A Journey through Homes: Relooking the Looking-Glasses of Geographical Partition

Debashis Roy

Swami Vivekananda University, Barrackpore, West Bengal, India

Cite: Roy D. A Journey through Homes: Relooking the Looking-Glasses of Geographical Partition. J. Digit. Art Humanit., 3(1), 13-18. https://doi.org/10.33847/2712-8148.3.1_2

Abstract. The paper addresses Conrad’s The Shadow-Line and Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines to bring out the conflict between the Orient and the Occident in the former (with the movement of the naval officer from doubt towards fulfilment) and that of the classical mapping of East and the West in the latter (with the movement away from the ‘cultural/classical’ fulfilment towards unstated doubt). The paper criticizes and counters the absence of any discussion about the common human experiences/events and/or subaltern histories in Midnight’s Children by focusing on nationalistic criticism present in The Shadow Lines. Thus, the paper holds implications and displays a journey through historical events that dismantled and suffocated ‘sensibilities’. Furthermore, the paper intends to prove that any journey/trip once taken complicates/problematizes one’s identity by making the swift flow between the old and new, past and present gradually impossible. Life, therefore becomes an unending trip forward and backward either by choice or by a lack of choice.

Keywords: Journey, Diasporic Sensibilities, Bengali Psyche, Home.

References
  1. Bagchi, Nivedita, “The Process of Validation in Relation to Materiality and Historical Reconstruction in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines,” Modern Fiction Studies 39.1, 1993, P.187-202.
  2. Chakravarti, Dipesh, “Remembered Villages: Representation of Hindu Bengali memories in the aftermath of the Partition,” Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.31, No.32, August 10, 1996.
  3. Bagchi, Nivedita, “The Process of Validation in Relation to Materiality and Historical Reconstruction in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines,” Modern Fiction Studies 39.1, 1993, P.245
  4. Ghosh, Amitav, The Shadow Lines, Penguin India, 2009, P. 77-78.
  5. Rosenblatt, Louise M, Literature as Exploration, N.Y. Nobel and Nobel Publishers, 1976, P.138.

Published online 29.06.2022