Volume-I, Issue-V, May 2025
Volume-I, Issue-V, May, 2025 |
Received: 28.05.2025 | Accepted: 30.05.2025 | ||
Published Online: 31.05.2025 | Page No:1159-1165 | ||
DOI: 10.69655/atmadeep.vol.1.issue.05W.117 | |||
পাঁচের দশকে বাংলা ছোটগল্পে নতুন ধারার আভাস ড. সুমিতা চক্রবর্তী, অধ্যাপক, বর্ধমান বিশ্ববিদ্যালায়, বর্ধমান, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ, ভারত জিতব্রতা গুহ, গবেষক, সিকম স্কিল ইউনিভার্সিটি, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ, ভারত |
Indications of a New Trend in Bengali Short Stories in the 1950s Dr. Sumita Chakraborty, Professor, The University of Burdwan, Bardhaman, West Bengal, IndiaJitabrota Guha, Research scholar, Seacom Skills University, West Bengal, India | ||
ABSTRACT | ||
The primary characteristic of fiction is to reflect social reality and to portray the relationship between individuals and society. The decade of the fifties—i.e., the period from 1950 to 1959—was marked by extreme complexity and turbulence in Bengal’s social, political, and economic spheres. In post-independence Bengali short stories, the central theme became the precariousness of middle-class life. The subject matter of those stories and the perspectives of their authors were entirely grounded in realism. However, literary trends and the thoughts of writers do not always proceed in a uniform manner. From the mid-fifties onward, some of these writers began attempting to reflect reality in literature from a different point of view. These stories arose out of social reality, but they seemed to form a circle of light and shadow around the most subtle layers—social, political, and psychological. Until then, realism in short stories was present in the atmosphere, subject matter, and crises of the narrative—this realism was a blend of beauty and ugliness, the terrifying and the tender. But from the 1950s onward, some writers began to view reality through the lens of reflection—this reality appeared as an unanswerable question. In the traditional vision of realism, there emerged unconventional projections and new techniques. A new trend thus emerged in the Bengali short stories of the 1950s. Until then, stories used to be centered on plot, with a definite conclusion; Bimal Kar introduced in place of this a more inward-facing sensibility. As a result, his stories did not follow a plot-centric approach, but neither were they entirely devoid of narrative—standing somewhere between the two, he experimented with new forms of storytelling. In 1959, he published a series of booklets under the title Short Story: A New Style. This was somewhat distinct from the conventional norms and methods of accepted short story writing. Even though some of Bimal Kar’s stories adhered to traditional or conventional forms, in some of his works, this new perspective on realism can be discerned—for example, in the story Sudhamoy. This new trend of storytelling is discussed here with reference to the stories of four writers: Kamalkumar Majumdar, Dipendranath Bandyopadhyay, Debesh Roy and Sandipan Chattopadhyay. | ||
Keyword :
|