I found it interesting how Sandip's narration ends after chapter seven, when he asks Bimala for the money. From this point on, Sandip is no longer able to defend himself or rationalize his actions, even though his rationalizations are quite absurd: "Not that I have any false shame at Bimala becoming an object of my desire. It is only too clear how she wants me, and so I look on her as quite legitimately mine" (81). Throughout the course of the novel Sandip makes bold statements like this one. He is a god in his own mind though if he really were so wonderful, he would not spend all of his time at Nikhil's house, fawning over Bimala. Sandip almost seems like a caricature of a villain. He has tunnel vision when it comes to his ideas about India and even though he has Bimala in the palm of his hand at one point, he does not attempt any sort of romantic encounter with her.
With his blind ambition, he reminds me of Iago from Othello. Both Sandip and Iago have best friends who are more successful and both envy the other. Both villains also attempt to plant false information in the minds of manipulate situations to their own benefit. The novel reads like a Shakespearean play. Most of the scenes take place either in Bimala's room or Nikhil's room while the action and violence is not showed, instead bringing the reader in after the fact. However, Nikhil lacks the all consuming paranoia that takes control of Othello and Hamlet. He is the only character who stays calm throughout the novel. Even when he figures out that Bimala has stolen the six thousand rupees he turns it inwards and realizes that it is due to a "vein of tyrrany" within himself that attempted to force Bimala into his ideal wife, thus creating a schism in their marriage (197).
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