The Bird in a Gilded Cage, Her Trials and Tribulations: Perspectives on Satyajit Ray’s Charulata

Abstract

The primary object of this paper is to explore the trajectory of the eponymous character Charulata’s journey towards her self-actualisation in Satyajit Ray’s great cinematic masterpiece and compare it to that of the same character in Tagore’s novella Nastanirh on which the movie was based. The paper aims to prove that Charulata, being an important one in all Ray’s films centred on women and their individual perspectives, successfully encapsulates the anguish and desolation of the 19th century Bengali women who strove for breaking free from the shackles of age-old traditions and had to cope with the ensuing adversities all alone.