Amitav Ghosh’S the Shadow Lines

Exploring Amitav Ghosh's narrative craftsmanship and cartographic critique

Abstract

In this essay I examine Amitav Ghosh’s craft and concerns in one of hisfinest novels, The Shadow Lines (1988).I further explore Ghosh’s organization of the diegetic elements, such as thenovel’s world and situation, events and characters, as well as the mode oftelling and recounting the story, and argue how it is designed in conjunctionwith his central thematic preoccupation. As memory provides the narrativetrigger in this novel, I analyses Ghosh’s mnemonic enterprise as part of hisnarrative management. By using different narrative terms derived from RussianFormalism and Structuralism mediations, the novel’s construction is taken apartto demonstrate Ghosh’s innovative art. Besides dealing with the novel’snarratological technique, this essay looks at Ghosh’s interrogation ofcartographic determinations against   the   background  of   Bengal’s   vivisection  into   East   Pakistan  (now Bangladesh) and West Bengal and evaluates his espousal of seculartolerance and alternative cartography in a multi-cultural scenario.