Reading Nationality and other Layers of Identity in Amitav Ghosh’s, The Shadow Lines

Abstract

Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines is a novel built upon the relationships between people coming from varied national-cultural backgrounds. This paper examines how or whether the national-political border influences relationships between two or more human beings, and the extent to which national-political and religious affiliations have on one’s identity. This paper discusses, and problematizes, the issue of nationalism as, well as other factors, in the context of the Indian subcontinent taking into consideration gender and culture. These issues have been discussed and analyzed through a Postcolonial theoretical framework.