Aranya Bhabna in the novels of Bibhutibhushan Bandyapadhyay and Buddhadeb Guha/ বিভূতিভূষণ বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায় ও বুদ্ধদেব গুহর উপন্যাসে অরণ্য ভাবনা

Abstract

In spite of the fact that forest has been the background to many Bengali novels, it was introduced as a character for the very first time by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, having inculcated in it a unique juxtaposition of forest-consciousness and nature-consciousness. It is something entirely new and different from what the usage has been, not just in his novels, but in the total spectrum of Bengali literature. This thing has been veritably and authentically carried forward by Bandopadhyay's able successor- Buddhadeb Guha. However, in terms of generating nature-consciousness and using it as a character, there is more dissimilarity in the works of Guha and Bandopadhyay than similarity. While to Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, nature is equivalent to God; he found pantheism in nature. Sometimes, nature is portrayed as a beloved, whereas sometimes as a child. By contrast, Buddhadeb Guha saw forest with respect to citizen-consciousness with an intelligent eye. Therefore, in his novels, we encounter psychology, sexuality and desires of women. Although a master investor of the theme of nature in almost all his novels, we find its most effective employment in one of his most acclaimed novels- Aranyak. Keeping the alike things between Bandopadhyay's and Guha's treatment of nature in mind, Aranyak and some of Guha's forest-centric novels are brought together for the sake of comparative discussion.