Identifying women's position: exploring time, space and sexuality in Amitav Ghosh's novels

Abstract

This paper aims to go on a journey along with the female characters in Amitav Ghosh's novels. The different destinations in the journey will be first and foremost a woman's position in historical context, her role in the making of history and how her life is affected by it. As we move ahead in the journey we will explore the terrain/space which a woman occupies in a nation/world. Finally we will end our journey by entering the domain of exploring a woman's sexuality. The works of Amitav Ghosh which have been chosen to be a part of this journey are as follows : The Shadow Lines (1988), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2005) and Sea of Poppies (2008), This paper is divided into an introduction followed by three chapters, and finally the conclusion. In the first chapter I will talk about how history affects the female characters. In the second chapter, we will try to see what space a woman occupies in the society for herself: In the final chapter, we will see how women's sexuality in being portrayed by the author within the historical and national space confined upon them. Having studied the fictional portrayal of the female characters in the books and relating em of real life incident I would like to draw a conclusion as to where the women, particularly of India stand today in awake of the historical, spatial and sexual identity limitations they face.