(draft) The Bet

Literary circle discussion

My group had chosen the short story "The bet" by Suchitra Bhattacharya. We started our discussions with the technical aspects of the story like plot, setting, theme, characters and the background of the author. We also criticised the text through the genetic, text to text, formal, transactional and socio cultural forms of criticism.

Initially, I believed that since all of us had read the same story, we would all be in the same page when it comes to understanding the various aspects of the story. But it was a surprise to find that we all had different opinions and saw the story from different perspectives. We noticed things that would have been otherwise gone unnoticed and we tried to read between the lines and think about the unspoken messages in the text. We even had a heated discussion when it came to understanding the characters. The diversity in the group also helped us in having enriched conversations. And not all of us shared the same feelings about the book. Some felt that it was too dramatic and unrealistic, a few of us felt it is a very scary depiction of an arranged marriage gone wrong, some felt that it might just be a mix of both.

The story is about the author's account of her married life. It takes place in Kolkata in the mid 60s, where the protagonist is a young educated woman from a middle class family who gets married to an older, uneducated man from an affluent family. They have nothing in common and do not get along or even try to get along from the beginning. How they outsmart each other to get their way form's the rest of the story.

They are both very prideful as characters and don’t give in at any cost. There are no instances of compassion, sacrifice, compromise or understanding as seen in most normal relationships. Some of my group mates believed that the wife was unreasonably stubborn and vengeful. I don’t think the husband was any better. There can be no contest with these characters on who is best and who isn't. Both of them are flawed and imperfect. Dominant and unsympathetic to each other for a long time in their marriage.

We had a heated debate on the topic of whether these two characters really "Loved" each other. Several of us felt that they might love each other in the way they hate each other. Their form of love might just be hating each other. But the real issue was whether who loved whom. And we could not agree that the husband loved the wife in the conventional way we call as love. I argued against this idea saying that for the husband, his wife was just another possession to be admired and stared at. She was not a person with feelings and passion. He disregards and puts her down in many instances. His actions did not really speak to me as being that of a loving person. Later in life he does go beyond just thinking of her as an object and more as a person, but in that case, this change also occurs in the wife. So this topic was complicated for us to come to a conclusion on.

This text evokes a certain fear of arranged marriages in me. It talks about how bad relationships can go if you do not understand the other person. I am not sure exactly what the author is trying to say. I can sense a lot of mixed messages. She might be warning people off marriages in general and arranged marriages in particular. She might be talking about how no matter who you marry, you will eventually begin liking that person. The message might also be that when two people with huge differences in age and education come together, disaster might strike.