A Comparative Analysis of Mental Health in Humayun Ahmed’s Nondito Noroke and Debi

Humayun Ahmed is a prominent author from Bangladesh, widely read for his ability to blend surrealism within the boundaries of middle-class families in Asian households. Nondito Noroke (In Blissful Hell), was the first-ever work of the author published in the 1970s. The plot revolves around a lower-middle-class family struggling to make ends meet. Rabia, the twenty-two-year-old, female character is the eldest daughter of the family. She suffers from an unexplained mental disability that restrains her duties and allows her to lead a carefree life. Her carelessness ultimately pushes her to death while her family suffers from a deep personal loss that claims three lives. On the other hand, Debi (Goddess) portrays the psychic powers of Ranu, the seventeen-year-old protagonist suffering from Hysteria Schizophrenia. Her extraordinary sensory perceptions of hearing a voice without an external stimulus raise her to the position of a medium for “Debi” to communicate with the human world. This paper attempts to conduct a comparative analysis between Rabia and Ranu through the lens of feminist psychoanalysis and trauma theory, where the former is an oppressed and rejected individual who is constantly pulled apart by the expectation of the conventional society on the norms of gender roles. At the same time, the latter is idolised as a Goddess for her ability to foretell the future. The significance of this research lies in understanding the pattern of mental health in the context of women’s development from a South-Asian perspective.