On

Modern Literary Theory

Topic

Two Approaches on a Short Story and a Comparative Study

PREPARED FOR

Ahmad Mahbub-ul-Alam

Course Teacher

PREPARED BY

Farjana Shormin

0507ENM00029

Date: 20/02/06

MANARAT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

1. Liberal Humanist Approach on ‘Chhuti’ 3

2. Structuralist Approach on ‘Chhuti’ 5

3. A comparative study of Liberal Humanism and Struturalism 8

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 Liberal Humanist Approach on ‘Chhuti’

Chhuti is a story of a thirteen years old boy named Fatik. In the beginning of the story readers find

Fatik by the bank of the river with his friends. The story describes the attitude and manners, their

likings and disliking of some boys of teenager ages. Their mentality and matter of interest is quite

different. They like to play for their own enjoyment. This is why; they do not bother that whether

their tasks create any disturbance for others.

Fatik’s mother is a widow. She feels very disturbed and tensed due to the activities of Fatik. She

wants to get rid of these sufferings. So whenever she got the offer from her brother, she gave

consent instantly to take away Fatik from the village to his house which is situated in Kolkata.

Though apparently she gave consent, but when Fatik react delightedly at his uncle’s offer and get

prepared to go with him, at that time she was shocked. The affection of a mother becomes vividly.

The boys of this particular age face different types of problems. They do not get the affection from

others as they get at their early childhood. The guardians behave rudely with them. They do not

allow their all activities positively. They consider the boys as little matured. But actually the boys

are not as matured as they considered. Rather, when they try to act or to follow like an aged

person, at that times the senior persons take them as naughty or violent groups. The boys can not

adjust with the whole environment. They need affection at this age severely. Particularly they need

the lovely touch of their very much. The guardians should be more considerable and generous

about them.

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When Fatik went to Kolkata with his uncle, at that time he firstly suffers from homesickness and

secondly he received a very harsh behavior from his aunt. As he suffered from loneliness and does

not get any chance to move freely, so he missed all of his earlier charming experience a lot. He

missed the beautiful scenery of river, swimming, playing with kite and mostly his mother.

He could attend to the studies at his school. This is why; he was given punished by his teachers. In

the school his cousins did not help him at all; even they did not recognize him cordially.

Due to all these insults and sufferings he became sick. After his sickness, he thought about

inconvenience of his uncle’s family and so he escaped. At last he was found in a position of

extreme sickness. Finally we see that, Fatik was madly wanted to be free from all these sufferings.

The characteristics of Fatik are very much common to us. Peoples of all ages, and all places are

very familiar to this great attitudes. So the story creates a universal appeal for them.

The language of the story is very nice and acceptable. An extreme of sincerity is frequently seen

here- Which indicates a universal truth. So the story touches our heart and makes us emotional.

Because of this sincerity, the conventional distance between the language and the theme gets

removed.

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 Structural Analysis on ‘Chhuti’

In ‘Chhuti’ The Bangla Literary icon Rabindranath Tagore creates a story that depends on a

teenager. In this story we met ‘Fatik’, a teenager, living in a poor family .He is the oldest son of

the family. The theme of ‘chhuti’ is universal. It depicts pictures of an ordinary village boy, a

typical mother and a picture of a typical Bengali society.

Short story is shorter than a novel in size. It is very realistic. The description does not come

elaborately in a short story. But it reflects the different notion of human life perfectly. The

narrative technique is very vivid and specific. This is why; the reader also can understand the

theme of the story accurately.

The time span of a short story is very short. In this story we see that, it covers a certain period of

life. The plot and the characters of the story do not flourished in detail like a complete novel.

But Tagore has tried to present a story particularly focusing on a single point of view. The writer

wrote all these things naturally. He is not influenced by any biased or pre conceived information.

He tries to express the feelings, thoughts and emotion of characters.

He narrates everything in an objective way. Because of all these qualities an intimate relationship

is created between the reader and the writer’s perception, what he wants to express.

The character of Fatik expresses the features of a teenager.

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His mother’s character portrays a picture of a conventional mother, who is moving in the spirit of

perfect motherhood. Fatik’s aunt represents the usual housewife, who likes to live with his own

children. She considers Fatik as a burden for his family. Even she insults her husband for making

an attempt to help his sister’s son spontaneously.

His uncle depicts the submissive attitude of man who is very silent to every thing. But the most

significant matter is he is the only person in the story to realize the sufferings of Fatik. This is why;

he understands Fatik’s desperate demand for his mother and brought her in his house at the last end

of the story.

Fatik’s cousins do not come elaborately in the story. But their short living existence indicates that

the relative are not cooperative and sympathetic towards him. They do not hesitate to insult him for

maintaining their status in the society. Actually they stand for new generation who are selfish and

always try to enrich themselves.

From the beginning till the end the events are very much relevant. One is closely related with

other. The story begins with naughty activities of Fatik. He was playing with his friends. Suddenly

his uncle appears in the story. Uncle wants to know the address of their house, but Fatik did not

give him any direct answer. After returning home he quarreled with his mother. At this moment his

uncle arrived at their house. All these bad incidents were very irritating for her mother. So she took

the decision to send him quickly in Kolkata with his brother. Afterwards, the incidents of Kolkata

also indicate the boy of this age needs the mother’s affection very much. Conservative situation is

not justified for them. They need free place to move and play, they need the cooperation from all

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the peoples living around them and mostly they need the useful company of their mother. So

readers find relations between every event described in the story.

In the Beginning of the story ‘Fatik’ has been introduced through an event which poses questions

that provide narrative suspense. For instance, the sentence 'Suddenly a new thought has come in

the mind of Fatik Chakraborty, the leader of the group.’This line makes the reader wonder who is

that boy, what kind of boy is he, and so on.

Parallel of language is another significant feature of this story. In the ending part of the story we

get a dialogue which expresses that the boatman is not able to measure the depth ness of the river.

Actually through this dialogue the writer wanted to establish a similarity between the boatman and

the character of Fatik. He tries to say that almost like that particular boatman Fatik also becomes

so helpless and mentally disturbed that he can not adjust with normal dynamism of life. Specially,

he can not tolerate the rigid situation of the brick city of Kolkata.

In the middle of the story the symbol of flying kite indicates the freedom that Fatik has enjoyed in

his village. Swimming in the river, the river side scenery all stands for freshness, purity and the

charms of life.

The title and concluding line of the story establishes the thought that the principal character Fatik

wants to get rid of all sufferings. It indicates that he needs to be free from this confined world and

want to retreat to his original native village, where lies the real freedom for him.

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 A Comparative Study of Liberal Humanism and Structuralism

Liberal humanist does not works with convention or the traditional rules. But the structuralist

deals with convention or system. Structuralist tries finds out the underlying parallels with the

structures of language whether the liberal humanist does not follow that. There is network of

intertextual connections in the criticism of structuralist, which is almost absence in liberal

humanism. The major advantage of Structural Analysis is that it enables an awareness to

underlying structures and reveals their limiting and conditioning nature. Structuralism introduces

the idea of the subject. It helps us to conceive of human reality as a construction, as the product

of signifying activities which are both culturally specific and generally unconscious. There is,

then, in structuralism, a coherent connection among the conceptions of reality, the social, the

individual, the unconscious: they are all composed of the same signs, codes and conventions, all

working according to similar laws. On the other hand, Liberal humanism is the theory that says

to read the words on the page, Good literature is of timeless significance and the literary text

contains its own meaning within itself. But both of the approaches presents the universal appeal

of literature.