Spatial Literary Theory in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Abstract

The notion of being a social animal makes it difficult for humans to exclude space, a quintessential factor of life itself. It serves and chisels humanity throughout. The movement and actions of individuals actuate the space because only when people and artifacts inhabit a space, it turns into a place. This space, be it social or cultural, moulds a person into a mature self and it reflects the ideology, power and politics of the institution existing within it. Every literary work testifies to a space, even though it may be virtual or fictive space. The Hungry Tide is a prophetic novel by Amitav Ghosh about insight, beauty and humanity. It explores the precarious life of some ‘desperate’ souls sustaining in the region of Sundarbans. The central plot is that Piya, an American cetologist who comes to India and gets the aid of Kanai, a translator and Fokir, a local fisherman, in her adventure in waters. The unlikely trio travel to find the rare Irrawaddy Dolphin and face several unexpected turns. Survival is an everyday battle for the settlers of the Sundarbans who have learned to strike a balance with nature. The space of sea has enormous influence in the destiny of fishermen like ‘Fokir’. The novel unravels the ongoing tension between humanity and the space of Sundarbans with its vast salty tracts of mangrove forest. The routine as well as the beliefs of the inhabitants were tamed according to the conditions of that marshy land; for instance, the perpetual threat of tigers. The paper attempts to bring forth the relevance and recognition of the role of space in this novel.