Monday, May 17, 2010

Trying to clarify things.

So obviously, I would like to offer some clarity on the issues that you brought up in your email. I don't want to spend much time on this, but I want to attempt to present the most concise and accurate thoughts possible.


The first issue you brought up is:

Do be aware of your own sentence-level wordiness. For instance, you write: "Secondly, and further, this heterogeneity of home, or multifaceted and nuanced presentation can also be said to maintain overarching themes within these images to confidently put together a background of 'home' for Ghosh and the things he finds important within these definitions." I honestly can't trace the grammatical and conceptual relationships amongst all the words and phrases in this sentence. Obviously "secondly" and "further" are redundant, but after that I just get lost. What does what to what? What do you mean by phrases like "can be said"--are you saying it? Or are you saying someone else could say that, but he or she would be wrong? Or what? Work on being as direct and straightforward as possible. Don't make me work so hard to understand you.

I'd like to offer an initial rephrasing of the above noted sentence. "In addtion to the first point there are certain reoccuring themese within Ghosh's numerous images of 'Home.' These themes create an overarching notion of "home," thereby presenting certain important aspect that stand as primary and important to Ghosh."

Hopefully, this re-phrasing accurately points to the fact that though the novel contains a multiple images of 'home,' reoccuring themes (such as identity and relation to a nation and its history) allow us to speak more specifically concerning this theme in The Shadow Lines.




The second difficulty was stated as such:

Similarly, I'm having trouble following the logic of what I gather is an important part of your thought process at the moment: "Primarily, history and its influence upon the idea of the nation seem to establish these 'homes' at a high level within Ghosh's work. Without this notion of history, and the world-forming boundaries provided within, Ghosh's work would be distinctly mingled: a work that presented characters attempting to ground identity in geographic, historic, and personal situations that exist in a space that avoids foundations explicated within Anderson's Imagined Communities. Second, as noted above Ghosh's images of home are distinctly modern: the topic of cosmopolitanism is worthy and fruitful within Ghosh's work. Third, the role of identity and the politicizing of the self (meaning connecting the influences of colonialism upon individuals) are notable within Ghosh's text as well." You're losing me here.


Okay, obviously I'm going to need to break this up farther. So I'll take it phrase by phrase and hopefully be able to offer something that is more clear and productive.

"The role that identity formation in relation to the "nation" and its history establish "home" as a paramount subject within Ghosh's work. Ghosh's characters are distinctly grounded in these themes as they expereince the multiple "homes" within the novel. "Nations" and their collective history provide outside information concerning an individual's identity. Without this foundation characters, such as Ila, the grandmother, and even Nick, would maintain identities that exist and operate in an ambigious space. This space lies outside of the boundaries provided by 'nations' and histories, as explicated by Anderson, Said, and Bhabha. Ghosh's presentation of "home" is distinctly cosmopolitan. Ila's conception of "home" is always in relation to another, 'foreign' definition of home. The narrator's conception of home is qualified by stories given by Tridib's travel's abroad. Indeed, Mayadebi's home is structured in relation to how the rest of the world lives. Her bed is for show, to only please others. Ghosh's presentation of May's home provides a concrete example of how images of 'home' are cosmopolitan.
Identity formation in the images of "home" is politicized through interaction with "nations" and histories. Ila and the Grandmother are deeply connected to 'nations' in that they understand their societal role as determined by these categories. Ila's desired freedom is granted by a nation that is not patriarchical, and gender roles are not as strictly determined through historical notions of ethnicity, religion, gender, and so on. The individual is distinctly politicized by this grounding. Again, the grandmother's assertion that there be a physical boundary marking and demonstrating the historical sacrifices and wars helps clarify this point:

My grandmother thought this over for a while, and then she said: But if there aren't any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean, where's the difference then? And if there's no difference, both sides will be the same; it'll be just like it used to be before, when we used to catch a train in Dhaka and get off in Calcutta the next day without anybody stopping us. What was it all for then--Partition and all the killing and everything--if there isn't something in between?

In the end, an individual's identity is grounded within a basis that is made up of overarching themes in the novel. These themes occur throughout the numerous images of "home" presented within the novel. Yet these themes also serve for political purpose. Through interaction, association and even rejection of specific "nations" and histories, Ghosh's characters embrace or reject certain social, cultural, ethnic and even religious positions.




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