Articles by Biswarup Das
Qeios, 2024
The brief essay explores the coexistence of "matter" and "consciousness" within the character of ... more The brief essay explores the coexistence of "matter" and "consciousness" within the character of Sibyl's son in Pär Lagerkvist's novel, The Sibyl. It draws on the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's theory of being, which suggests that this fusion forms the crux of humanity's concept of God. Nevertheless, Sartre also argues that such a combination is fundamentally unattainable. That leads us to the conclusion that Sibyl's son represents the unimaginable God that Sartre imagined.
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2023
The present article strives to explore the "nausea" that emerges in an individual from the sense ... more The present article strives to explore the "nausea" that emerges in an individual from the sense of the lack of a priori meaning in the world and the non-existence of the self through the development of the persona's thoughts in Jibanananda Das's 1930 poem "Bodh." The persona is found perturbed by a flummoxing "sense" right at the outset. His striving to comprehend what the sense is about and reflection on the enterprises of his past and the probable future eventually lead him to realize that whatever he encounters around or action he can get involved in is devoid of essence. He also finds the existence of his self unsubstantiated. His realization proves anguishing and alienates him from the rest of humanity by evoking in him feelings of forlornness and life's absurdity. The whole argument concerning the persona's development of thought and his final apprehension and agony will be carried out by taking into account Jean-Paul Sartre's ideas of essencelessness and nausea.
Comparative Literature: East and West, 2023
This article probes into W. B. Yeats’s 1917 poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” to illumine how sorrow... more This article probes into W. B. Yeats’s 1917 poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” to illumine how sorrow becomes an ineluctable trait of human experience. In the poem, a fictitious visitor to Coole Park articulates his feelings on descrying fifty-nine wild swans on the lake on an autumn evening. He finds the spectacle of the effervescent creatures amidst the beauty of nature pretty delightful. Concurrently, however, the same spectacle makes him dejected. Considering the French thinker Jean- Paul Sartre’s theory of matter and consciousness, this article will convey how, in essence, the visitor’s anguish is twofold, and how it is the consequence of his act of relating the spectacle of the swans to external factors. The article will also reveal how the visitor’s sorrow points to that of humanity in general. The conclusion will be drawn by assessing whether an escape from the twofold anguish of the visitor is possible.
The Explicator, 2023
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This article intends to unveil the phenomena of nothingnes... more (Please mail me for the full article)
This article intends to unveil the phenomena of nothingness in the poem “The Listeners” by the 19th-century English poet Walter de la Mare. For the French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre, nothingness is an indispensable facet of the human experience of the world. The poem narrates the story of a Traveler who visits a house in a forest at night intending to meet some people. He fails, however, to meet them as the house appears deserted. The article will elucidate how the poem points, through the Traveler’s experience, to the nothingness encountered in the world as one of its salient motifs. The entire argument will be established in virtue of the dichotomy between matter and consciousness found in Sartre’s philosophy.
Comparative Literature: East and West, 2022
In the light of Lacanian dichotomy of "Being" and "Meaning," the present article intends to illum... more In the light of Lacanian dichotomy of "Being" and "Meaning," the present article intends to illuminate how the protagonist's journey of life in Jibanananda Das's masterwork "Banalata Sen" (1942) proves to be a retreat to the Jungian "mother-imago." This "imago" is the idealized image of the mother constituted by one's infantile memory of her fulfilling self that remains preserved in the unconscious. It imbibes all the facets of womanhood. In essence, it is both instinctual and archetypal. The protagonist's enterprising career in the human world invites into his life a sense of fatigue. He feels disintegrated into sundry worldly roles. The unconscious nostalgia for the unified "Being" eventually transmutes his aimless wanderings in the way of the world to a quest for love and fulfillment. Ultimately he succeeds in recapturing his defragmented entity, his "particular me," as well as experiencing a sense of blissful serenity through his association with his "mother-imago," Banalata Sen.
Shanlax International Journal of Arts Science and Humanities , 2022
The present study aims at investigating the purport of the two intriguing claims the 20th-century... more The present study aims at investigating the purport of the two intriguing claims the 20th-century French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre makes about the body. The first claim equates the body with the centre of an individual's perspective on the world. The second pinpoints the body as the determinant of one's freedom. Chiefly by citing Sartre's magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, the paper attempts to explicate these two claims while focusing on the significance of physical performance as the prerequisite for mental influence. The paper would show how in order to have a perspective or exercise freedom and, as such, have a pragmatic touch with the world around, the body's instrumental traits and hence its limitations that determine one's undertakings become the primary condition.
Comparative Literature East and West, 2021
The present study takes as its objective the enunciation of the human condition as presented in R... more The present study takes as its objective the enunciation of the human condition as presented in Rabindranath Tagore’s 1925 play Red Oleanders. The play is set in the fictional backdrop of Yaksha Town, a place where every person is a slave of the system. Through a detailed analysis of the situation of Yaksha Town, the article first brings to light how a totalitarian society deprives every character of liberty and joy and then examines how all the characters are personally accountable for their confinement in the system. As Tagore intends to present the situation of the real world through that of the town, the story of the enslavement of the characters in the play is also that of humanity in general. For Tagore, the malady of the modern world is rooted in its preoccupation with worldly privileges that detaches a person from the ebullience of nature. So, this article also strives to elaborate from the playwright that it is not the propinquity of a materialistic system but that of nature that can liberate humanity from all social and personal confinement. The whole discussion is put forth in light of the theories of Existentialism and Marxism.
Academia Letters, 2021
The present article deals with the notion of śūnyatā or the lack of the self of the phenomenal wo... more The present article deals with the notion of śūnyatā or the lack of the self of the phenomenal world propagated by the Mādhyamika and the Sānlùn schools of Buddhism. According to these two schools, there is no essence or transcendental identity in anything corporeal or imaginable. It is because every phenomenon is inescapably dependent on other phenomena for its existence. For Buddhism, the highest wisdom is to comprehend the dependent origination of the phenomenal world, making the perpetuity of the self of any thing or idea impossible.
Millennium Journal of English Literature, Linguistics and Translation , 2021
Following the critical lines of Psychoanalysis and Existentialism, the present study aims at conv... more Following the critical lines of Psychoanalysis and Existentialism, the present study aims at conveying how William Cowper, the much acclaimed English poet of the 18th century, presents in his 1799 poem "The Snail" the image of an individual possessing completeness in the self. Not only is Cowper"s snail content with life in seclusion, but also abhors the intrusion of an outsider in its private domain. The article aims at investigating how the snail"s world of completeness bears both the somatic and the psychic dimensions and also how the creature exists in that world narcissistically. Concomitantly, the article would probe into the association between the world of the snail and the poet"s longing to attain sufficiency in the self at a time he is left alone. It would be conveyed how the snail of the poem embodies the poet"s projected self in its idealised form, something which following the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan can be called the poet"s "ideal ego," than an insignificant creature engrossed merely in nourishment on vegetation.
International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, 2020
The present study conveys Jibanananda Das's notion about perceptual reality. Through a close read... more The present study conveys Jibanananda Das's notion about perceptual reality. Through a close reading of some of his poems, the paper demonstrates how unlike an ordinary person the poet found the truth about the world elusive. He felt that the objective truth of a thing remains inaccessible to a person forever. In this respect, his idea of truth corresponds with the image of the phenomenal world expounded by the illustrious German thinker, Immanuel Kant in his works. The paper attempts to analyse the Bengali poet's conception about perceptual reality as presented in his poems in the light of Kant's theory of phenomena. With this, the article also aims at showing how the poet, becoming conscious about the limitations of human knowledge, attempts to fashion a second phenomenal world with the aid of imagination and seek fulfilment there.
Asian Journal of Language Literature and Culture Studies, 2019
Story has allured a child since time immemorial. It has provided him with unadulterated pleasure ... more Story has allured a child since time immemorial. It has provided him with unadulterated pleasure by making him soar in the sphere of mysteries and fantasies. Pleasure, according to Freud, is the controlling force of the unconscious, the abode of one's true self. As the infant develops into a child, he enters into the conscious world. But this development initiates, too, a separation from mother with whom he was related in an asocial pleasurable unity until the present. Consequently, the child seeks at this stage of life other means to compensate the loss of his primary necessity, pleasure. One of those ways is listening to stories, something that enables him to escape from the world of reality (consciousness) to the delightful world of daydreams. As pleasure is the primary need of the unconscious, and as daydreams provide a child with pleasurable experience, there lies a close relationship between stories and the unconscious demands. Tagore realized this truth, and conveyed the same it in the story 'Tell Me a Story.'
Global Journal of Human Social Sciences , 2019
The primary quest of humanity is for happiness and the meaning of life. Most people throughout li... more The primary quest of humanity is for happiness and the meaning of life. Most people throughout life remain unaware of the 'individual self,' the foundation of one's identity, and tread on the known ways of the society to make life meaningful. Consequently, the 'being' of such a person fails to come to existence. Only a few are ever able to become conscious of this 'self' in moments of pure reflection enabled by a complete divorce from the social presence. The consciousness leads to a concurrent awareness of the meaninglessness of the world and the true concept of freedom. Freedom fetches agony with the realization of the sole responsibility of one's choice. A person is then either on the way to construct the meaning of life and find happiness in a personalized way or get crushed at the burden of his anguish. The consciousness of the individual self, the awareness of personal freedom in a fundamentally meaningless world, and the consequence of this consciousness in both its aspects -all the facets of man's existential problem have been portrayed in the lines of the great Bengali poet Jibanananda Das (1899 -1954) with poignancy and vividness. We can, at the same time, parallel the situation presented in his poetry with his personal life.
American Research Journal of Humanities and Social Science , 2019
The most precious possession of man is his identity.One toils for the greater part of his life to... more The most precious possession of man is his identity.One toils for the greater part of his life to found and sustain it.But in the modern era of machines and technological development man is on the verge of losing it. Unconsciously a person takes for granted the teachings of the society and devotes his energy to build his identity in the socially directed way.What all his effort brings is his'social identity.'But in the process, his 'self' is lost. Though he remains blissfully unaware of the fact, he becomes an object of the society by losing his subjective entity.He loses himself amidst the crowd, and becomes one among the many. He loses his ability to think, and with that his freedom. He is reduced to a follower of the system.In this way, he becomes a nonentity. In his famous poem, 'The Unknown Citizen,' the celebrated English-American poet W. H. Auden hasdealt with this predicament of modern humanity. The only remedy to this plight is to become aware of and try to know about the 'individual self.'
Available Online by Biswarup Das
Research Features , 2023
https://researchfeatures.com/exploring-the-fluid-nature-of-the-self-a-buddhist-insight/
Across h... more https://researchfeatures.com/exploring-the-fluid-nature-of-the-self-a-buddhist-insight/
Across history, the notion of an inherent, unchanging self has deep roots in religious and cultural beliefs. Traditionally, it signifies a changeless, autonomous essence shaping the identity and interactions of all entities. However, Buddhist perspectives, particularly from Mādhyamika and Sānlùn schools, challenge this idea. They contend that the concept of an independently existing, self-consistent self is an illusion. Buddhism asserts that all phenomena lack intrinsic identities and underscores their essencelessness. The self, according to Buddhism, is transient, existing through interconnections with other factors. Thus, Buddhists propose śūnyatā, or emptiness, as the ultimate reality of the world.
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Articles by Biswarup Das
This article intends to unveil the phenomena of nothingness in the poem “The Listeners” by the 19th-century English poet Walter de la Mare. For the French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre, nothingness is an indispensable facet of the human experience of the world. The poem narrates the story of a Traveler who visits a house in a forest at night intending to meet some people. He fails, however, to meet them as the house appears deserted. The article will elucidate how the poem points, through the Traveler’s experience, to the nothingness encountered in the world as one of its salient motifs. The entire argument will be established in virtue of the dichotomy between matter and consciousness found in Sartre’s philosophy.
Available Online by Biswarup Das
Across history, the notion of an inherent, unchanging self has deep roots in religious and cultural beliefs. Traditionally, it signifies a changeless, autonomous essence shaping the identity and interactions of all entities. However, Buddhist perspectives, particularly from Mādhyamika and Sānlùn schools, challenge this idea. They contend that the concept of an independently existing, self-consistent self is an illusion. Buddhism asserts that all phenomena lack intrinsic identities and underscores their essencelessness. The self, according to Buddhism, is transient, existing through interconnections with other factors. Thus, Buddhists propose śūnyatā, or emptiness, as the ultimate reality of the world.