The Hungry Stone is a romantic tale of wonder and mystery.

Salient features of romanticism in The Hungry Stone.

The Hungry Stone is a romantic tale impressing us by bold invention and
appealing to that taste for the supernatural. Spectral and mysterious as the
atmosphere of the story is, it is made to look credible. Tagore affects this
with the help of lovely strokes of the brush. Realistic descriptions of nature,
little human touches here and there, and interposition of day and night all
these produce an effect of probability on the mind and make us feel the hard
earth beneath our feet. Tagore has succeeded in effecting an organic blend
between the natural and the supernatural and rousing us up to the sublimity
and intangibility of an ethereal terror that enchants rather than repels.

All of the characteristics for which Romanticism stands are found in

Tagores Hungry Stone. Being a supernatural story it is interested in the
supernatural and the mysterious. But the story is replete with the medieval
imaginative faculty and nature imagery. It has also deep human interest with
an originality of thought. There is magic of distance which fascinates us in
the story. The spirit of adventure, duels and voyages over unchartered
deserts offer a storehouse of fascination for us. The narrow unlit alleyways of
the sleeping city of Baghdad on a dark night as well as the entire tales of the
thousand and one Nights are transported here in the imagination of us. The
nature through the mountain Aravallis and river Shusta is further taken in
the widest possible connotation.
All of the characteristics for which Romanticism stands are found in
Tagores Hungry Stone. Being a supernatural story it is interested in the
supernatural and the mysterious. But the story is replete with the medieval
imaginative faculty and nature imagery. It has also deep human interest with
an originality of thought. There is magic of distance which fascinates us in
the story. The spirit of adventure, duels and voyages over unchartered
deserts offer a storehouse of fascination for us. The narrow unlit alleyways of
the sleeping city of Baghdad on a dark night as well as the entire tales of the
thousand and one Nights are transported here in the imagination of us. The
nature through the mountain Aravallis and river Shusta is further taken in
the widest possible connotation.

No writer can write in a vacuum or in a void. Thus there is an

abundance of imagery of nature, which creates a concrete and vivid picture
for the story. Predominant is the imagery of natural objects, natural
phenomena, and natural processes: and this imagery is perfectly vivid so
that as if we have been transported to the countryside beneath a range of
lonely mountains; sometimes we are transported to the fast flowing river
Shusta, and even to the sky and the stars and the moon. Barich is a lonely
location. The Shusta here chatters over story ways and babbles on the
pebbles, tripling like a skillful dancing rill, in through the woods below the
lonely hills. In the place there is clear water of the reservoirs where wind
plays a trick to music. The Shusta, which ripples and curls, is like a Nymph.
The song of bulbuls form the cages in the corridor, the cackle of storks in the
gardens all create a strange unearthly music for the cotton collector. These
fascinate a tale of Persian maiden who had been abducted by Bedouin raider
and thrown into the harem of limitless wealth and perpetual imprisonment.
The sweet snatches of songs and music, the quaint drama of Arabian night
and the legend of the middle age are given the required vilification by
Tagore. The nature formulates a dream of fantasy. The minutest details of
colours, shades and music remind us of Morris Earthly Paradiseor
Swinburnes The Garden of Prosperpine.
The Hungry Stone has overtones of medievalism and the Persian
Lady is perpetually trapped in the huge Mansion built by Shah Mahmud II.
Like Christabel or the Lady of shallot she is mysteriously cursed by Fate to
live a hopeless life imprisonment. It is her insatiable desires that make the
place thirsty and hungry. The story, however, continually contrast the active
and external mansion and the surrounded nature with the contemplative and
withdrawn cotton collector. Even though we think that with an exact fidelity
of nature the cotton collector conveys his vision, we cannot determine who is
hungry stones of the man? The human heart, though it is never conscious
of the futility of desire and knows full well that the path of love is beset with
gains and pitfalls can never rest satisfied with vague dreams and fanciful
ideals. It must have something real, some things tangible, for which it must
ultimately lose itself. The whole story might be the alter ego of cotton
collectors unfulfilled desire.
The story is a colourful painting of the hills, palace, days and nights.
Here we see most rich word painting. Throughout the story, the mood of
Nature harmonizes with the mood of man. The story is further circular in
nature alike Coleridge's poem The Ancient Marriner. The story is at once a
brief focus on the split personality and adjoining psychological analysis. It is
farther pictorial, sensuous, and graceful.

The Hungry Stone truly defines romanticism as strangeness added

to beauty. Here is effusion of beauty. It is sensuous, impassioned and
associated with mysterious supernatural powers. The story can be the best
of the genre and can be compared to the best The Lady in the Square by Sir
Walter Scott or The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe etc.
- See more at: http://ardhendude.blogspot.ro/2011/01/salient-features-of-romanticismin.html#sthash.shvFbFRz.dpuf

Transcript of The Hungry Stones

The Hungry Stones Rabindranath Tagore Summary plot: ghost story; frame story
Setting: India Main Characters: Narrator, Srijut, Meher Ali, Karem Khan It is a
story about a man that lived in a palace and was drawn, physically and mentally,
towards it. Every morning the man goes to work and goes about his buisness;
however, once nightfall hits...things change. As night time comes, the man begins
to see things. lif out fantasies. Every night this happenes. Everynight Meher Ali,
the town's madman, shouts out warnings. The story ends with rhe man leaving and
Srijut not knowing the dending. The man that is retelling the tale moves back to his
seat and Srijut can not longer hear the tale. "The Hungry Stones" is about a man's
tale pertaining to a palace. The palace is said to be haunted by a maiden that once
lived there. The stones the make up the palace thrive on the life of anyone that
occupies is space for more than 3 nights. The man telling the tale is a victim of the
palace's haunting dismeanor. Every night, he is haunted by the maiden and hears
her screams. Every night as he endures this, the towns madman, Mihir Ali, warns
him. He was once a hostige of that palace. In the end, the story is not finished. The
Surjit is lefted without an ending, as is the reader, because the man telling the story
has moved to a further seat, away from Surjit.
LITERARY ELEMENTS Frame Story:

This story is a story within a story. This means that the tale starts out with one
narrator and is then switched over to another narrator, who begins another story.
The compostion will end with its original narrator and that narrator's story. It
allows the reader be more apart of the story; to connect more. THEMES
Imagination and Skepticism Imagination& Skepticisim Reality and Fantasty His
mornings make the impressions he had of the palace seem like pointless flights of
imagination his nights make his day seem worthless and boring Night Vs.
Morning: a perilous dream threatening to destroy the dreamer Morning vs. Night:

Lifeless and dull the Setting:

The narratror and his kinsman are at the junction returning from a journey at their
pilgrimage; they were momentarily taken out of their ordinary lives and on their
way back they encounter a strange man. the reader nor the narrator ever learn the
conclusion to the story. WHY!? It makes the reader think It has many underlying
meanings the story is entertaining The literary element used is a unique one.
The Hungry Stones

The first story of the book is written in the dark tone, giving a chill in the spine. The story is told
as "Narration within the narration". The first narrator describes the second narrator whom he met
while in a train journey. The story is told by the latter, which is about a palace he lived in while
he worked as the collector of cotton duties at Barich. The palace built 250 years ago along the
banks of Susta, which ..."chatters over stony ways and babbles on pebbles," tripping like a skilful
dancing girl in through the woods below the lonely hills.
Once the home of costly extravaganza, the palace was deserted and supposedly haunted. The old
clerk in the narrator's office warned about not spending the nights there.
The house has such a bad name that even thieves won't venture in the near it after dark. Not long
after, the house becomes alive with visions and strange feelings. The narrator gets pulled by the
palace at nights. He feels like he is guided to the unknown secrets of the palace by an invisible
but a maddening beauty, only to be awakened by a madman's shout:"Stand back!!"
The narrator goes on to describe how "the hungry stones" of the place kills the occupants except
Meher Ali who goes insane and proceeds to describe the story attached to the place.
Tagore in his expressive and extensive detailed descriptions draws a picture which could never
be ignored by the reader. The end of the story is even more surprising when viewed in that
perspective. It may leave reader in a dismay but that is what the writer wants to do to you. Just
like the Arab girl who leads to the seemingly dark secrets of the palace and interrupted by the
madman's shouts.