Question

In "We Both Live in the Same Village," the speaker uses depictions of the natural world to symbolize his feelings for Ranjana and their relationship. How does this symbolism emphasize the affection the speaker feels for Ranjana? How does the symbolism explain their proximity? Cite evidence from the text to support your response.

Answer 1

The poem "We Both Live in the Same Village" is from Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener, a collection of love poems.

Answer 1: In the poem, the speaker express his love for Ranjana using symbols from the natural environment of the village they live in. The symbolism emphasize the affection in phrases like: "The yellow bird sings in their tree and makes my heart dance with gladness", "Her pair of pet lambs come to graze near the shade of our garden"... The speaker feels happy because all the little things that link his life with the life of Ranjana.

Answer 2:  The proximity between the speaker and Ranjana is evidenced by phrases like: "We both live in the same village and that is our one piece of joy", "Only one field lies between us", this two phrases make clear that they live close to each other, but also the speaker uses more symbolic references to also emphasizes their proximity: "Bees that have hived in our grove go to seek honey in theirs", "When their linseed is ripe for harvest, the hemp is in bloom in our field" (this means that the harvest time is the same for both of them), "The stars that smile on their cottage send us the same twinkling look" (also means that they are really close).

Answer 2

The speaker in "We Both Live in the Same Village" depicts sights and sounds of the natural world to emphasize the affection he feels for Ranjana:

We both live in the same village and that is our one piece of joy.

The yellow bird sings in their tree and makes my heart dance with gladness.

Her pair of pet lambs come to graze near the shade of our garden.

If they stray into our barley field I take them up in my arms.

The speaker associates his love for her with the yellow bird that sings and makes his heart "dance with gladness." He expresses his tenderness toward her by mentioning how he cares for her lost lambs. He expresses his affection again when he describes how he is connected to her through the stars and the rain:

The stars that smile on their cottage send us the same twinkling look.

The rain that floods their tank makes glad our Kadam forest.

Even though the speaker and Ranjana live in the same village, he is aware of the distance between them, and he describes this distance in terms of the natural world. He says "only one field" separates them, and they are so close that the honey bees can fly from his grove into Ranjana’s grove.