Man-nature relationship in Amitav Ghosh’s the hungry tide

Abstract EN

This study examines Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide (2004) in the context of ecocriticism.

The study also examines how Ghosh has represented Sundarbans in a unique, ecological system and the landscape in a specific eco-political context.

Besides, an attempt has been made to demonstrate how Ghosh has used his various skills and strategies in enacting the ecological dimension in relation to a complex social milieu and the problems of powers this relationship implies.

From deracination to cosmopolitanism, from alienation to belongingness, Ghosh’s understanding of the politics of ecology ranges across various spaces from different angles.

The central focus of the study is to show how Sundarbans has been represented in the colonial narratives in contradistinction to Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide that is written from an explicitly postcolonial perspective.

In this sense, the historical dimension is also brought to the foreground exposing the complex relation between ideology, power and nature.

The study gives the details about how nature has been perceived, valued and portrayed in Indian-English and British literatures by various writers.