Punishment- Shawn Bendeck

          Tagore’s “Punishment” and Hedda Gabler build a strong connection after reading both texts. Both I feel involve main characters living life in lies. Dukhiram Rui and Chidam Rui, both follow through will their lies to the very end regarding the murder of Durkhiram’s wife. It didn’t take them to confess the truth till the very end but it had been too late. Hedda had been living her own relationship in lies I feel as she doesn’t truly love her husband or even the house that she resides in.  Both texts to involve hiding the secret of being responsible for someone’s death. Hedda knew she had accounted for Loevborgs death. Both Dukhiram and Hedda hadn’t really been in the correct state of mind as well. Dukhiram has become infuriated with his wife’s nagging, and by the point Hedda hands the gun over we can slowly see she is slowly losing it throughout the text as she even used the gun prior just to shoot around recklessly. Both texts involve females being so unhappy with their current situations that they preferred death than living. In Punishment Chandara couldn’t even give any final words to her husband before being sent away. She preferred death than to be with someone who has given her up in order to save himself and his brother. At this point life isn’t worth living to her. Hedda may not hate her husband as much as Chandara, but he isn’t someone she truly lusts over or truly wants to be with. Both of these characters come to the end of the play really feel that they have nothing left to live for. The only happiness they can find now is by death, and they become perfectly ok with that. Men in both texts effect the feelings and emotions of these woman, but these woman rather be dead than deal with these men or their current life situations.