Charulata (1964): Satyajit Ray's Feminist Adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s “Nastanirh

Abstract

Satyajit Ray’s film Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964) is an adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s novella “Nastanirh'' (''Broken Nest”, 1901) which portrays the isolated the life of a 20th century Bengali woman named Charulata. The central character of this film Charu despite being a typical housewife is quite unconventional. She has many aspirations which are overlooked by her workaholic husband. Ray emphasizes how this negligence provokes Charu to take some debatable actions like adultery. The aim of this paper is to find out how Ray used different camera techniques, symbolisms, music and distortion to add feminist aspects to this film. This paper also aims to investigate the post-colonial feminist influences in Ray’s adaptation of the novella.