Novel: Death or Resurrection of Storytelling

Abstract

This paper probes into the theory penned by Walter Benjamin in “The Storyteller,” that the rise of the novel at the beginning of modem times, marks the decline of storytelling and that it “neither comes from oral tradition nor goes into it” (Lodge 14). Benjamin also doubts the art of storytelling among people. This paper dismantles Benjamin’s claim by showing the strong link between oral tradition and the novel, analyzing Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, The Shadow Lines, Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and In an Antique Land. Furthermore, I will apply Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, heteroglossia, and the ancient Indian philosophy of rasa to establish the connections among oral tradition, storytelling, storyteller, and language. By establishing these connections, this paper aims to demonstrate how storytelling gives rise to distinct vernacular, which performs a living counter-history resulting from the multiplicity of overlapping associations of displacement. This paper highlights Ghosh’s concern with the movements of the marginalized-lascars, “girmitia,” boatmen, and housewives-so far figured as absent from the histories of nations, and who emerge as storytellers in his novels. Overall, the paper argues that storytelling technique can create an atmosphere for carnival in novels.