NATIONALISM IN AMITAV GHOSH’S THE SHADOW LINES

Abstract

Nationalism is the belief that our own country is better than all others. Sometimes nationalism makes people disinterested to work with other countries to solve problems.

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956.  He has received his PhD in social anthropology from Oxford. His famous novels are The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, River of Smoke and The Shadow Lines.

The shadow Lines was published in 2005. The Shadow Lines has been Amitav Ghosh’s most popular novel. He has given importance to nationalism in this novel. The novelist focuses on the themes of Diaspora, Nationality, Internationality, cultural and Historical Self-determination.

 The major theme of this novel is the understanding of the concept of the freedom. The novel weaves together the idea of freedom juxtaposing past and present, the personal and the public, the social and the political. Ranging across three generations and moving between two contrasting cultures, the narrative provides a penetrating study of freedom, as an important all-pervading force. The principal characters in The Shadow Lines reflect ideas in their own individualistic manner. Tha'mma, the grandmother, glorifies political freedom. Ila is in search of an elusive, personal, social and moral freedom. May and Tridib also strive for a quest that seems elusive. Political freedom is explored through the character of Tha'mma, the narrator's grandmother.