the merits and faults of his works. It is this fact which I have sought to establish in this article of mine. Whenever there has been a lack of either of these two virtues, Dinabandhu's art has proved a failure. This tells us why his chief heroes and heroines have failed to become really attractive characters. Aduri and Torapa are living characters, but not so his Kamini, Lilavati, Vijay and Lalitmohan. In the cases of Aduri and Torapa, Sympathy, as it were, conveyed to the writer everything about them, including the language they spoke. But why does one find the characters and speeches of Kamini, Vijay, Lilavati and Lalit so much distorted? The question may well arise why his sympathy, if natural and universal, did fail him in his portrayal of these characters. 'Want of experience in respect of such characters' is the easy answer. Let us first think of his heroines. The writer had no experience of such characters as Lilavati and Kamini. Indeed there were no such characters at all in the society of Bengal...Since there were no such living ideals before him, his sympathy failed him in these cases. For, even an all-pervasive sympathy pervades only the living and not the lifeless. It is clear to the readers, therefore, that in these cases Dinabandhu lacked both experience and sympathy...hence in these cases his art proved a failure.
The same could be said about the heroes of Dinabandhu. The heroes of Dinabandhu—Bengali youths—are the epitomes of virtues having no work to do. Some of them are engaged in philanthropic activities and some others, in courting. Living ideals of such characters are not present in the society of Bengal, so, in respect of these characters too, Dinabandhu lacked both experience and sympathy. The result was his art proved a failure in these cases too. It would have proved a success if he had, in portraying these characters, adopted the same method as he had done in portraying the characters of Jaladhar, Jagadamba and Nimchand...
Dinabandhu's first drama was the result of his uncommon experience of the society, and his keen sense of sympathy. He had undertaken extensive journeys in the areas where Indigo was produced, and acquired a first-hand and detailed knowledge of the tyranny of the Indigo planters over the ryots. Nobody knew it better than he did. His keen sense of sympathy turned the sorrows of the ryots into his own sorrows and made him take up his pen and
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