রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুরের ‘সে’ : রূপকথা হয়েও রূপকথা নয়/ Rabindranath Tagore's ‘Shey’ : A fairy tale that is also not a fairy tale

Abstract

Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Shey’ - has no name, only a pronoun. Wrapped in this ‘Shey’, Rabindranath Tagore actually consciously broke apart the fairy tale to give birth to a new fairy tale. Not a king, not a prince - the story is built with a blend of imagination using the real people we know from our everyday reality. Here, Sukumar could not cross the fields of Tepantar to go and rescue the princess. The eternal happy ending of fairy tales does not happen here - like princes in real life, he had to surrender his life to fate and wait. From this contrast itself the question arose - whether Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Shey’ is actually a fairy tale at all! In the discussion of the main article, it has been explored how 'Shey' evolved to take the form of a different kind of fairy tale. Even though it remains a fairy tale in mood and in its core tune, its structure and form have completely changed. As a result, ‘Shey’ is both a fairy tale, and also not a fairy tale - an evolved fairy tale.