Literature Group
Question:
chandrayan
Student
Graduate School
How might Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh be considered a post colonial novel?
Answers:
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accessteacher Teacher
High School - 10th GradeeNotes Editor
Posted by accessteacher on Friday March 13, 2009 at 6:15 AMShadow Lines is an amazing story that transgresses multiple borders, one of the key themes of the story. This is also a concern of postcolonial criticism, that examines and criticises man-made boundaries and borders as attempts to define a particular group as against another group ("the other"). Postcolonial criticism attempts to rupture these apparently secure boundaries by examining those who live on the margins of these boundaries and also deconstructing (taking apart) the notion of the other. This is particularly true of the "invention" of India the nation, with the Partition of 1947 which drew imaginary lines across India, creating the countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India and also causing much death from the resulting riots.
The narrative in Shadow Lines is constantly transgressing boundaries of space and time, thus giving the novel its title, as the lines that divide places and even times are shown to be easily transgressed - "Shadow Lines."
Consider this quote regarding the inherent fragility of boundaries:
[About seeing the border from the air] But if there aren't any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean, where's the difference then? And if there's no difference both sides will be the same; it'll be just like it used to be before, when we used to catch a train in Dhaka and get off in Calcutta the next day . . . (151)
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