LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 16:9 September 2016
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Theme, Technique And Historicism In Amitav Ghosh’s
The Shadow Lines: A Critical Study

Alok Kumar Singh, Research Scholar (English)


Abstract

Amitav Ghosh has won many accolades for his fiction that is keenly intertwined with history. His fiction is characterized by strong themes that may be sometimes identified as historical novels. His themes involve emigration, exile, cultural displacement and uprooting. He illuminates the basic ironies, deep seated ambiguities and existential dilemmas of human condition. He, in one of the interviews, has observed, "Nobody has the choice of stepping away from history" and "For me, the value of the novel, as a form, is that it is able to incorporate elements of every aspect of life-history, natural history, rhetoric, politics, beliefs, religion, family, love, sexuality".

Amitav Ghosh’s success as historical novelist owes much to the distinctiveness of his well-researched narratives. He remarkably manifests a bygone era and vanished experiences to life through vividly realized detail. The better reference in this context is his celebrated second novel, “The Shadow Lines” (1988) which was published four years after the sectarian violence that shook New Delhi in the aftermath of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. This constitutes a logical background in the novel, and it makes readers probe various hammering facets of violence. Also, his treatment of violence in Calcutta and Dhaka in this novel is valid even today.

The novel deals with the concerns of our period, the search for identity, the need for independence, the difficult relationship with colonial culture. It magnificently interweaves fact, fiction and reminiscence. It is a continuous narrative which replicates the pattern of violence not only of 1964 but also of 21st century. The fragmentary narratives unfold the narrator’s experiences in the form of memories which move backwards and forwards.

While focusing upon the text of “The Shadow Lines” I aim to examine and elaborate elements of historicity in the novel and their implications. I also aim to investigate the theme as well as technique employed in the novel.

Keywords: Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, Historicism

Introduction: Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh, one of the most celebrated authors in Indian English, has won many national and international awards for his fiction that is keenly intertwined with history. He is one of most significant literary voices to emerge from India in recent decades, and has contributed to the development of ideas on the postcolonial in particular, in particular its relation to post modernism. His fiction is characterized by strong themes of humanism, cosmopolitanism, communalism, colonial power and history. His themes involve emigration, exile, cultural displacement and uprooting. He illuminates the human ironies, deep-seated ambiguities and existential dilemmas of human condition. He, in one of the interviews, has observed, "Nobody has the choice of stepping away from history" and "For me, the value of the novel, as a form, is that it is able to incorporate elements of every aspect of life-history, natural history, rhetoric, politics, beliefs, religion, family, love, sexuality".

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Alok Kumar Singh, M.A.
Research Scholar (English)
L.N. Mithila University
Shital – Bhavan Bangali Tola
Laheriasarai 846001
Darbhanga
Bihar
India
alokkumarsingh40@gmail.com
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