Marxism, Feminism and Realism on Assets and Debts by Rabindranath Tagore

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Based on our readings on Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories, we have found a few literary criticisms that can be applied to analyse his literary work. One of his short stories entitled Assets and Debts portrayed the differences between two class hierarchies as what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had discussed on class struggle. According to the founder of Marxism theory, Marx and Engels mentioned the concept of class struggle plays an essential role in society in order to develop clear understanding about the society’s oppression under the influence of capitalism.

In relation to Tagore’s literary work, Marxism theory can be applied in most of his stories specifically in Assets and Debts. To summarize, this story is about the hardship faced by both father and daughter in dealing with humiliation and mockery given by the upper class. Commonly in India, it is part of their tradition to marry off their daughter. In this case, the father, Ram Sunder agreed to hand his daughter, Nirupama to a wealthy family with an agreement for him to pay dowry that costs him 10,000 rupees along with other additional gifts for the wedding.

However, because of his insufficient money and poor family condition, he could not pay the dowry in a full-amount so he was restricted to see his daughter at her in-law’s house as his penalty. Meanwhile, his daughter Nirupama often received mistreatment and ill-words from her in-laws family and this is including the maid and the worker in that household. She also did not get proper food and clothes to cover her body. They treated Nirupama as an outsider due to her father’s debt. After some time, Ram Sunder is able to pay the debt but they won’t accept the money simply because it comes from poor people. Such oppression from upper class people really intensified the tension between high class and low class people.

As discussed in Marxist theory, proletariat is known as the capitalist or the rich people whereby bourgeois is the lower class people who earn little wage despite of their hardwork. Usually proletariat likes to oppress bourgeois especially when it comes to materialistic elements such as money and property. From the story, we have identified that Tagore has perfectly discussed the issues of class struggle in India thus allowing this particular literary work, Assets and Debts to be analysed in the Marxists’ point of view.

            Other literary criticism that can be seen through this story is feminist theory. Even though it is not as prominent as Marxism, but we think this theory is covertly highlighted by Tagore, as he was one of the authors that fights for social justice especially towards women. In Assets and Debts, Nirupama is seen as weak and helpless in her in-law’s house. This portrayed the reality of most Indian women in Indian society. By writing such a real story in relation to Indian’s condition, Tagore has successfully instilled the awareness among readers on women’s oppression thus this literary work of his can be analysed from a feminist perspective.

In addition, this short story reflects the condition of India’s society therefore it can be categorized under realism theory. In short, realism can be understood as “the faithful representation of reality”. This particular short story written by Tagore really represents the society’s condition in India where the distinction between class hierarchies is very obvious and the oppression made by the upper class really fits the Marxist’s theory. In a nutshell, this short story written by a winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 is worth to read as it is able to educate us the reality of our life where oppression is common and mostly it is on weak people in general and lower class people and women to be specific.