seeing
Mini just “for a moment” (Radice 2005: 118). As it happens, it is Mini’s wedding day.
The Bengali writer explains that it is an important day and that Rahamat should
leave. In other words, he indicates that Rahamat is inauspicious. Rahamat gives a
small present of fruit to the writer, asking him to pass it on to Mini. The writer tries
to pay him for the fruit. Up to this point, we apparently have a recurring version of
Tagore’s standard proto-story. There is an attachment relation. The attached fig-
ures are separated by someone who tries to reduce the relation of affection to some
price. In keeping with this standard story, Rahamat refuses the money.
However, at this point, the story changes. The attachment relation between
Rahamat and Mini had never been entirely clear. Now Rahamat explains that he
has a daughter in Afghanistan and that visiting Mini reminds him of her. He
 How an author’s mind made stories 165

extracts from his shirt an old paper that he has had with him for years – the
handprint of his daughter. Now we see that the fundamental attachment relation
in the story was that between Rahamat and his own daughter. The fundamental
separation was the result of his poverty and his travel to Calcutta in order to earn
money. The in-group /out-group divisions between the Bengali writer and Raha-
mat now dissolve. Reminded of his own attachment to his own daughter, the
writer reflects, “I forgot then that he was an Afghan raisin-seller and I was a
Bengali Babu. I understood then that [...] he was a father just as I am a father”
(Radice 2005: 119). He refers to Rahamat’s daughter as Parvati, just as he had
earlier referred to his own daughter as Durga (Radice 2005: 118). These are two
names for the same goddess, a goddess associated in many Bengali songs with
familial separation (see McDermott 2001: 123–151).
Here there is another shift. The dominant figure, affected by his own attach-
ment feelings, has a choice of what to do. He first forgets his concerns about
Rahamat’s presence being inauspicious and calls his daughter. After she leaves,
he then determines to make a sacrifice as well. He gives Rahamat the money to go
home. Rather than reducing attachment to a price, substituting money for a
human relation, he tries to enable the repair of an attachment relation. Just as the
editor found more happiness in his sacrifice than in his writing, the writer finds
greater spiritual well being in sacrificing for this putatively inauspicious man
than in rejecting him. Because he gave Rahamat this money, he had to cut back
on the wedding festivities. But, he explains to Rahamat, “by your blessed reunion
[with your daughter], Mini will be blessed” (Radice 2005: 120).
In addition to the more straightforwardly dominant and dominated charac-
ters, there are characters of intermediate status as well – for example, upper class
women who are socially superior to lower class women but socially subordinated
to upper class men. When they are not part of the attachment relation, they tend
to be spiteful and hostile, like the more straightforwardly dominant characters.
Examples of this sort would include Uma’s sisters-in-law, who mock Uma in
“Exercise-book,” or Nirupama’s cruel mother-in-law in “Profit and loss” (a story
we will consider in detail below). In contrast, when an intermediate figure is in
the attachment relation, he or she may not be as insensitive as the more fully
dominant characters.
Consider, again, Mrinal in “The wife’s letter.” She is socially superior to Bindu
in being married. But she shares Bindu’s dominated position as a woman within a
patriarchal structure. Needless to say, this does not guarantee attachment sensi-
tivity, as we see when Bindu’s own sister – who shares Mrinal’s marital position
and the female subordination of both Mrinal and Bindu – treats Bindu badly.
Mrinal is perhaps not as sensitive to Bindu’s plight as she might be. Perhaps she
could have done something to forestall Bindu’s disastrous marriage. In any case,
166 Patrick Colm Hogan

as we have already seen, she does not, afterwards, simply rationalize her role in
the tragic events (as does the postmaster). Rather, she faces what occurred and
makes a moral choice to seek her own liberation – which may, in turn, inspire
others, thus possibly preventing future tragedies similar to Bindu’s. The possibi-
lity of that choice is perhaps in part a function of her intermediate position, both
dominated and dominant.
These references to the agency of dominant and intermediate figures should
not be taken to indicate that dominated figures can do nothing whatsoever. In
some cases, they do become the center of moral agency in the story. We will
consider examples of this sort in a moment. But even in a case such as Ratan’s,
they are not entirely constrained. They can and do make moral choices. The
problem is that the moral choices are very limited. Often, they are reduced to two
options, (1) complicity with the system that is violating attachment bonds and
(2) tragic self-sacrifice. In many of Tagore’s stories, there is a moment, sometimes
dramatic, sometimes not, when even the dominated attachment figure has the
possibility of making a genuine moral and political choice. With Ratan, it comes
when the postmaster offers her money. There she is faced with the moral choice –
will she agree to treat their relationship as if it were merely a matter of uncompen-
sated labor, reducible to a price? Or will she sacrifice the monetary security she
surely needs? She chooses to forego the money. In making this sacrifice, Ratan
preserves her dignity, but she does so at the cost of her material well being.
In “The postmaster,” one of Tagore’s implicit targets is dowry as a practice
that oppresses women (Ratan’s status as an impoverished orphan entails a lack of
dowry). In some other stories, he pointed toward the problems with widowhood
practices. The severe deprivations suffered by widows were a topic of concern in
many of Tagore’s writings throughout his life. In Bengal at the time, widows were
generally not allowed to remarry, to ornament themselves or wear colored cloth-
ing, or to partake in many ordinary enjoyments of life, such as eating certain
foods. Moreover, widows were often considered “dangerously inauspicious,” as
Lamb (1999: 542) put it, speaking of practices that continued almost a century
after Tagore addressed and criticized them. In effect, widows were treated as if
they themselves were associated with the dead rather than the living.
In “The living and the dead,” Tagore took up this idea as a metaphor for
widowhood. The story begins by referring to “The widow living with [...] Sharada-
shankar’s family” (Radice 2005: 31). Kadambini, the widow, is not some stranger.
She is living with her in-laws, as is the usual custom. Yet, she is not really part of
the family. The first paragraph of the story sets up a deep and intense attachment
relation between Kadambini and her nephew. The second paragraph announces
Kadambini’s death. In fact, Kadambini is alive, but she is mistaken for dead and
almost cremated. Still, having avoided cremation, she thinks, “I no longer belong
 How an author’s mind made stories 167

to the world of living people. I am fearsome, a bringer of evil” (Radice 2005: 34).
Taken literally, the idea seems bizarre. It is as if she was confused about being
alive or dead. But, in fact, this precisely describes the way widows were com-
monly treated at the time.
When she eventually returns to her home, she appears to the family as if she
were a ghost. The young nephew is able to accept her and only asks her to
promise, “You won’t die again?” (Radice 2005: 40). This is in keeping with the
attachment-bound, socially intermediate (partially dominant, partially domi-
nated) characters. In this case, the nephew is male (thus dominant), but also a
child (thus dominated). Such characters tend to accept and to reciprocate feelings
of attachment. But here social outrage and hysteria ensue on the part of the
dominant adults. This creates panic in the child as well. The family accuses
Kadambini of being an evil influence on the child (Radice 2005: 41), a notion that
fits her identity either as a ghost or as an inauspicious widow. For a moment, she
tries to assert that she is indeed alive. Literally, she realizes that she has not died.
Metaphorically, however, we see a woman who, faced with an attachment rela-
tion that gives her life meaning, determines to affirm that she is not a virtually
dead widow, but a living person who is no more inauspicious than anyone else.
Unfortunately, Kadambini does not seem to have any way of affirming her
real life, of establishing it in the face of familial and social condemnation. Indeed,
it is a commonplace that the in-laws of an unsupported widow simply wish that
she would die. Paradoxically, it is only after she is dead that they can treat her
with honor, first of all through the funeral ceremonies – a great occasion for
people to exhibit their dutifulness, however little they cared about duty before the
person passed away. Thus Kadambini has only the most narrowly constrained
choices. Like Ratan, she too opts for sacrifice, in this case by drowning herself.
Tagore’s final sentence sounds like some simple, clever paradox – “Kadambini
had proved, by dying, that she had not died” (Radice 2005: 41). But the point is
that this is precisely what occurs with widows.
We see this ethical development of Tagore’s attachment proto-story all the
more clearly in “Profit and loss.” This story returns us to the evils of the dowry
system. It also gives us a more elaborated and realistic case where the dominated
character is faced with a full moral decision. Ramsundar had five sons and one
daughter, Nirupama, the baby of the family. Once Nirupama was of marriageable
age, Ramsundar found a highly prestigious bridegroom from a “noble” family
with the title “Raybahadur” (Radice 2005: 48). Unfortunately, the high standards
he had for the marriage of his beloved daughter had a high price – literally, since
the dowry was extravagant. At the time of the ceremony, Ramsundar did not have
even half the amount. In keeping with the general principle we have already
noted, the father of the prestigious family responds with great hostility. He would
168 Patrick Colm Hogan

have humiliated Ramsundar and Nirupama, refusing the marriage even at that
late moment, but the bridegroom himself intervened. After the marriage, the
young husband has to be away. Living with her in-laws, Nirupama is treated
cruelly and her father is repeatedly “disgraced” (Radice 2005: 49), thus humi-
liated, when he comes to visit her.
In this story, the central attachment bond is between the father and the
daughter. The in-laws separate these two due to the dowry. The father realizes
that there is only one way he can end the humiliation and be allowed to meet his
daughter freely – that is, if he pays the full dowry. He devises various schemes to
do this, eventually making up part of the sum, only to be humiliated again when
the other father says that a partial payment is “no use to me” (Radice 2005: 50).
Ultimately, Ramsundar determines to sell his house, even though that would be
“making [his sons] houseless” (Radice 2005: 49).
When Nirupama learns about the sale, she is faced with a moral question and
has the ability to choose. She can accept the money, or sacrifice it, thus refusing
to be complicit with the system. Needless to say, she chooses sacrifice. The way in
which she explains the decision is important, however. Here, as elsewhere in
Tagore’s stories, humiliation is the prime way of enforcing the ideology of gender
norms. In this case, the gender norms intersect with class hierarchies. Ramsundar
justifies the sale of the house by explaining to Nirupama, “If I don’t pay the
money, the shame will be forever on my head – and it will be on your head too”
(Radice 2005: 52). Here, “shame” refers to social disdain, particularly that of the
wealthy Raybahadurs. Nirupama responds, “The shame will be greater if you pay
the money” (52). In this case, “shame” refers to moral error – here, legitimating a
sort of extortion.
Like Ratan, then, Nirupama chooses to preserve her dignity, and that of her
family. But the cost is considerable. On learning of her counsel to her father,
Nirupama’s in-laws come to treat her with even greater cruelty. This eventually
leads to her death from an untreated illness. In this way, Nirupama’s sacrifice of
the money results in the sacrifice of her life. Thus she combines the two forms of
sacrifice found in “The postmaster” and “The living and the dead,” giving up,
first, material wellbeing, then her life. In keeping with the implications of the
latter, the Raybahadurs conceal their mistreatment of her by having an ostenta-
tious funeral.
A more morally complex version of the proto-story occurs in “Punishment.”
In that story, two brothers, Dukhiram and Chidam, are rounded up for forced
labor at a time when their rice fields require attention. During the labor, they are
treated in a humiliating way, “mainly” given “insults and sneers” (Radice 2005:
126). On returning home, Dukhiram is taunted by his wife for giving her no money
to buy food, saying, “Must I walk the streets to earn it?” (126). Already suffering
 How an author’s mind made stories 169

from “a whole day of [...] humiliation” (Radice 2005: 126), Dukhiram is completely
enraged by the final insult to his masculinity. He thoughtlessly strikes at his wife,
killing her. Here, again, we have the recurring proto-story element wherein
deviations from gender norms are ideologically policed by humiliation. In this
case, part of the humiliation comes from the woman. (This occurs in other stories
as well, such as “Fool’s gold,” when the husband is unable to fulfill his gender
role.) Nonetheless, in a hierarchized society, violence tends to proceed downward
from dominant to dominated individuals and groups. In keeping with this, it is
the woman who suffers most directly for Dukhiram’s humiliation, even though
the ultimate source of this humiliation is the economic system that forced him to
engage in degrading and largely unpaid labor.
Chidam is now faced with a dilemma. He has a strong attachment bond with
his brother, along with moral obligations toward him. These urge him to protect his
brother from prosecution. When the death is discovered, he places the blame on
his own wife, Chandara, a young woman of seventeen or eighteen (Radice 2005:
128). This further case of violence proceeding downward in the social hierarchy
places Chandara in a moral quandary. On the one hand, it makes her a moral agent.
But at the same time, it constrains her choices severely. Tagore develops the close
“bond” (Radice 2005: 129) between Chandara and Chidam, so that we recognize
Chidam’s accusation not only as false, but as a betrayal of an attachment relation.
Thus Chandara responds with a feeling of wounded pride (Radice 2005: 131) and
deep resentment at this violation of attachment. This is parallel with Ratan’s
response to the offer of money in “The Postmaster,” though here, of course, the
betrayal is far more severe. Indeed, the narrator of the story seems to attribute
Chandara’s subsequent behavior entirely to such pride. But, in this respect, the
narrator seems unreliable (i.e., the narrator is unreliable in interpreting characters
 

or events, to use James Phelan’s distinction [Phelan 2007: 205]).

Specifically, Chandara has three choices. First, she can tell the truth – that
her brother-in-law killed his wife. The problem with this is that it would condemn
her brother-in-law to death. That would not only violate a familial obligation. It
would also involve complicity with the colonial legal system, the system whose
exploitation and humiliation are the ultimate cause of this tragedy. The second
option is to blame her sister-in-law, for example by saying that she was defending
herself against an assault from that sister-in-law. But that would involve slander-
ing the deceased, destroying her reputation, degrading her memory, and perhaps
disturbing her spirit. Thus she “would not accept that she had been attacked in
any way by her sister-in-law” (Radice 2005: 131). Her final option is sacrifice. That
is what she chooses. The deep relation of this sacrifice to attachment loss is
brought out in the final lines of the story when, “just before the hanging,” she
asks to see her mother (Radice 2005: 133).
170 Patrick Colm Hogan

There is, however, a slight complication to this story. The title is, again,
“Punishment.” The obvious punishment is the execution of Chandara. However,
there is another punishment as well – the anguish of Chidam, who does not want
his wife to be executed and tries to have her acquitted. Indeed, at the end of the
story, he tries to see her, but her angry reply suggests that she refuses. There is a
hint, then, that Chandara is in part punishing Chidam for his truly astonishing
insensitivity. It may be characterized as insensitivity, since Chidam does not seem
even remotely aware that his false accusation will harm Chandara in any way.
More technically, he simulates the mental state and circumstances of his brother,
but not of his wife – perhaps due to male/female identity group divisions. In any
case, the sacrifice here is not without a hint of revenge, however attenuated.
We find a variation on this version of the proto-story in “Skeleton,” which
returns us to widowhood practices. In this story, a ghost haunts the narrator’s
home. One night, he speaks with her and she tells her story. She had been
widowed after only two months of marriage. Her in-laws blamed her for the man’s
death and returned her to her birth family. She is restive in the role of a widow,
“surreptitiously” dressing in a brightly colored sari and weaving flowers in her
hair (Radice 2005: 87). Due to her restricted access to the world, she sees only one
man outside her family, a young doctor who is a friend of her brother’s. The
attentions of the doctor clearly suggest affection to the young woman and she
grows fond of him and is fully convinced that he is fond of her, though it is
difficult to tell if this is simply wishful thinking on her part. One day, she learns
that he is to be married and will receive a large dowry. In keeping with the usual
proto-story pattern, she feels betrayed. We cannot tell precisely to what extent she
has been betrayed. The doctor had interacted freely with the young widow. Since
she was a widow, he had in all likelihood implicitly excluded her from considera-
tion as a possible spouse. At the very least, he has been guilty of the usual
insensitivity to her growing attachment.
At this point, it is not clear that the young widow is faced with any particular
choice. What can she do when faced with an insensitivity that she construes as
betrayal? Here, Tagore develops the possibility of revenge suggested in “Punish-
ment.” The young woman actually poisons the doctor, thus punishing him for his
intended betrayal and, at the same time, preventing that betrayal. Unsurprisingly,
this revenge does not occur alone. It is paired with a sacrifice, specifically a
suicide. The young woman adopts the traditional sign of marriage, coloring the
part in her hair, then kills herself as well. Here, again, we have the sort of
metaphorical ending that we found in “The living and the dead.” This young
woman can be a bride only as a corpse. In an ironic twist, she is finally united, not
with her beloved doctor, but with other doctors, after death. Specifically, her
skeleton comes to be used for instruction in anatomy.
 How an author’s mind made stories 171

3 Tagore’s moral complexities: Freedom and

varieties of dharma

We have seen many cases of Tagore’s attachment proto-story, realized in various

particulars. In nearly every case, we have found social hierarchy and identity
categorization inhibiting attachment sensitivity and attachment openness, and
leading to painful attachment losses. But again Tagore’s simulation of the world
is not confined to a single proto-story; nor is it confined to attachment-based
ideals. Indeed, even his attachment proto-story may involve suggestions of other
values, sometimes values that conflict with the commitments implied by attach-
ment openness in particular.
Consider, for example, “Holiday,” a largely but not entirely attachment-based
work. In this story, a high-spirited boy, Phatik, is sent to his uncle’s home to be
educated. Separated from his mother, he finds himself surrounded by “loveless
indifference” made even worse by his aunt’s view that he is inauspicious, “an evil
star” (Radice 2005: 110). (The low character in a social hierarchy is commonly
viewed as inauspicious in Tagore’s stories; this is of course related to their
frequent subjection to humiliation.) The disapproving atmosphere of the uncle’s
house, and the behavior of a teacher – who seeks to “humiliate him” (Radice
2005: 111) – have only a deleterious effect. Rather than learning, he feels a deep
longing for his mother and is the most “stupid and inattentive” child in the class
(Radice 2005: 110). When he comes down with a fever, he is afraid to tell anyone
and instead tries to return home. The journey only makes his illness worse. He
dies shortly after he is reunited with his mother.
As this summary suggests, “Holiday” fits very well with the structure we have
been considering. However, the details of the story also begin to hint at something
else. The entire attachment violation and subsequent tragedy are precipitated
because the boy is being punished for his “wildness” (Radice 2005: 109). In other
words, the cause of attachment disruption here is not patriarchy or poverty, but a
restriction on the child’s “freedom” (Radice 2005: 110) – if a freedom that is, in
this case, inseparable from an environment of secure attachment.
There are other stories that stress the importance of self-assertion and free-
dom as well. One of the most interesting cases of this sort is “The wife’s letter,”
which foregrounds the possibility of contradiction between attachment and free-
dom. Specifically, Mrinal’s decision to leave her husband brings up a series of
issues relating to dharma or duty and freedom. Hindu ethical tradition distin-
guishes different varieties of dharma. These include different sorts of familial
dharma – for example, the dharma of a wife to her husband. For orthodox
moralists, when there are conflicting duties one should prefer familial and related
172 Patrick Colm Hogan

forms of “swadharma,” that is dharma particular to the agent, due to his or her
position in the family, his or her caste, etc. (see O’Flaherty 1978: 97). However,
there are, in principle, cases where particular forms of swadharma might argu-
ably be violated. Among these are cases of “āpad” or crisis. These are situations
in which ordinary moral principles can no longer be taken to apply. If one is
starving and has no other way of acquiring food, then (one might argue) this
condition of crisis supersedes the usual moral principle of not stealing.3 That is,
then, a condition triggering āpaddharma, “a practice only allowable in times of
distress” (Monier-Williams 1986: 143).
Mrinal’s decision to leave certainly violates usual principles of familial dhar-
ma. This is related to a perhaps more surprising violation, that bearing on
Tagore’s unorthodox version of familial dharma – attachment sensitivity. Specifi-
cally, it seems impossible that someone could spend fifteen years in a family and
build up no attachment relations at all – relations that, to this point, have seemed
to define the apex of Tagore’s moral concern. How can one reconcile Mrinal’s
apparent disregard of attachment relations with the usual ethical and affective
implications of Tagore’s stories?
One way of understanding this issue is in terms of crisis. It is not simply that
Bindu has committed suicide. It is, rather, that the entire system is recurrently
leading to death and suicide. Crisis has become a condition of the marriage
system. Mrinal decides to withdraw from that system. Insofar as she surrenders
her own attachment bonds – and her own security – this is a sort of sacrifice. But
it is a sacrifice that gives the woman not only more dignity, but at least in some
respects more autonomy as well.
This leads us to two final stories. The first implicitly takes up the issues of
dharma we have outlined. It is called, appropriately, “Āpad.” In this story, a
young woman, Kiran, has gone to Chandernagore with her husband, Sharat, to
recover from an illness. During her convalescence, she takes in a young boy,
Nilkanta, who had been part of “a band of travelling players” (Radice 2005: 163).
Kiran is very affectionate toward the boy and the boy forms a strong attachment
bond with her. Indeed, the relation between Kiran and Nilkanta is not entirely
unlike that between the postmaster and Ratan. Tagore explains that, during their
time together, Nilkanta passed through the final stages of adolescence so that his
“eighteen years of growth attained their proper ripeness.” In keeping with this,

3 Technically, this is not a conflict with swadharma, but with sādhāraṇadharma, the universal
dharma (equivalently, mānavdharma, human dharma) that applies to all individuals and in-
cludes such principles as not stealing (see Parekh 1989: 16). But the same point holds.
 How an author’s mind made stories 173

“Nilkanta felt hurt and embarrassed when Kiran continued to treat him like a
boy” (Radice 2005: 165).
Consistent with other “intermediate” characters (particularly women), Kiran
is only partially insensitive to Nilkanta’s feelings. Indeed, far from rationalizing
her behavior, “She realized with great distress how wrong she had been tempora-
rily to encourage affection in a person she would have to leave” (Radice 2005:
168). Moreover, when it comes time to leave, she herself suggests that the boy
come with them. The contrast with the postmaster is straightforward. Within the
story, Kiran’s difference from the dominant figures outside the attachment rela-
tionship is also clear. Her husband, Sharat, is hostile to the boy, beating him
repeatedly “for various offenses and also for no offenses” (Radice 2005: 169).
Sharat’s brother, Satish, is not only insensitive to the boy’s attachment, but
dismissive of the very idea. He claims that Satish’s sorrow over their departure is
a matter of material greed (Radice 2005: 168) – again, a recurring motif. Unfortu-
nately, Kiran does not persevere in her view that Nilkanta should accompany
them; she instead gives in to her husband and brother-in-law. This is the problem
with the intermediate characters – they have some sensitivity, but are not capable
of following through on their good impulses, or they do so only when it is too late.
Mrinal, from “The wife’s letter,” is again a paradigmatic case.
Before they leave, Kiran tries to give Nilkanta a few gifts. There is a superficial
similarity to the postmaster here. However, Kiran’s “loving gifts” (Radice 2005:
170) express her affection, rather than reducing their relation to a monetary
exchange. Moreover, to avoid embarrassing the boy, she goes and places them in
his box. Unfortunately, this gives rise to a misunderstanding. For reasons we will
consider in a moment, the boy feels that he cannot keep the box – thus the gifts –
without incriminating himself. So he undertakes the usual sort of sacrifice, the
sacrifice of material wellbeing that we saw with Ratan, and leaves without his
belongings.
What is most interesting about the story, however, is not the way it fits this
pattern. Rather, it is the added element and related moral complication that give
us the title. After Satish humiliates Nilkanta before Kiran, Nilkanta steals some-
thing from Satish’s desk – an inkstand of which Satish was particularly fond.
Satish and Sharat accuse Nilkanta. Kiran defends him. She makes an initial moral
decision, and affirmation of her own autonomy, when she forbids Satish and
Sharat from searching Nilkanta’s room. By chance, she finds the inkstand when
she goes to place her gifts in Nilkanta’s box. Nilkanta happens to see this. This
provokes his decision to leave without the box. He does this to show Kiran that he
did not steal the inkstand out of greed, but as a response to Satish’s cruelty. (After
all, if he were greedy, he surely would have kept the inkstand.) Kiran’s situation
is more complex. In terms of dharma, she seems to have an obligation now to tell
174 Patrick Colm Hogan

the truth about what she has found (rather than going along with a lie) and to
return the inkstand to Satish (rather than going along with theft). However, she
does neither. After Nilkanta is gone, she again refuses to allow the others to
search Nilkanta’s room. Later, she quietly disposes of the inkstand. Thus she
violates all normal rules of dharma. She also at least appears to violate her
attachment bonds with both Sharat and Satish. Yet it seems clear that the implied
author views her actions as right. The reason for their rightness is suggested by
the title. The ordinary principles of dharma do not apply in this situation of crisis.
It is possible to reconcile this invocation of āpaddharma with the attachment
proto-story. The crisis was brought on by Satish’s initial humiliation of Nilkanta,
and by Kiran’s own earlier attachment insensitivity. It would have been wrong to
shame the boy further. Even if he is no longer there, it would be wrong to repeat
and possibly validate those moral errors. It would only confirm Satish and Sharat
in their biases and foster further moral and emotional violations of attachment
bonds in the future.
No less importantly, however, Kiran’s action prevents any pursuit and pun-
ishment of the boy. It allows him the freedom to leave. It also manifests Kiran’s
own autonomy. Thus the story not only suggests that some forms of attachment
sensitivity may allow the violation of other attachment bonds; it may also suggest
that some considerations of freedom and autonomy may supersede attachment-
based obligations.
“Āpad” was published in early 1895. Later that same year, Tagore published
another story treating very similar events, but with a different conclusion and
different implications, “Guest” (on the publication history of these stories, see
Radice 2005: 300). This story also concerns a young boy, Tarapada, who is
connected with a troupe of players and who is in effect adopted by another family.
In this case, his affection develops for the misbehaved daughter of the family,
Charu. Despite conflict, she develops clear affection for him as well. Ultimately,
the adoptive family is able to find the birth family of the boy. They propose that
Tarapada and Charu be married. However, when the wedding is about to take
place, Tarapada disappears.
In some ways, this fits Tagore’s usual proto-story. There is an attachment
relation that is disrupted by the apparent attachment insensitivity of the older
male, who abandons the younger female. However, in this story, it is far from
clear that Tarapada has done anything wrong. Indeed, the closing lines may be
taken to suggest that he was right to preserve his freedom, leaving “before love
and emotional ties could encircle him completely” (Radice 2005: 211). This is
further reinforced by the associations between Tarapada and the god, Kṛṣṇa.
These range from his flute playing to his immense popularity as a “thief of all
hearts” (Radice 2005: 211). In devotional literature, Kṛṣṇa is the lover sought, but
 How an author’s mind made stories 175

never fully attained in this life. This is not because he is indifferent. He loves too,
like Tarapada. But even he cannot achieve the fullness of union in the material
world. This is not to say that Tarapada is Kṛṣṇa. It is, rather, to say that Tagore
associates him with Kṛṣṇa and, in doing so, he makes Tarapada’s departure more
acceptable than it would have been otherwise.
This story seems inconsistent with the general pattern we have been explor-
ing. But perhaps it is the sort of inconsistency that Tagore had in mind when he
spoke of inconsistency as his greatest weakness and his greatest strength.4 The
risk of Tagore’s attachment proto-story is that it will suggest that attachment
bonds overwhelm all other concerns, including freedom. In a context where
attachment relations are distorted and even destroyed by class hierarchies, patri-
archy – with its systems of dowry and widowhood taboos – and other oppressive
social structures, Tagore seems to have felt that protecting the attachment devel-
opment of dominated people was particularly crucial. But it is not the only
concern one might reasonably have. A story such as “Guest” partially compen-
sates for a degree of ethical imbalance across many of Tagore’s other stories.
Tagore saw attachment as ethically and politically crucial, even central and
predominant. But he also recognized that, like any human good, it is not absolute.
Indeed, this suggests the existence of another sort of proto-story, another way that
Tagore understood and responded to situations, depending on context. We all
have multiple structures of this sort. They are often far from fully consistent, and
may lead us to understand even one situation in alternatively contradictory ways.

4 Conclusion
In sum, storytelling is like speech. It is the result of idiolectal principles that
produce recurring patterns in a person’s stories. The patterns are both cognitive
and emotional. Moreover, they encompass not only personal interests, but ethical
and other norms. These principles vary to some extent from storyteller to story-
teller. Their specification in different particular stories results from the particular-
ization of the principles in part through the setting of parameters that vary the
overall shape or trajectory of the story. Commonly, these principles define an
ideal trajectory along with a series of possibilities for the disruption of that ideal.
A given set of ideal and disrupted possibilities – more precisely, an idiolectal set
of narrative principles and parameters that collectively produce a series of
related, particular stories – defines the “proto-story” for that series.

4 See Modern Review (September 1941): 212 and Visva-Bharati News 28.11 (May 1960): 190.
176 Patrick Colm Hogan

Rabindranath Tagore’s works of short fiction frequently manifest a proto-

story based on attachment bonds. That proto-story presumes a norm of secure
parent-child attachment developing into and being replaced by adult marital
bonds. Tellable stories – that is, stories with narrative interest – arise when there
are disruptions of this norm. Such disruption involves either attachment loss or
attachment vulnerability short of loss. In both cases, it gives rise to situations
where ethical decisions are required. Guided by this proto-story, Tagore suggests
two predominant moral virtues – attachment sensitivity (i.e., attentiveness to the
 

attachment needs of others) and attachment openness (i.e., willingness to treat

 

other others as possible targets of bonding and associated care, whatever their
caste, nation, sex, or other identity category). These virtues point to moral
principles that mandate actions to limit attachment vulnerability and to prevent
or compensate for attachment loss.
Tagore’s proto-story includes a number of parameters. One involves the
difference between material constraint, such as that imposed by economic status,
and ideological constraint, prominently including that defined by gender norms.
Tagore’s works suggest that ideological constraint disrupts attachment relations
predominantly through humiliation and shame that serve to distort spontaneous
human feelings and to enforce categorial identifications, thereby inhibiting at-
tachment sensitivity and attachment openness.
Another set of variables bears on moral agents. Here, one important distinc-
tion concerns the relative status of these characters as either dominant, domi-
nated, or intermediate. Unsurprisingly, dominant characters tend to enforce
identity categories. However, their behavior is in part dependent on whether or
not they have an attachment bond with the victim of attachment threat. The
characters with intermediate status vary in their behavior, but are somewhat
more likely to exhibit attachment openness and attachment sensitivity to begin
with.
The most interesting moral agents in this proto-story and its instances are the
dominated characters, especially the victims of attachment threat who experience
humiliation. They may be complicit with the system that harms their attachment
bond or, far more commonly, they may engage in self-sacrifice. The self-sacrifice
may involve a loss of material wellbeing or even life. But that sacrifice is a means
of preserving dignity in the face of social shaming. It may or may not be accom-
panied by an act of revenge.
Some of Tagore’s works suggest that he had an alternative proto-story as well.
This proto-story did not stress attachment, but personal freedom. In certain cases,
this proto-story may conflict with the attachment proto-story. The freedom proto-
story suggests a norm of self-development, not bound to familial or other attach-
ment relations with their routines and obligations.
 How an author’s mind made stories 177

Finally, it is worth noting that neither of these proto-stories emphasizes

collective action toward the social transformation of unjust hierarchies. There are
occasional suggestions of such action, as with Mrinal’s final rebellion in “The
wife’s letter.” But such hints remain just that – hints only, not stressed or
elaborated. The problem may be that Tagore’s aversion to identity categories
made it nearly impossible for him to imagine collective struggle that was not
ultimately identity-based, and thus destructive. Nonetheless, there is a humane
and empathic extension of attachment care among some of Tagore’s characters,
for example from Mrinal to Bindu. Though unsuccessful in this particular case,
such care might still serve as a model for a form of solidarity that is not identity
based. That form of solidarity, stressing attachment sensitivity and attachment
openness, could potentially unite people across different levels of social hierar-
chy, thereby working against the formation of in-groups and out-groups and the
inevitably associated proliferation of shame.5

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