The English translation of Ghare-Baire (1919), The Home and the World, was first serialised in the Bengali magazine, Sabujputra, in 1915. Published in 1916, The Home and the World is a critically celebrated work with themes that its author knows intimately. The novel is a striking example of the power of art (and artifice) to edify?or destroy?causes, relationships, and possibly an entire country. The Home and the World is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, set against the political and logistical nightmares of India?s 20th century caste system. Although the story focuses on the dynamic of a marriage?which shifts when a shadowy outsider enters the lives of the couple?much of the novel reads like a philosophical treatise. There are shifting viewpoints between the characters Bimala, Nikhil, and Sandip, and much of the book comprises their internal and external dialogues as they consider serious issues such as tradition, the roles of men and women in Indian culture, the nature of political change, the occasional need for violence in political activism, and other rhetorical exercises such as the weighing of the public good.