Kalaiarasan, M., and R. Sowmiyalatha. “Trans-Cultural Communication in Amitav Ghosh’s the Hungry Tide.” Language in India, vol. 19, no. 7, 2019, pp. 323. Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), https://search.proquest.com/docview/2273190473.

The article talks of how the western ideologies and values have superimposed onto the Indian region, and how Ghosh’s novel speaks to this. The article dissects how Ghosh’s novel identifies civilization and culture, their division, and creates a conversation between the two to erase the divide. Due to the effects of modernization, which was introduced by colonization, the diversity of cultures and human values developed by them are continuously abandoned.

Dutta, Nandana. “Subaltern Geoaesthetics in Amitav Ghosh’sThe Hungry Tide.” Commonwealth (Rodez, France), vol. 39, no. 1, 2016, pp. 35, http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&res_id=xri:ilcs-us&rft_id=xri:ilcs:rec:abell:R05649122.

This article interprets Ghosh’s novel as exposing the futility of contests and need to understand the coexistence by respecting others’ spaces. However to achieve this, the article drifts from Ghosh’s novel speaking on the world outside of the novel that have similar occurring issues, those being the annexation of lands, specifically from rural inhabitants. Additionally, it brings in Ghosh’s other pieces of work to further its claims that Ghosh’s work is a critique on modernization and exposing the controversy of contradictive acts, however those topics are primarily outside of the novel of focus. Where it does focus on Ghosh’s article, is not as deep as the other sources, instead quoting other theorists and applying their ideas to the events of the novel.

Jaising, Shakti. “Fixity Amid Flux: Aesthetics and Environmentalism in Amitav Ghosh’s the Hungry Tide.” Ariel, vol. 46, no. 4, 2015, pp. 63-88. CrossRef, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/602108, doi:10.1353/ari.2015.0028.

This article perfectly summarizes the changes that have occurred in India that have caused concern for the rural farmers and essentially the subaltern, for which Ghosh’s novel talks about. It gives context to how, in the name of modernization, rural groups are pushed out of their lands which is cause for a loss of culture and villages in general. Additionally, besides providing context, the articles delves into the novel’s character’s dissection, primarily Nirmal, and how as the Marxist that he is, even as already identifying as part of the subaltern, he is more subaltern because he sides with the settlers of Marichjapi, a people even more lacking representation than the natives of the Sundarbans. Furthermore, the articles leads into how the people of the Sundarbans by nature being fixed to their culture and refusal to modernize targets them as the group to suffer the most without resistance, in other words, the subaltern.

Mondal Sukanya, and Gaur Rashmi. “In Whose Voice should a Subaltern Speak?: Reading the Problem of Agency in Amitav Ghosh’s the Hungry Tide.”, vol. 9, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-15, http://fhrc.flinders.edu.au/transnational/home.html.

This article as well does a good job in providing crucial context of the politics surrounding the Sundarbans before citing Ghosh’s own critique of it. It successfully explains, very carefully and clearly Ghosh’s intents to specific portions of the book, and how that affects the greater idea of the people of the Sundarbans, the subaltern, that lack representation. One thing that I will make sure I touch on in my essay is the article’s explanation of how Nirmal’s journal is itself the voice of the subaltern. Before, when reading another article I had believed that the through Nirmal, the subaltern finds a voice to express itself, but it is much deeper than that, it is because Nirmal records the words, actions, and thoughts of the subaltern that through him there is representation. He is not a part of the subaltern but a medium that has a foot in both having representation and not being representation. The article goes on to explain this point more thoroughly and finds success, as well as citing other critics that have as well written about The Hungry Tide, and references them to further the idea being discussed. Essentially greater distinctions are made between the subaltern and the elite and how the latter has come to ignore the former, and in what ways Ghosh speaks to this in his novel.

Some, Ajan. “A Search for Ontological Identity through the Characters of Nirmal and
Nilima in Amitav Ghosh’s the Hungry Tide.”, vol. 8, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-9, https://www.the-criterion.com/V8/n1/002.pdf.

This article takes a closer look to the characters of Nirmal and Nilima specifically. How, as a revolutionist, what it meant in Ghosh’s novel, for this character, absorbed by the literature of Rilke to take part and witness the dream of Morichjapi. However, what it has to say on, the voice of someone, not only indoctrinated by foreign ideology, but concomitantly someone that may represent the subaltern, comes into play.
Through Nirmal, we can come to understand the struggle of the subaltern with identity, when admiration for the western ideology is so great that it has woven itself into the lives of the native people, it as well undermines their preconceived notions of their existence. Thus reason why Nilima  succeeds and Nirmal does not is because she seeks for the betterment of those around her within the current system, fully. She creates a women’s union, and the Badabon Trust, to serve her people, whereas Nirmal, influenced by revolution and the desire for change loses everything in the end. To a greater idea, the article highlights how, when stripped of everything, and ostracized from the mainland society, Nilima who is more in touch with tradition and its values on its own society allows her to flourish, meanwhile Nirmal reflects on foreign ideology and in the end accomplishes nothing.

Given that my topic surrounds the ordinary people in Amitav Ghosh’s, ‘The Hungry Tide’, and how there is a lack of representation for these people, to find articles relating to this I used keywords such as voicelessness, and representation. However, nothing was relevant to this, so instead I broadened my search to the book itself and went looking through articles that may have what I was looking for. Once I did find such articles I used the same idea to what connected it to my topic. Using Hunter One and Google Scholar I search for communication related to THT, and was able to find many more relevant sources. I did try to find some work by Gayatri Spivak whose work is based on postcolonial literature, but I couldn’t find anything other than entire books that were unavailable.

Lerner’s novel, “10:04”, has a form of writing unlike anything I have previously read. That being said, beginning the novel is a little tricky to find traction and follow along where the novel may be heading. His descriptions regardless of the subject being mundane are excessive and he utilizes words that are superfluous in their cumbersomeness, and also reflects the writer’s voice but in a spontaneous instant that goes no where. I suppose that may be to speak about the typical thoughts of the everyday person, completely capable of becoming something deeper to provoke a more stimulating and enthralling way of thinking, but ultimately is dropped just as quick as it was conceived.

Furthermore, there are instances in which the mundaneness has a certain charm to itself. Specifically, the moment in the first chapter when the author describes the events of getting on the train and then getting off, and how everyone checks their phones. Such a mundane event that also seems universal, connects not just the reader to the writing but to the people the writing is based on, the people of New York. With that, there can be an appreciation for an initially bland seeming topic, realizing that this act occurs many times over, people getting on and off the same train you are riding. Again this connection to a large group occurs when the author takes in a protester and they have a conversation about the performance men give before they use a urinal. The author speaks to the unspoken, not to step out of what is taboo, but to what goes unannounced out of a lack of stimulation on the subject. Yet when it is brought up the conversation is overall enjoyed.

Lastly, although the author attempts to achieve a most realistic sense of realism by inputting realistic events in all their mediocrity, in his world the reader has to make a struggle to view it as realistic. The author is a poet that has found success, lives in a 3 story apartment, attends gatherings with other writers and poets alike, and has well-founded relationships with different women. Although all completely possible within someone’s life, the setting takes place in a time of the authors life when he has achieved quite a lot, and so that begs the question, what more can become of the book. A character that has achieved enough where his only currently meaningful obstacle is surviving his life-threatening diagnosis. When it comes down to it, Lerner is stuck between a rock and a hard place, in which he intends to make a most realistic novel, and yet in his mission, he would have made a book too realistic to be something worth reading, but based on the compliments and acknowledgment he has received there must have been something else, and whether or not that can be as realistic to the degree intended comes into question.

How has Ghosh’s inclusion of the Marichjhapi massacre affected the way the event has been reported? How have conservation groups’ and how have human rights groups been affected due to the event before and after Ghosh’s novel?

What the novel seems to be making apparent, is this idea of a universality with relationships, that as observed exists between duos, and even trios. First off there is the relationship between Nilima, Nirmal, and Kusum; in which Nilima comes to the realization that he husband loved another –Kusum– both without meaning to and without the other person intending to draw in Nirmal to that extent of emotion. This type of relationship seems to be repeating itself between Piya, Fokir, and Moyna; in which although not directly stated, Fokir may become attracted to Piya –which is inferred by how much contact the two have– and again without this being Piya’s intentions. Then existing in duos one can look to how Nilima scolds Horen for taking Nirmal away and growing this unknown love of his; an instance that can almost reflect this is when Moyna looks to Kanai to obstruct any growth between the two, as well scolding him for his indifference on the issue. Or one could look to when Fokir is commissioned to once again take Piya out on the ocean, before this he is described as a mute situated to the side, like a child, and only after does his spirit seem rejuvenated. This mirrors the time Nirmal with his spirits shutdown by Nilima after he was prohibited out of guilt to return to Mirichjapi and then only after can be excited and vigorous once again when he seems to have found his loophole to get away for a ceremony of sorts.

To the greater idea this novel seems to be making, concerning the problematic efforts for preserving wildlife and how those efforts conflict and even supersede human living conditions. For one the novel keeps returning to the stance that the world has changed, that the quantity of animals has noticeably dropped and it doesn’t take some scientific report for common people to know. A well supported argument can be made out of this, but then it is pinned against human vitality, and how the two conflict creating the idea that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because the lives of both groups are valued, and yet, the existence of one means the deterioration of the other, and to what extent that deterioration may be pushed in the future, to what extent people will be accepting of the choices made for the benefit of the second group. But then, fantastically interestingly, the novel although knowingly centralizes around the co-living between the two groups that is nature –the mangroves and tigers and crocodiles– and humans, does not shy away from the simplest controversial incident, killing a tiger. What is interesting is that although many would be angered and support opposition toward the idea of killing the tiger, they are choosing this tiger’s life over that of humans, and it returns to the topic of, valuing one group of life over the other, then the question of, to what extent we will continue to be accepting, to push the boundary will be?