The Postmaster

In Rabindranath Tagore's short story “The Postmaster,” Ratan is the postmaster's servant. She is merely an orphan girl, but she cooks his meals, draws water for him, and nurses him when he is sick....

Nobel Prize winning writer Rabindranath Tagore created the genre of the short story in Bengali literature. Although his family was rich and had vast land holdings, Tagore spent much of his life...

In the story, the postmaster does not take Ratan with him when he returns to Calcutta. Ratan, who has become attached to him, is devastated by his seemingly callous rejection. There may be a number...

“The grief-stricken face” of Ratan began to haunt the postmaster when he left for his home. The boat had already left the shore when he felt a powerful impulse to take Ratan along with him. But by...

The postmaster's family became a part of Ratan's life as a way to become closer to him as well as to experience family life. As the postmaster stays on in Ulapur, his need for companionship...

I think that it is part of Tagore's genius to make the complexity in the relationship between Ratan and the postmaster so much a part of the text. Both of them bring complex baggage into the...

The postmaster, a native of Calcutta, is an intellectual and a profound thinker. He often thinks about life and philosophizes about various subjects. He is apparently lonely and feels displaced. He...

One theme of the story that directly connects to Ratan and the Postmaster would be the ability to dream of what can be from what is. This ability to transform reality into something conditional is...

Ratan is a simple, spontaneous, and innocent girl in Tagore's short story The Postmaster. A teenage orphan, she lives in the village of Ulapur, in Bengal. She does the household chores and keeps...

In Rabindranath Tagore's story "The Postmaster," Ratan takes care of the little town's postmaster. Ratan, an orphan girl of the village...did odd jobs for him. Ratan is very upset to hear that...

The essence of a narration of Tagore's short story starts from the general, focuses on the specific, and then goes back to the general with the specifics falling within such a configuration. The...

Tagore is able to clearly distinguish that there is much more emotional complexity and depth to the partings between people than the meeting between them. The Postmaster and Ratan meet in a sort...

An urbane, sophisticated, and civilized man, the postmaster is completely out of his depth in the remote backwater of Ulapur. This is a place where people have no leisure and therefore no time to...

The postmaster is a refined, urbane, civilized man. He's also a trifle snobbish, looking down on the villagers of Ulapur for their relative lack of sophistication and learning. As such, he makes no...

I think that the significance of the title of Tagore's short story works on both literal and symbolic levels. On one hand, the literal significance of the title reflects how life changed in the...

In the story, Ratan felt abandoned by her employer. His nonchalant rejection of her, based on his decision to return to Calcutta alone, essentially crushed her spirits. Ratan had always been a...

To be able to understand this sentence, it's useful to consider a summary of "The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore. This short story tells of a young man from Calcutta who arrives in the remote...

The postmaster feels like he doesn't belong in the small village of Ulapur. He contrasts this remote rural backwater with the thrusting metropolis of Calcutta, which is where he'd much rather be....

Tagore writes "The Postmaster" in the early part of his writing career. The story is first published in May 1891. In 1890, Tagore had been immersed in the process of writing a great many works on...

I think that the title of the short story is appropriate. It is through the postmaster's eyes that the reader first experiences Ulapur. The ending is one where we see reality through his eyes....

In Rabindranath Tagore's short story "The Postmaster," the reader is first introduced to the postmaster, and it is clear from the beginning that he is, as the story says, "a fish out of water." The...

To answer this question, we will have to understand Tagore's perspective on his beloved India. To him, India had long been mired in superstitious traditions, and he argued for a more open approach...

The ending lines to Tagore’s short story are really powerful. Recall the ending. The postmaster leaves Ratan, who has pled her desire to be with him. As he leaves, he tries to offer her money,...

I think that the title of the work is relevant. Although, I feel it is relevant for different reasons that traditionally held. Tagore’s work forces the reader to examine the moral and ethical...

In the story, Ratan is loyal, diligent, trusting, and compassionate. As the postmaster's helper, she is often at her employer's beck and call. Yet, Ratan never complains; she never hesitates to put...

I think that Tagore argues that there is an intrinsic cruelty and resultant suffering that represents part of human relationships at the end of "The Postmaster." The conclusion is one where the...

The setting of Ulapur is important for a couple of reasons. The first reason that the village is important is because it represents the desire of the postmaster to leave. The story becomes and...

The postmaster is bored out of his mind in this provincial Indian town. There's no culture to speak of, and no one of sufficient erudition to talk to. With vast amounts of spare time on this hands...

In “The Postmaster,” Tagore shows how loneliness can be temporary for some people and permanent for others. The postmaster struggles mightily with loneliness. He cannot find social connection with...

Nature occupies a central role at the start and at the end of the story. At the outset of the story, nature is described in a condition as posing challenges to the postmaster. In order to convey...

These words are used to describe Ratan, the girl who came to help out around the home and office of the Postmaster. Ratan is an orphan, but one who is old enough to remember her parents and her...

During the period of heavy rains, the village roads become impassable and trading has to be conducted in boats. Clearly, the village of Ulapur is a remote rural village lacking most of the...

This is a great question! My own belief is that the postmaster does not have adequate coping skills. The postmaster lacks effective coping skills in a couple of ways. The first is how he is...

The story of "The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore is a sad story about a man who takes up his duties as postmaster in a small village named Ulapur in India. The village is far away from...

In the short story "The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore, the postmaster certainly does hesitate before revealing his homesickness to Ratan, the little orphan girl who does odd jobs for him. The...

The phrase represents the impossibility of her connection with the postmaster. Ratan is haunted by these words not only because they are a kind of rejection, but also because they prove that the...

I think that the most immediate alternate ending for the story would be if the Postmaster and Ratan left together. This would help to bring about a redemptive ending in that he recognized how...

In the short story "The Postmaster" by Rabindranath Tagore, a man from Calcutta comes to take up the position of postmaster in the small village of Ulapur. He is bored and lonely. His only...

As the postmaster's boat sails to take him back home to Calcutta and away from the village of Ulapur, he feels "a pain at heart" when he thinks of the orphan girl, Ratan, who he is leaving behind....

This is a great moment in Tagore's short story. In its conclusion, the orphan Ratan, who had found some semblance of stability and normalcy with serving the postmaster, asks to accompany him in...

I think that the basic elements of both characters is that one enters a setting with little in way of assistance and another has lived in this setting with little in way of assistance. The...

There will be many different reads on this because Ratan is such a complex character in Tagore's work. I think that her quest and love towards the postmaster is motivated by the fact that someone...

I think that the ending of the short story is where Tagore's philosophy is the most evident. Tagore's philosophy is one in which he refuses to acquiesce to a transcendent notion of reality when he...

The village post office in the remote backwater of Ulapur was established by an Englishman, the proprietor of a nearby indigo factory. The suggestion here is that Ulapur, like many small towns and...

The famous Indian film director Satyajit Ray made a beautiful film titled Two Daughters in 1961 based on two stories by Rabindranath Tagore. The film is available on DVD and probably on videotape....

The original question had to be edited. I would suggest that the fundamental issue that both works raise about Indian society is the presence of marginalized voices within it. For Pande, this...