HOME AND NATION: ISSUES OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE NOVELS OF AMITAV GHOSH

Abstract

This thesis mainly deals with three topics home, nation and Cultural identity in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh. Essentially, the research is centered on the subject of the home, nation and cultural identity in the context of postcolonial theory, diaspora, nationalism and multiculturalism. Even thought, with the emergence of the postmodernism the concept home, nation and cultural identity become the matter of intellectual examination and debate. Therefore, with the help of the selected novels of Amitav Ghosh the research has through the light on the home nation and cultural identity which is the not, in the postmodern era, static but is in the flux. A close survey of Post 1980 Indian English literature establishes that the quest for identity especially cultural identity and a feeling of some kind of rootlessness or homelessness under the shadow of emergence of culturally orthodox groups and their evolution and major political forces forms central aspect of the Indian English fiction. The major argument of the research is that in the present world the home, nation and more precisely cultural identity is no more exist in the real world but it is just an illusion or deception as we see in the novels of Ghosh namely, the Circle of Reason, the Shadow Line, Hungry Tide etc. So, the concept of home, nation and cultural identity as we have defined earlier that is no more vailed in the present day therefore an essential question arises in front of us in the contemporary world. Amitav Ghosh in his novels attempts a reading of the colonial encounter by focusing on the global amalgam of cultures and identities consolidated by imperialism and problematizes the very notion of nationalism especially the militant nationalism rooted in the regional, religious, and caste-based prejudices. Therefore, most of his novel shows that kind of nationalism uproots people and renders them homeless. The search for identity is one of the major aspects of the Third World writing in general and Indian writing in particular. This particular aspect is foregrounded in the novels of Amitav Ghosh. His novels emerge as a search for identity, which is an urgent quest for Third World countries attempting to assert their individuality as nations and shed the yoke of having been culturally oppressed for a significant period of their history. However, this thesis studies Amitav Ghosh’s individual novels in each chapter from a particular perspective and by making use of theoretical tools appropriate to that particular perspective. The thesis primarily contains eight chapters except chapter seven, which is, based on the Ibis Trilogy (three novels- The Sea of Poppies, The River of Smoke, and The Flood of Fire) all other chapters –second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth analyze individual novels. II In the Chapter one entitled “Introduction” defines the concepts of home, nation, nationalism, and cultural identity, as they are understood in postmodern age and outlines the research objectives, research questions and research methodology and a brief biography of the author taken for case study i.e. Amitav Ghosh follows. In the Chapter Two entitled “Culture and Rationality within A Nation State: A Study of Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason” shows how Ghosh illustrates that all borders instead of safeguarding home pose biggest danger to home and it remaps the world drawing connections across the boundaries of modern nation states. It shows a critique of the repressive aspects of postcolonial societies and explores the idea of a perpetual traveler as an escape from the repressive elements of modern rationalities and society. However, it reminds the reader that one can escape the geographical nation but it is almost impossible to escape the national borders engraved in the psyche by the nationalist discourses. Thus, the theme of this chapter is transcendence of politically constructed cultural differences, lines and borders supposedly maintained for the welfare of common humanity. In the Chapter Three entitled “Searching of Home in Postcolonial Nations: A Study of The Shadow Lines” analyzes the way Amitav Ghosh explore the issues of home, national borders, the historical process responsible for their mergence, and the resulting anxieties and contradictions that affect people’s lives in the post-colonial world. Gosh explores the issue of borders and the history of partition that results in a multitude of insider-outsider configurations and it depicted how Independence brought with it Partition and how national reconstruction on the bases of some abstract ideologies causes riots and destroys lives of people. In the Chapter Four entitled “The Calcutta Chromosome: Home in the Virtual World of Memory, Imagination and Internet” deals with Amitav Ghosh’s treatment of pre-nation state era and supposedly post-nation state era and tries to show that the idea of nation as home and a safe home in nation state is a myth. The virtual world of World Wide Web may appear connecting with physical space but remains virtual though, Ghosh sees human life in flux, not as static and rooted in one place; therefore, the real home of people is not a house made of bricks on a piece of land, rather it is in the constant movement and the sites that facilitate the movement. However, it highlights how Ghosh investigates diverse trajectories between tradition and modernity. III In the Chapter Five entitled “Home and Nation in Flux: A Study of The Glass Palace” looks at the novel as a saga of people on perpetual move. This movement keeps home and nation in flux and defies the idea of fixed home in a nation with fixed national boundaries. All characters in the novel - weather rich or poor, king or servant, colonizer or colonized- cross and re-cross-national boundaries in search of a true home without any success because the idea of nation interferes with the idea of home. It establishes that the imposition of the notion of nation, fixes home in the national space and dislocates many people living in that geographical space for centuries simply because they do not fit into the newly created national culture. In the Chapter Six entitled “Home and Homelessness in the National Space: A Study of The Hungry Tide” deals with the sense of home and the dangers of homelessness with regard to subaltern sections of society in Indian national space. This chapter highlights Indian nation state’s different attitudes towards people with land and money. The Hungry Tide, as an amalgamation of imaginary and real which is fundamental to Ghosh’s project of analyzing the relationship between island geography, life of people there, international politics, discourse of nationalism and the attitude of self-proclaimed nationalist state machinery towards the outcasts. Ghosh draws attention to the political notion of nation that restricts this movement and renders people homeless rather than providing home to people. In the Chapter Seven entitled “Searching for Home: A Study of the Ibis Trilogy” goes back in history to the period of opium wars (1838-1841) that forms the temporal location of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy. Ghosh portray the scenario of a historical period when the understanding of nation and nationalism was completely missing in the Third World. However, the socio-political and economic circumstances changed radically with the entry of capitalist forces and many of them were rendered homeless in their own birthplaces. Even though, Colonialism challenges the idea of home in a feudal state where rigid caste and class hierarchies does not allow any space for merit and ambition as far as subalterns are concerned and provides an opportunity to realize one’s dreams. Thus, here home and nation cease to be political entities based on nationalism rather they become the spaces constituted on the bases of love and respect for human life or just life. In the Chapter Eight entitled “Conclusion” concludes the major arguments of the thesis and shows that this research associates nation and nationalism with national identity, not merely as a form of political identity but as a cultural strategy of representation. Amitav Ghosh as a part of diaspora offers a resistant, more empowering, conception of the nation and redefines it to make it more inclusive in nature. Thus, the conclusion of the thesis “Home and Nation: Issues of Cultural Identities in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh” is that it analyzes the intricate relationship between home and nation on the one hand and issues of cultural identity on the other hand.