The Post Office 

was composed in 1911. Many of his works during this period are coloured by reflections
on death and a mysterious call from the far-off. The Post Office is a symbolic representation of these two
currents of thought. Gordon Craing points out that “symbolism is at the root not only of art but also of
life.” In a symbolic work there are two planes of meaning: The surface meaning which is directly
expressed and the over-reaching meaning which is indirectly suggested. The letter is the most important
suggestive symbol in the play. It comes from a distant mysterious land bringing a message from someone
whom we hold dear to us. It is a sort of bridge between the known and the unknown. To Amal’s mind the
postman is a specially privileged person, for he establishes communion between the distant and
near. The Post Office itself provides a realistic background to the symbolism of the letter.
In his preface to The Post Office, W.B. Yeats lays emphasis on “deliverance as the theme of the play”,
the deliverance which the child discovers in death. Although The Post Office ends in death and the state
physician brings the message of deliverance, a good deal of the drama is also about the earth, about the
joys which Amal wants to find, by freeing himself from the limitations imposed by his uncle. It must be
remembered that the death of Amal in the play is no physical death but has a symbolic significance.
Death represents the end of the spiritual bondage of the soul. Dr. B.C. Chakravorty states that
“Deliverance has to be sought and won, not in the other world but in this world, not after death, but in this
very life. This is the spiritual realism of Rabindranath Tagore and this is what distinguishes him from other
mystic poets and dramatists.”
The story of the play is simple. Amal is an orphan who has been adopted by Madhab. He is sick and
Madhab is most anxious to preserve his life. On the advice of the village physician, he has confined Amal
within a small room as his contact with the wind and sun is considered harmful. Amal looks at the stream
of life in the outer world from the window of his room, and gets fascinated by it. There is post office near
Amal’s window and he imagines that the king’s postman will one day bring a letter from him. His physical
condition deteriorates and one day he sinks into eternal sleep.

“This little play shows that it is very well constructed and conveys to the
right audience an emotion of gentleness and peace”.
In these words, Yeats gave his appreciation of ‘Post Office’. The story embodied in the play–the sickening
loneliness telling upon a child of an aristocratic house–presents the child Rabindra’s own experience of
bondage and response of a lonely child, while it is also rich in symbolic meanings, and gives full
expression in the perception of the Universal Spirit in its immanent form.

According to Prof. D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu:

“The plays of Rabindranath Tagore reveal an organic continuity and a

steady advancement in spiritual perception and psychological insight. As
Tagore progressed in these qualities, he also achieved a symbolic form
of drama which was organically evolved by the inner causation of his
art.”
The play The Post Office is read and appreciated by critics in different ways. Some read it for its prose
style and unsurpassable language. Many appreciate its dialogue and its touching simplicity. Thompson
considers it an explosive satire. There are some who dismiss the longings of the sick boy as mere childish
pranks. And yet there are many who find autobiographical element in the play. Vishvanath Naravene in
his philosophical study of Rabindranath Tagore points out that Tagore tackles the problem of personality
in The Post Office. Dr. Iyengar takes it to be “one of the most deeply significant of Tagore’s plays, which a
child could read and understand, though it might intrigue the grown ups.”
Symbolism in literature has double meaning. It uses the known to describe the unknown. In The Post
Office both the characters and incidents which belong to the every-day world, suggest something
unknown. The symbolism in the play is gentle and touchingly expressed. The Post Office, which is
physical and is of the mind and world, may be considered to have been invested with such meaning by
Tagore that it stands as symbol for a Temple of God which transmits the prayer of men to God and God’s
grace to men.
A Post Office is opened in a little village. Amal, the invalid child is ordered to remain within doors. He has
a limitless hunger for life and the Post Office exercises his imagination to the utmost. He sits at the
window and makes friends with the passersby touching each with a new zest for life.

It is all an allegory. It is not a drama of action of circumstance: it is permeated with mystical ideas and
interpretation of life chiefly. It is about a child with a sick body.

There are only two acts in The Post Office, which has the hour-glass structure. In the first act, the sick
child squatting near the window muses and talks to the strangers that pass along then in the second act,
the child is in bed and people talk to him or watch him sleep. Dr. Iyengar writes “There are of course two
planes of action in the play. On the realistic plane, the child looks out avid for experience and is
particularly excited by news about the new Post Office. On the spiritual plane the drama comprises the
child’s dream of the Parrot’s Isle, his intense longing for the letter from the king and the coming of the king
himself to the child. The sick form at one end, the Parrot’s Isle at the other (Invisible and the great
beyond) and in between the Post Office which is both a visible institution and a symbolic clearing house
for the transmission of human aspiration in the one direction and the grace of response in the opposite
direction. There is a letter and a reply likewise, there is the surge of aspiration from below and the
answering response from above.”
Amal personifies man’s longing for free and natural development. This longing is fettered by external
trivialities. He represents the pure heart and angelic innocence. Madhab represents the fussy, possessive
father while the physician symbolizes the pedantic, narrow-minded, dogmatic fellow. Gaffer is an autumn
wind and sun.

From the window, Amal calls on the strangers one by one as they pass by. The curd-seller is grateful to
Amal and says, “You have taught me to be happy selling curds.” Like the girl, in Browning’s poem ‘Pippa
Passes’, who solves other people’s ticklish problems merely by her simple talking to them. Then the old
gypsy man- the watchman comes sounding his songs. Amal complains that the physician keeps him
within, for which the watchman replies that “one greater than he comes and lets us free”. He then talks
proudly to the Headman. Next comes Sudha, the daughter of a flower-seller. He enters into a pleasant
conversation with a promise that she will give him a flower. Afterwards a troop of boys pass in the street.
He gives them his own toys and feels happy in observing their play. Soon Amal gets tired and goes to
sleep, with a request to them to bring one of king’s postmen to him next day.
In the second Act, the hour-glass reverses its position and the direction of the flow changes. Amal’s
condition has become worse on account of exposure to the wind near the window. So he is now advised
by Madhav to keep to his bed. Soon Gaffer comes as Fakir, and describes about the Parrot’s Isle as a
land of wonders and a haunt of birds, that simply sing and fly. As he informs Amal, that he would build a
small cabin for himself among their crowd of nests and pass his days counting the sea waves, Amal
wishes that he were a bird.

Then he expresses his desire to marry the curd-seller’s niece with a pair of pearl-drops in her ears and
dressed in the lovely red saree. He never likes to become the King’s Postman delivering his letters from
door to door. There is a touch of pathos and a symbolic reference when Amal expresses: “I have been
feeling a sort of darkness coming over my eyes since the morning. Everything seems like a dream.” To
the physician’s query, Amal replies that all pain is gone. Amal is in deep sleep. The Headman and Gaffer
are beside him. Sudha, according to her promise, enters with flowers and places them in Amal’s own
hands. He gets worse and dies. “The play’s pathos”, observes Thompson, “and easy simplicity will survive
even that incongruous ‘King’ at the end.”