জীবনানন্দ দাশের উপন্যাস : অসুখী দাম্পত্য/ The Novels of Jibanananda Das : Unhappy Marital Life

Abstract

Widely celebrated as a poet, Jibanananda was also an important novelist and essayist. His novels extend his poetic vision by portraying personal experiences alongside the social, economic, and psychological crises of his time. This article explores the relationship between poverty and marital conflict in the fiction of Jibanananda Das. The economic depression of the 1930s, unemployment, the Partition of India, and the struggles of the middle class form the backdrop of his fictional world. Poverty in his works is not merely an economic condition but a force that undermines human relationships, self-respect, love, and family life.

           Through an analysis of Purnima, Karubasana, Nirupam Jatra, Pretinir Rupkatha, and Malyaban, the article demonstrates how financial hardship generates distrust, dissatisfaction, emotional distance, and alienation within marriage. Female characters often express frustration over their husbands' financial inability, while male characters suffer from insecurity, exhaustion, and a deep sense of failure. Consequently, marital relationships become marked by conflict, humiliation, and loneliness rather than affection and mutual understanding. However, works such as Purnima also present characters whose compassion and resilience preserve the human dimension of marriage.

           The study further argues that Jibanananda's fiction is inseparable from his poetic sensibility. His prose expands the psychological insight, imagery, and existential concerns that characterize his poetry. Influenced by Freudian psychology, the crisis of middle-class life, and the complexities of gender relations, his novels possess a distinctive literary identity. Overall, Jibanananda Das's fiction offers a profound portrayal of the human consequences of poverty, the breakdown of marital relationships, and the existential anxieties of modern middle-class society.