Motherland in Home and the World part 2

I wanted to talk about the poste that I made, Motherland in The Home and the Wrold, and just expand on what I was talking about. More than once, one of the narrators/characters make metaphors on how the land, the country embodies a woman. All three characters need to imagine the country as a woman in order to make their vision clear. Bimala tends to make herself the country, “I have my desire to be fascinated and fascination must be supplied to me in bodily shape by my country. She must have some visible symbol casting its spell upon my mind. I would make my country a Person, and call her Mother, Goddess, Durga-for whom I would redden the earth with sacrificial offerings.’ I am human, not divine’”. In this quote, Bimala is comparing herself to the motherland. Saying she is the mother of the country. Bimala becomes the mother, as she embodies the vision of her country. When she embodies herself as the country both Sandip and Nikhil are able to control her in the way in which they wish. Sandip also sees Bimala as the country. One could say he is using her as his muse. In more than one circumstance, Sandip discusses why he needs Bimala as his muse and what he plans do with her, “If only women could be set free from the artificial fetters put round them by men, we could see on earth the living image of Kali, the shameless, pitiless goddess. I am a worshipper of Kali, and one day I shall truly worship her, setting Bimala on her altar of Destruction. For this let me get ready”(84). Sandip creates her into the nation by making her goddess. His rational makes her believe that she embodies the nation; he swoons her into believing that he is her woman. A woman of the nation not a woman of power; Bilama is controlled by Sandips dreams and visions. Nikhil as shapes Bimala into the country that he wants and the person he wants her to be. Nikhil says he allows his wife freedom, but really what he is doing is creating the woman he wants. It is not about freedom; it is about power, “I must acknowledge that I have merely been an accident in Bimala’s life. Her nature, perhaps, can only find true union with one like Sandip”(65). Nikhil set his wife free to have her make a choice, he did not do it for her, he did it for himself. Nikhil wanted a wife who was independent enough to make her own decisions; to stand by herself. The same thing can be said for the way he wants his country. He wants a country free from the British and free to stand on its own. Nikhil is making his wife into a symbol of her nation. These men have made her into what they expect her to be; what they expect their nation to be. Their two different visions of nation are shown with how they treat Bimala.