The Hungry Stones and Western Culture - Essay Example

Introduction Rabindranath Tagore’s The Hungry Stones relates an esoteric tale from the East that is essentially spun around theosophist themes and ideas. Tagore concentrates his tale around his meeting with “an up-country Mohammedan” (Tagore 53) who in turn weaves a complex tale around a white palace built for a king. The essential element of the story related by the stranger is mystery. The white palace is shown as being alive in itself as the stranger relates that the “whole house was like a living organism” (Tagore 55).

As the tale proceeds, the house cum palace is shown as exerting an influence on the narrator such that the narrator is mesmerized by the house and its history. The narrator concentrates on exquisite elements in the tale such as Persian and Arabian women slaves, Persian rugs and eunuchs to guard the harem like house. In the development of the story, the narrator relates that every evening he felt as if the house was calling him. Moreover, during the narrator’s sleep every night in the house, he was constantly seduced by the presence of dreams that seduced him to stay on despite warnings to the contrary.

Finally, in the spirit of a good fairy tale, the narrator leaves the palace to question on of his servants, Karim Khan as to the specifics of the mystery. However, Tagore relates that the narrator abandoned their carriage to mount the train with an Englishman and so the story remained incomplete. The narrator tends to focus on Easterly descriptions such that Western influences on his culture are rejected outright. Tagore’s method of relating the story from the narrator in the train tends to preserve and even accentuate Eastern elements while Western elements are mainly absent altogether.

Rejection of Western Ideas It needs to be noticed that Tagore was influenced by Western culture and ideas as were other Indians from the time. There is ample evidence in the text itself to support this idea. Tagore and his kinsman are seen returning from their “Puja trip” (Tagore 53) using a train, which is essentially a European introduction to India. As the story proceeds, the narrator also mentions his job as a “collector of cotton duties at Barich” (Tagore 54) and the use of an “English hat and coat” that “were resting on a rack” (Tagore 60) to ride a horse.

Given these elements in the text, it would be safe to assume that European culture had overridden Indian culture enough to be accepted as an overriding culture. In contrast, when the contents of the text are analyzed especially in terms of the narrator’s strange tale, there are strongly Eastern elements available. It needs to be kept in mind that at the time when the narrator coined his tale, Eastern culture was seen largely as exotic and mysterious. The subcontinent was under the British Raj and Eastern culture was viewed as being occult and hard to fathom due to the presence of non scientific elements.

The narrator mentions the “250 years” old palace of “Emperor Mahmud Shah II” that was built for the “pleasure and luxury” of the king (Tagore 54) even though at the time the tale was being narrated, the Indian sub continent was ruled by the British. The narrator’s delve into the past and Tagore’s methodology in supporting such a stance through his story signifies that the author rejects the Western ideals of the author’s day. Another major aspect of the tale is descriptions of grandeur and luxury that were once available to the Mughal sovereigns such as harems, beautiful exotic women from around the world and exotic furniture and rugs.

It seems as if the narrator is trying to recreate the bygone era throughout his tale in order to