Tagore's "The Man Had No Useful Work" (or, Why Haven't I Heard of This Guy Before?)

The literature featured in this chapter of the textbook includes some of my favorite novels, poems, and plays of all time (Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, Beckett's Waiting For Godot, and the poetry of Dylan Thomas, for example). However, I found that, at the end of the reading assignment, I was confronted with a poet whom I had never heard of. I was very excited when, after reading his poem "The Man Had No Useful Work," I realized that I had found yet another author whose work I could fall in love with.

Tagore is known for being the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tagore's poem reflects his idea that "the crisis of modern society lay in a set of mis-place values that prized the rush of business and the acquisition of material comforts at the expense of beauty, creativity, and spiritual harmony." Looking at the poem, this view is VERY evident.

A nameless man who "had no useful work" ends up in Paradise by mistake. This "Paradise" seems to be a commentary on what Tagore believes would be the "Paradise" embraced by his times (and, I believe, ours)- in this Paradise, only "good, busy souls" are allowed. The man is constantly in the way of people trying to quickly get places and do things (things that are never concretely defined).

At this point, he meets a "very busy girl" and attempts to take her pitcher from her. She is confused because, rather than wanting to use her pitcher for something useful, he wants to paint patterns on it. He presses on about this until she finally lets him. When it is returned to her, she notes that "it has no meaning." Does this make it useless to her? No.

When the girl returns home, she is faced with something meaningless having value, which is contrary to the bounds of "paradise" (and modern life). The man continues his loving revolt against meaning by weaving a colored ribbon for the girls hair. Again, she is presented with something beautiful without meaning.

It is at this point that those in charge of Paradise notice that time is starting to be wasted and send the man back to earth. The girl wishes to go with him. "For the first time the chief of the elders is faced with a situation which has no sense in it."

This story is an amazing commentary on the society both of Tangore's time and ours. It is a lesson on the beauty of the "meaningless," a love song to the arts that the workmanship attitude of the time threatens to stamp out on the grounds that it is useless. What is a Paradise without beauty? I think there is a big lesson to be learned and taken to heart from Tangore's poem.