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The Wives’ Tales: Women and the Domestic Space in ManikBandyopadhyay’s ‘Bou’ Series

Manik Bandyopadhyay’s ‘Bou’ series consists of thirteen stories written over a decade. Eight stories were published circa 1940. With five additional stories, the entire collection was published in 1953. The body of research around these stories has focused primarily on their representation of female sexuality and female psyche since most of these stories were written during Manik’s so-called Freudian phase. It is worth noting that with very few exceptions and brief moments, the stories mostly unfold within the domestic space. These are primarily middle-class Hindu homes, in most cases, set in an urban space. This essay intends to focus on the physical setting of the stories – to read the domestic space within a longer tradition of representing the home, the family, and conjugal relationships.