The Hungry Tide” Mitalee Gangal Dept
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Research Chronicler, International Multidisciplinary Refereed Peer Reviewed Indexed Research Journal ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X Fiction for Sustainability: An Ecocritical Assessment of Amitav Ghosh’s “The Hungry Tide” Mitalee Gangal Dept. of Humanities, First Year Engineering, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala, Mumbai, (MS) India Abstract Ecofiction can be seen as an umbrella for many genres like contemporary, speculative, literary, and much more. According to John Yunker "Ecofiction is fiction with a conscience.” It has an inclination towards the natural world in relation to various story-telling platforms: mystery, thriller, suspense, dystopian, crime, detective and romance. Ecofiction is touched upon by many authors all over the world. It is written with a desire to protect the natural ecological systems that encompasses all borders, languages and ethnicities. This paper attempts to analyze Amitav Ghosh’s award winning novel, “The Hungry Tide,” from an eco- critical perspective. This novel weaves the cross-purpose love interests of its characters: Kannai, Piya, Fokir and Moyna; with the region’s volatile political climate, environmental issues, history and mythology. In midst of this constantly changing territory of Sundarbans, the residents live under the dual threat of man-eating tigers and devastating storms; where everything is uncertain. Being true to its evolutionary nature, Ecofiction thus, encapsulates the most consistent of our environmental crisis: climate change. Key Words: Ecofiction, environment, climate change Ecofiction can be seen as an umbrella for environmental issues, history and many genres like contemporary, mythology. In midst of this constantly speculative, literary, and much more. changing territory of Sundarbans, the According to John Yunker "Ecofiction is residents live under the dual threat of man- fiction with a conscience.” It has an eating tigers and devastating storms; where inclination towards the natural world in everything is uncertain. Being true to its relation to various story-telling platforms: evolutionary nature, Ecofiction thus, mystery, thriller, suspense, dystopian, encapsulates the most consistent of our environmental crisis: climate change. crime, detective and romance. Ecofiction is touched upon by many authors all over Ecocriticism analyzes literary texts with the world. It is written with a desire to respect to various environmental concerns protect the natural ecological systems that along with; the different ways in which encompasses all borders, languages and literature treats the subject of nature. The ethnicities. This paper attempts to analyze primary concern of ecocriticism in Amitav Ghosh’s award-winning novel, literature is to find probable solutions for “The Hungry Tide,” from an eco-critical the contemporary environmental situation. perspective. This novel weaves the cross- Ecocriticism is a relatively broad approach purpose love interests of its characters: which is referred by many other names Kannai, Piya, Fokir and Moyna; with the like “green studies”, “ecopoetics”, region’s volatile political climate, “environmental literary criticism” and Volume VII Issue XII: December 2019 (35) Author: Mitalee Gangal Research Chronicler, International Multidisciplinary Refereed Peer Reviewed Indexed Research Journal ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X many more. The salient feature of themes in the minds of the audience; that environmental literature is that nature is they work their way into the subconscious not merely a setting or backdrop for of the reader. One such attempt is made by human action, but an actual factor in the the Australian novelist Guy Lane with an plot, that is, a character and sometimes aim to help understand sustainability. even a protagonist. This is particularly Because it is to be believed that, fiction obvious in nature and wilderness writing, novels are not mere text-books, but the which originate in the narrator’s themes need to be indulged subtly, in the transformative encounters with a minds of the readers. In his story of landscape and its inhabitants. (282, qtd. in “Yongala”, this writer has strived to Tallmadge) In “The Ecocriticism Reader,” portray the theme of climate science. The Cheryll Glotfelty defines "ecocriticism is book considers that scientists have the study of the relationship between understood the basics of global warming literature and the physical environment"[2] since the turn of the 20th century. Lane’s Lawrence Buell, who is considered as the writing process embeds this theme into a pioneer of ecocriticism, defines context. In the case of Yongala, the context 'ecocriticism' as a study of the relationship describes a fateful voyage of the steamship between literature and the environment ‘Yongala’. On March 20, 1911, Yongala conducted in a spirit of commitment to departed Brisbane, Queensland, heading environmentalist praxis.’ Overall, eco- for Townsville. However, she didn’t make criticism brings an earth centered approach it, sinking in a tropical cyclone on the to literary studies. As rightly said by night of 23 March with the loss of all 120 Gerard Manley Hopkins: “What would the people aboard. A coal burning ship world be, once bereft of wet and of suffering an extreme weather event is wildness? Let them be left, O let them be deemed to be an appropriate context for a left, wildness and wet; Long live the story about climate science. Yongala is a weeds and the wildness yet.” (33, narrative through which the writer, Inversnaid, Poems 1918) Nature writing attempts to create a story that finds its way has dwelled in the literary sphere for many into the consciousness of an audience who years. It is found in classics like James may have never considered climate Thomson’s “The Seasons,” Henry David change. In this way, he seeks to plant a Thoreau’s “Walden”, and Rachel Carson’s seed, a simple idea that it’s okay to talk “Silent Spring.” Thus, eco-critics about global warming, because people encourage others to think seriously about have been doing just that for a very long the relationship of humans to nature, about time. the ethical and aesthetic dilemmas posed Amitav Ghosh, perhaps called as the by the environmental crisis and about how master of the travel narrative, very vividly language and literature transmit values describes a landscape, a city, a village on with profound ecological implications. the edge of a desert: it is these images that At present, very few people are aware we summon from his novels when we are about climate science and sustainability. distanced from them in memory. Travel Environmental problems are still writing, is thus, a form whose contours are overshadowed by mankind. Thus, the shaped by places and their histories. His challenge is to embed these sustainability most recent book, “The Hungry Tide”, Volume VII Issue XII: December 2019 (36) Author: Mitalee Gangal Research Chronicler, International Multidisciplinary Refereed Peer Reviewed Indexed Research Journal ISSN: Print: 2347-5021 www.research-chronicler.com ISSN: Online: 2347-503X describes his insights into colonial past, is is one of the many examples of humans’ set in the Sundarbans, the vast, negative impact on nature. The decline of intermittently submerged archipelago. It is fish population, shallowing of rivers, largely covered by mangrove forests that terrible cyclones; as mentioned in the form the delta of the Ganges as it story, depicts the people’s negligence on debouches into the Bay of Bengal. Every the climate. Ghosh’s mention of these day thousands of mangrove forests merge episodes of disasters and depletion of the and re-emerge as the tides engulf several species of dolphins for sake of oil and islands. The powerful currents of tides diesel fuel to be used in boats and reach as far as 300 kms inland, which motorcycles parallels with Kit Wright’s results in the disappearance of thousands “Song of the Whale” which shows how of acres of forests, “a terrain where the whales are killed for manufacture of boundaries between land and water are lipstick and shoe polish, always mutating, always unpredictable” “Great whale crying for your life (74, The Hungry Tide). This land discovered is often referred as ‘bhatir Crying for your kind I know desh’, as Ghosh calls it, in a remarkable How we would use your dying and poetic application of the term used in Lipstick for our painted faces Mughal land-records. It is a matter of pity that the tidal surroundings bring not only Polish for our shoes.” (48, qtd. in numberless hazards and risks to the lives Sumathy) of inhabitants there but a constant fear and Ghosh interlaces together two narratives: paranoia, “Think of what it was like: think one unfolding through Nirmal’s journal of the tigers, crocodiles and snakes that narrating the Morichjhapi episode and the lived in the creeks and nalas that covered second through Piya’s expedition, the islands. This was a feast for them. revealing the contemporary situation of the They killed hundreds of people” (44, The humans, the flora and fauna of Hungry Tide). Sundarbans. Ghosh published the novel in Here, comes a young cetologist from the 2004 when the corporate house, Sahara United States. She is on an expedition of a India Parivar was adamant to take over breed of freshwater dolphin, the Orcaella large areas of Sundarban to convert it into brevirostris, and a middle-aged linguist an ecotourism area. There were no who runs a translation bureau in Delhi. comprehensive environmental impact The two are thrown together by chance, assessments and local consultations taken and for a time the male translator, Kanai into consideration prior to the sanctioning Dutt, accompanies the female scientist, of the takeover. Ghosh skilfully brings in a Piya Roy, as an unofficial interpreter. But postcolonial political conflict between the novel is not really about their demands of wildlife conservation and developing acquaintance. Much more needs of inhabitants. He claims that the centrally and in a far more extended way, environmental crisis is a result of it is about the many histories of the region particular social relations, of the they have come to.