VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL)
An International Peer Reviewed (Refereed) Journal
Impact Factor (SJIF) 4.092       http://www.joell.in

AMITAV GHOSH’S THE SHADOW LINES: A POSTCOLONIAL NOVEL

Dr. Nibedita Phukan

(Associate Professor of English,Namrup College (Affiliated to Dibrugarh University))

Email: nibeditap18@gmail.com

doi: https://doi.org/10.33329/joell.61.75

ABSTRACT

The novel The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh is the narration of the story of an unnamed boy’s memory of experience of this world and people. The ur-hero, ur-narrator and ur-imagination Tridib gives the narrator a world to travel in and the eyes to see with long before he ever leaves Calcutta. The grown up narrator faces the real world to experience many things of the history of that century, the socio-political life and the cultural milieu. The novel focuses on the freedom to create an identity from different perspectives. The Shadow Lines is the narrative of colonial historical past transforming the lives of the characters by an artificial, detached and culturally erroneous boundary separating them from their birth place. East and west meets in the novel on the ground of friendship through the characters like Tridib, May Price, Ila Datta-Chowdhury, Nick Price, Mrs. Price, and the writer himself.

Keywords:  Memory of experience, Ur-hero, Ur-narrator and Ur-imagination,

       Culturally erroneous boundary.

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