Depicting Culture and Identity in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines


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Authors

  • Satya Narayan Research Scholar Department of English & MEL, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India

Keywords:

Identity, Culture, Anthropology, travelogue, Syncretism

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh is a prominent writer of present times, who deals in his writing with the effects of colonialism and problematizes the dominant discourse of history. He quietly contests the construction of various borders that separate nations from nations, culture from culture and people from people, etc. The politicians and revisionists’ approach to history, destabilization of borders, voices of frontier, suppressed by dominant ideology point to the uniquely Ghosh’s way of quest for identity. Identity cannot be merely wished away for we are inevitably influenced by our political, social and cultural activity. Social location of an individual plays an important part in the formation of his identity. Any identity gets categorized on the basis of class, gender and race. Thus, an individual has many identities like cultural, political and social. The tendency of Amitav Ghosh is towards syncretism and breaking barriers. In The Shadow Lines, Amitav Ghosh tries to capture the subalterns’ voices. He depicts marginalized women and writes about the colonial and nationalist history.  All the texts of Ghosh are a combination of history, anthropology, autobiography, travelogue, fiction and non- fiction. In this novel, the novelist focuses on culture, identity crises and historical elements like Swadeshi movement, partition of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh, Communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Kolkata. I would explore crises of identity, and conflict in culture in The Shadow Lines. 

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References

Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1988. Print.

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of literary Terms. New Delhi: Earth Edition, 2008. Print.

Ghosh, Amitav. Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma. New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 2002. Print.

Tiwari, Shubha. Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Study. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008. Print.

Mukherjee, Meenakshi. Maps and Mirrors: Coordinates of Meaning in The Shadow Lines: The Perishable Empires. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.

Khair, Tabish. Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion. New Delhi: Permanent black, 2003. Print.

Dhawan, R. K. Theme of Partition and Freedom: The Novels of Amitav Ghosh. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1999. Print.

Chaudhary, Arvind. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: Critical Essays. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2002. Print.

Bose, Brinda. ed. Amitav Ghosh: Critical Perspectives. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2005. Print.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. UK: Manchester University Press, 2014. Print.

Mondal, Anshuman, A. Amitav, Ghosh. Viva Books, 2010. Print.

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Published

2017-12-31

How to Cite

Satya Narayan. “Depicting Culture and Identity in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines”. The Creative Launcher, vol. 2, no. 5, Dec. 2017, pp. 17-26, https://thecreativelauncher.com/index.php/tcl/article/view/680.

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Section

Research Articles