Narrative Technique in Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines

Ujjainwal 1
Mihir
Dr Reena Singh
A0706118063 (4-B)
March 15th, 2020
Narrative Technique in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines
The Shadow Lines was originally published in the year 1988, not only an Indian
Classic but also a winner of Sahitya Akademi Award. The plot have many characters but only a
few hold the primary significance. There is one unnamed narrator, his uncle Tridib, a cousin Ila
and a grandmother Tha’mma.
As told above, It is the story of unnamed and un-described narrator whose
intimate experiences with some of the family members and friends leave strong imprints on his
mind. However, an objection can be raised to this simple conclusion as the narrator talking about
himself rather than talks about his grandmother and Ila and Tridib. Moreover, when he speaks
about Tridih, Tridib might be speaking about his experience in London with Alan, Mike, Dan and
Francesca in 1939 or while the so aloe remembers grandmother- she might be lost in the old days
of the freedom struggle. The complexity of the novels narrative technique lies therein.
Discarding a linear structure and the conventional narrative scheme, Amitav Ghosh employs a
circular, loop—like structure and a multiple narrative scheme in the novel.
In this 'memory novel' memory plays a crucial role. Memory generates action of
the novel and determines the form of the novel- its partial answers, its digressions, its
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resolutions, and its looping, nonlinear and wide ranging narrative technique. The narrator lives a
truer life in his memories and we meet other characters in the narrator's memories. To make it
complex, Ghosh sometimes employs a memory within memory kind of framework and
sometimes projects many memories mixing together. Sparsely related and long silenced
memories come to the narrator in bits and pieces. Ghosh arranges the novel in such a way that all
the important incidents are preceded by a prelude as if to provide a catalyst for the narrator's
memories. For example, the narrator recalls that when he was a child, his grandmother had
received Mayadebi's letter announcing May's proposed visit to India and that Tridib asked him
whether he would come with Tridib to receive May. This is followed by the narrator's memory
after many years. He says: "The first time May and I talked about her visit to Calcutta was on the
day after Ila's wedding ...." But before he actually talks with may about her visit to India, he
describes in detail Ila's wedding. He is getting drunk and accompanying May to her house, his
imposing himself upon her sexually, then how after getting up in the morning, he remembered
his act of seduction the previous night and his feeling of embarrassment, his joining May in her
work of collection of money for the African famine, and then follows that conversation of the
time when the narrator had gone with his elders to receive May at Howrah station„. Here rather
than taking this shape of chronological documentation the events as recollections of the past
spontaneously resurface to occupy the narrators mind and make him see minute things with
telescopic eyes. Between the receipt of Mayadebi's letter about May's visit and the narrator and
Tridib's plan to go to receive May and their actual implementation of it, there are a wide range of
incidents. These interludes perform a major function of throwing light on May's loneliness, the
narrator's sadness after Ila's wedding and most importantly prepare us for the final union of May
and the narrator. This narrative technique is maintained throughout the novel. Ghosh's novel
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reveals truth as a shock to the readers. He keeps his readers prepared for the forthcoming
conflicts and crises and yet tactfully always holds back the suspense. This is most apparent in the
delineation of the riots of 1964 and Tridib's death.
Backward and forward journey in time is a recurrent device used by the writer in the
novel. This structural device is in harmony with the novel being an extended memory. Besides
that, it also presents a central theme that the line dividing past and present is only a shadow, that
the past lives in the present and that the present is shaped by the past.
Though Ghosh resembles other postmodemist writers in using the multiple narrative
schemes, the story telling method and back and forth journey in time, his ease and brilliance in
employing these devices makes his novel outstanding. The complex narrative technique is not
there just for the sake of being but it very well matches with the mood and temperament of the
characters and it adds to the beauty of the novel. The narrative technique in Ghosh's hand
becomes a tool of a poet and so everything merges into a whole. A very cliched family chronicle
and political autobiography are transformed into an interesting novel. The novel proves the point
that Ghosh cannot be easily excelled in respect of the narrafive technique.

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Works Cited
Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Harish, Trivedi. “Partition, Identity and Communal Violence in The Shadow Lines” (2015). 11th
March 2020 <https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/133664/7/07_chapter
%202.pdf>.

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Ujjainwal 1

March 15th, 2020

Narrative Technique in Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines

and a grandmother Tha’mma.

As told above, It is the story of unnamed and un-described narrator whose

circular, loop—like structure and a multiple narrative scheme in the novel.

delineation of the riots of 1964 and Tridib's death.

that Ghosh cannot be easily excelled in respect of the narrafive technique.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

March 2020 <https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/133664/7/07_chapter

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