ABSTRACT

This seminal work examines the concurrence of childhood rebellion and conformity in Bengali literary texts (including adult texts), a pertinent yet unexplored area, making it a first of its kind. It is a study of the voice of child protagonists across children’s and adult literature in Bengali vis-à-vis the institutions of family, the education system, and the nationalist movement in the ninenteenth and twentieth centuries.

chapter |20 pages

Western approaches to childhood

An overview

chapter |30 pages

Growing resentments

The school and the education system

chapter |26 pages

Escapes

Real and fantastic

chapter |30 pages

Encounters with the world beyond

Responding to the nation in crisis