Volume-II, Special Issue, February 2026
Novel Insights A Peer-Reviewed Quarterly Multidisciplinary Research Journal |
Volume-II, Special Issue, February 2026 |
Urban Modernism and the Search for Meaning: Fragmentation and Existential Crisis in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Buddhadeb Basu’s Raat Bhore Brishti Ankita Sarkar, Research Scholar, Department of English, Raiganj University, West Bengal, India Email: ankitasarkar1111.as@gmail.com |
Received: 01.01.2026 | Accepted: 20.02.2026 | Published Online: 28.02.2026 |
Page No: | DOI: | |
Abstract | ||
The modernist era was marked by a rupture in literary expression, shaped by historical upheavals, urban alienation, and the erosion of traditional meaning-making structures. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land stands as one of the defining texts of this crisis, capturing the fractured consciousness of the twentieth century through its disjointed narrative, shifting voices, and intertextual allusions. The poem presents a world in which meaning is elusive and fragmented across cultures and histories, with the invocation of “Shanti, Shanti, Shanti” from the Upanishads serving as both an echo of lost spiritual coherence and a reflection of modern disillusionment. The depiction of London as a wasteland—populated by individuals disconnected from their surroundings—reinforces the anxieties of modern urban life, where memory, history, and identity dissolve into a landscape of uncertainty. Buddhadeb Basu’s Raat Bhore Brishti offers a strikingly parallel engagement with these themes within a Bengali modernist framework. Set in an urban milieu, the novel explores the psychological disintegration of its protagonist, whose existential crisis unfolds against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Kolkata. Like Eliot’s work, Basu’s narrative is fragmented, capturing the uncertainties of modern existence through shifts in perspective and an introspective, deeply alienated protagonist. While Eliot’s modernism emerges from the trauma of war and the collapse of European cultural authority, Basu’s work reflects the anxieties of a postcolonial city grappling with its fractured identity. This study examines how both texts articulate a literary response to urban modernity, emphasising how the search for meaning, identity, and coherence transcends cultural and geographical boundaries, shaping modernist literature in distinct yet interconnected ways. Keywords: Urban Modernism, Existential Crisis, Fragmentation, Intertextuality, Alienation | ||