The Story Archive

Rangbhoomi

Premchand · 1925 CE · Novel · Indian · Modernist

Surdas is a blind beggar in a village outside Benares whose only property is a patch of common grazing land, and a cigarette manufacturer with an English education wants it for a factory. He refuses to sell, and refuses again when the offers turn into threats, drawing in the local raja, the missionaries, the nationalists and the police. Premchand's longest novel, and the one that put Gandhian non-cooperation into Hindi fiction while the movement was still running.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalTragedy
Theme
Class & InequalityIndividual vs SocietyFaith & DoubtSuffering & Endurance
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanScapegoat
Plot structure
Tragic Reversal
Symbol / motif
Blindness / The EyeThe MachineThe Harvest
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
RealistTragic
Culture / tradition
Indian

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