Studies in English Language and Literature

In ‘Rajmohan’s Wife’, the debut novel in English by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, we find that the characterisation of Rajmohan, like the other character portrayals, has been depicted very skilfully and subtly by the novelist with his stroke of master craftsmanship. The more we go through the novel, the more we do come to know about the much-discussed character of Rajmohan, who was indeed the undeserving and worthless husband of Matangini. He represents immorality, corruption, dishonesty, orthodoxy, brutality, worthlessness, lack of integrity of character, profaneness, propensity to torment his wife and so on and so forth. In course of the novel, we, slowly but surely, come to explore that this character lacked conscience and discretion. Broadly speaking, Matangini and Rajmohan had an unhappy conjugal life. It is worthy to be noted that he was tyrannical, dictatorial, jealous and unloving to his wife. Matangini had to spend every day with lots of pain, pangs, suffering and misery due...

In Rajmohan's Wife , a novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, we come across the character of Suki’s mother in the twelfth chapter of the work. Portrayed as a bucolic character, she is a middle-aged woman. She had dark complexion with partial hair growth and a creased visage. Clad in abrasive clothes, she had a very simple appearance. She had a couple of friends named Kanak and Matangini. Apart from being sympathetic to Matangini, she was full of duty, responsibility and awareness of her household chores. Besides being helpful and supportive, Suki’s mother, by and large, loved and advised Matangini a lot. She was suffused with receptivity, compassion and affection. Moreover, she fostered a mind that was practical. Suki’s mother, with a heart full of mercy, with strong resolution, worked as a maidservant in Mathur Ghose’s residence. She was very much loyal too. However, nothing or nobody can be bereft of any ill act. Who can be perfect completely? Suki’s mother was not an except...

At the outset of our discussion, let us all have an idea of the term ‘cuckold’. ‘Cuckold’ refers to the husband of an unfaithful or adulterous wife. The chief purpose of cuckoldry, a crucial feature of the Restoration Comedy of Manners, is to ridicule the society by means of satire. Rajmohan’s Wife records the story of Matangini who is a pure and untainted girl. The novel also gives an account of her ill and unhappy wedlock with Rajmohan. In course of the novel, we come to find that Rajmohan is actually brutal and cruel by nature through and through. Matangini was in love with Madhav before her marriage with Rajmohan. Madhav has been portrayed to be an English-educated man. However, she had to get married to Rajmohan due to her father’s pressure. Matangini, the female protagonist in Bankim Chandra’s novel, is found to be oscillating between the social norms and her scruples. After leaving the house with Kanak for fetching water, she asserts her own identity against the norms of the pa...