The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India" is a poignant narrative exploring complex themes of identity, sacrifice, and love through its major characters: Shridaman, Nanda, Sita, Kali, and Kamananda. Shridaman, a learned merchant, embodies intellect and sensitivity, while his friend Nanda represents physical strength and straightforwardness. Their friendship is tested when both develop secret affections for Sita, Shridaman’s wife, illustrating the intricate dynamics of love and desire. Sita herself grapples with her loyalty to Shridaman and her attraction to Nanda, ultimately leading to her decision to transpose the identities of the two men in a desperate bid to find an ideal union. Kali, the goddess of motherhood and sacrifice, serves as a powerful figure guiding these characters through their moral dilemmas. Kamananda, a pious hermit, plays a crucial role in adjudicating the conflicts that arise from their intertwined fates. The story culminates in a tragic resolution that underscores themes of sacrifice and the search for true connection, as the characters confront their desires and the consequences of their choices. This tale invites readers to reflect on the nature of love and the identities we inhabit.
The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Thomas Mann
First published: Die vertauschten Kopfe: Eine indische Legende, 1940 (English translation, 1941)
Genre: Novella
Locale: Kurukshetra, India, and environs
Plot: Fable
Time: The eleventh century
Shridaman, a merchant who is well versed in classical learning, twenty-one years old and of delicate build. His father, also a merchant in the village of Welfare of Cows in the land of Kosala, was of Brahman stock and very familiar with Vedic texts. Shridaman has all the attributes of a man of the mind. It is for this reason that he is attracted to his mental and physical opposite, Nanda. They are friends and inseparable. It is through Nanda that Shridaman is introduced to the pleasures of the flesh and the senses. It is also through him that he comes to know the identity of his future wife. By accident, he and Nanda witness Sita's ritual ablutions near the temple of Kali. Shridaman falls in love with her. Because Nanda and Sita knew each other as children, Nanda is able to bring Sita and his friend together. It is Shridaman's admiration for his friend's physical strength and uncomplicated mind, as well as his love for Sita, that finally leads him to acknowledge Sita's longing for Nanda by sacrificing himself in the temple of Kali, “the great mother.” With the same loyalty and devotion, he accepts his new existence as an amalgam of his former self and that of his friend. His honesty, fair-mindedness, and love for Sita ultimately lead him to agree to a murder-suicide pact that results in a triple funeral pyre. Through this, the conflict between the friend and the couple may be resolved and their child's future happiness ensured.
Nanda, a shepherd and blacksmith who is eighteen years old. He is dark-skinned, with a big, flat nose and a strong, muscular body. His father is also a smith. Nanda has a “lucky calf lock” on his chest. Nanda is devoted to his friend Shridaman, whom he admires for his learning and slender, “elegant” physique. Nanda, although loyal to Shridaman and intent on avoiding any hint of an interest in Sita, Shridaman's wife, is nevertheless secretly desirous of her, just as Sita is of him. After his unquestioning immolation before the corpse of his friend in Kali's temple and his cheerful acceptance of a new physical identity, he also accepts willingly the hermit's verdict as to whether he has a right to Sita's affections. Because the judgment goes against him, he decides to live in self-imposed exile and seclusion. He accepts willingly Shridaman's decision that each end the life of the other by mortally wounding his heart, and he agrees to Sita's decision to die on the funeral pyre so that their unhappy union may have a happy resolution and Samadhi a happy future.
Sita, a young maiden who becomes Shridaman's wife. Her appellation is “Sita of the beautiful hips.” She possesses innocence, piety, and devotion to her parents, and she obeys unquestioningly when her parents and Shridaman's agree that she should marry Shridaman. It is her husband who introduces her to the pleasures of the senses, although, over time, it is clear to her that he is more a man of the mind than of the flesh. She, therefore, develops a secret longing for Nanda's arms and body, which seem perfect to her, and she wishes for a combination of her husband's mind and his friend's body. She inadvertently reveals to Shridaman this secret longing. It is her sense of guilt that leads her to implore Kali, the goddess, to restore the friends to their former life, and it is her secret desire for a perfect husband that leads her to transpose their heads. She enjoys a night with Nanda's “husband-body” during Shridaman's absence, but, in the end, she decides to join in the friends' suicide pact by her self-immolation on a funeral pyre at the feast of burning. She does so because she rejects polyandry and out of concern for the future of her child, whom she wants to grow up not as the child of an abandoned mother but as an orphan and the son of a legendary mother, whose self-sacrifice assures her legend and commemoration through a monument.
Kali, the Hindu goddess of motherhood, destruction, sacrifice, and bloodshed. These contradictory attributes match those of her victims and followers, Shridaman, Nanda, and Sita. As a disembodied voice, she enters into a dialogue with Sita. In forceful terms, she expresses her displeasure with the disingenuous sacrifices of Nanda and Shridaman. She is willing to accede to Sita's fervent desire to see the two restored to their former existence with Sita's help.
Kamananda, a pious hermit. He agrees to settle the dispute between Shridaman, Nanda, and Sita. He has no difficulty in deciding that it is the head that is the decisive criterion in determining whether Shridaman with Nanda's body or Nanda with Shridaman's body is now the husband of Sita.
Samadhi, called Andhaka (the blind one), the light-skinned and nearsighted son of Shridaman and Sita. As the child of a famous mother, he is reared by “a wise and learned Brahman.” His progress is reported at the ages of four, seven, twelve, and twenty. At the age of twenty, he has become reader to the king of Benares.