ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005. 

• ‘The Hungry Tide’ by Amitav Ghosh serves as the foundational text. All sources will be concerning the novel, serving as evidence for both individual arguments in the following sources; and as a whole toward my literary analysis of the novel. 

Griffiths, Gareth. “Silenced Worlds: Language and Experience in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Kunapipi, vol. 34, no. 2, 2012, pp. 105–112.

• The journal, “Silenced Worlds: Language and Experience in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.”, by Gareth Griffiths, analyzes the historical and geographical repetition of history that extends beyond what is recorded. This direction of analysis helps ground the geographical memory of the Sunderbans, and its mirroring of its inhabitants and visitors. To put it simply, instead of directly diving into the use and interpretation of memory in the novel, integrating the contributions of the elements in the formation of memory allows a closer analysis of the author’s choices and use of literary devices. 

Pilia, Nicola. “Dwelling, Dispossession, and ‘Slow Violence’ in the Time of Climate Change.” Il Tolomeo (Online), vol. 22, no. 1, 2020, https://doi.org/10.30687/Tol/2499-5975/2020/22/024.

• The journal  “Dwelling, Dispossession, and ‘Slow Violence’ in the Time of Climate Change.”, by Nicola Pilia interacts with the refugee lives and the physical history embodied in their struggle against their ‘forced eviction’, through the use of Nirmal’s written memory. This is one of the few sources that directly relate to the use of memory as a device to represent the unescapable loop of repetition as natural disasters and deaths maintain their positions as two sides of the same coin. This approach is not only directly beneficial for me as a reliable source, but it also delves into the differences between historical and ecological memories. 

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 1–.

• The journal  “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.”, by Gayathri Prabhu analyzes the formation in a more ‘present’ formation of memory. This source not only provides a referential timeframe in the process of memory formation and its recognition but also addresses the meta-textual elements that successfully aid the novel to do so, helping me use the source effectively and directing me as a reader of the novel in answering my research question. In doing so, the interaction with the primary text and the source goes beyond ‘close reading’, but to identifying emergent patterns and how and why they are used by Ghosh. 

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 13–.

• The latter segment of the journal  “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.”, by Gayathri Prabhu answers the employment of narrative techniques in the novel. This realm of research helps me understand the specificity of these techniques, and how I in turn identify them to understand Ghosh’s ways of framing memories and distinguishing them through the use of these techniques. Unlike the above source which deals with timestamps in history, this source elaborates on the structure that allows the content to qualify as a quantifying memory. 

Prasad, Murari. “Interfacing Diaspora with Ecological Humanities in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 14, no. 1, 2020, pp. 273–85.

• The journal “Interfacing Diaspora with Ecological Humanities in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.”, by Murari Prasad detaches the physical relation to a region to acknowledge memories. The field of research in this journal helps stitch the various relations of ‘belonging’ in a world that is changing at massive rates. The journal takes a step back looking at the multitude of relations between person, place, and the memory attached to it instead of analyzing on a singular level, therefore successfully increasing the probability that the answer to their question manages to grasp the scope of diasporic memories and relations. 

Rath, Arnapurna, and Milind Malshe. “Chronotopes of ‘Places’ and ‘Non-Places’: Ecopoetics of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010, pp. 14–33.

• In the journal “Chronotopes of ‘Places’ and ‘Non-Places’: Ecopoetics of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” by Arnapurna Rath, the analysis encapsulates the formation disjointed from physical locations. A rather unique source that has a refreshing approach to combining the mind and locations. It also interacts with two notable characters in relation to memory: Nirmal, and Kanai, therefore covering extensive ground on the role of intergenerational memory alone. This not only makes the source useful as evidence to support my answer to my research question but also directs the recognition of memory beyond physical space. 

Tomsky, Terri. “Amitav Ghosh’s Anxious Witnessing and the Ethics of Action in The Hungry Tide.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 44, no. 1, 2009, pp. 53–65, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989408101651.

• The journal “Amitav Ghosh’s Anxious Witnessing and the Ethics of Action in The Hungry Tide.” by Terri Tomsky stands behind the characters to understand the input of information as influenced by personal factors that result in the formation of memory. It helps understand the absence of a uniform collective memory and its incorporation in Ghosh’s writing of the novel. This source bridges the gap between the character’s memory as an independent creation devoid of personal influence that shapes the character’s memories and its perception. 

SIMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Griffiths, Gareth. “Silenced Worlds: Language and Experience in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Kunapipi, vol. 34, no. 2, 2012, pp. 105–112.

Pilia, Nicola. “Dwelling, Dispossession, and ‘Slow Violence’ in the Time of Climate Change.” Il Tolomeo (Online), vol. 22, no. 1, 2020, https://doi.org/10.30687/Tol/2499-5975/2020/22/024.

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 1–.

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 13–.

Prasad, Murari. “Interfacing Diaspora with Ecological Humanities in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 14, no. 1, 2020, pp. 273–85.

Rath, Arnapurna, and Milind Malshe. “Chronotopes of ‘Places’ and ‘Non-Places’: Ecopoetics of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010, pp. 14–33.

Tomsky, Terri. “Amitav Ghosh’s Anxious Witnessing and the Ethics of Action in The Hungry Tide.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 44, no. 1, 2009, pp. 53–65, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989408101651.

To compile this simple bibliography, I used Onesearch, google scholar, and Gale Literature databases. To maximize the relevance of search results, I played around with keywords. For instance, when I directly entered ‘memory’, as a keyword, I got little to no relevant articles. To combat this, I entered the names of the characters, Nirmal and Kanai, time, patterns, physical history, social history, repetition, silent feedback, loops, etc. To further categorize my sources, I skimmed through abstracts to rectify that the interaction with the novel remained relevant. I tried different routes and approaches to target the different elements in the formation of memories and their necessary intervention and relay information. In changing courses a few times, I managed to balance different forms of memory, but also the literary, historical, and physical elements to it. 

How does Ghosh utilize the role of memories as a tool to construct the repeated cycles in nature and humanity?

Lerner’s novel 10:04, is a fast-paced narration defying restraints of time and space. Lerner stands static: as people, experiences, memories, actions, and events speed past him, making him relive them. The nonlinear combination of person, place and event defies logic, bringing out the uneasiness that the narrator both desires and despises. There are repeated instances that highlight a growing sense of internalized nihilism. With heightened sensitivity to their thoughts and emotions, it is a multi-layered conservation that deflects off of the physical subject of the conservation, while it ricochets in his mind, gathering speed, and weight. The repetition of this phenomenon presents to be a heavy burden the narrator carries along with them. With this daily attribute glued to them, there is a clash of voices and desires. Some of these are born through mirroring the behaviors of others while feeling the absence surrounding them. Unlike contemporary literature, Lerner does not follow the format for a culminating climactic point. Instead, each new segment in sections 1 and 2, is subject to a condensation of words that have no obvious connection to the others. In using a nonuniform method, Lerner increases the layers of decibels crashing against each other, much like his mind, body, and reality. 

Lerner’s approach feels like living through an episode where the lines between past, present, future, physical, mental, emotional, fiction, and reality are all blurred. With so many characters with significant relationships and personalities surrounding him, he is isolated in the novel. There is always a ubiquitous presence of an individual in the narrator’s world, either physically or mentally. All forms of structure are aggressively torn apart following his moods and recollections. There is no chronology of the events and their display. The eradication of which both provides a time and place that the audience can recognize and yet unlike the narrator is in closer quarters with the character than the narrator himself. There is also an evident lack of priority in the novel’s first two sections, probably born out of the act of regurgitation of memories that are distorted and unreliable. 

With so many bodies breathing and living, he is dead in his distance and ability to reach. The narrator stands for the opposite of all he sees, hears, and learns. His character is that of silence not verbally or physically but in the overwhelming voices of thoughts that dim out their surroundings. There is a lot of self-restraint and self-rebuke when he unwillingly displays his want of threatening situations, the need to be in danger, not to be saved, but to be in it. Despite this unrecognizable structure and content that is criticized by the narrator and those around him, there are threads of commonality that resurface in installments, latching onto the reader’s minds with a sudden closing of distance that awakens the recognition of the parallels in both the narrator and the reader. Nonetheless, the unpredictability of impact and bumping against the text without warning closes on the reader as well. A claustrophobic feeling similar to drowning, or being exposed to only air. It is not the unique nature of his circumstances, but its portrayal as an invisible element that clouds the reader’s perception and understanding of the tones utilized in the novel. It is a very foreign experience that feels unnatural and yet too familiar for comfort. 

Throughout the first part of his book, Ghosh makes consistent choices regarding tone, diction, and pacing. It is in the latter part of the second half that Ghosh starts contradicting the expectations he guides his audience to believe. In the first part of the book well into the chapters of the second half, Ghosh maintains a steady distance between Kanai and Piya literally and metaphorically. It justifies the audience’s assumption of the established distance as permanent. The conclusion is abruptly destroyed at the start of the chapter, Memory. 

When Ghosh brings Kanai, Moyna, Fokir, and Piya together in the same space he escalates the events and their progression. His narrative style confines the four pivotal characters and lets their expressions, body language, thoughts, and form of contribution clash. This decision can be seen as a spark that ignites the decay of the relationships established between the characters. The most obvious one is closely tied to Piya. Her relationship with Fokir has been a steady progress of interactions, and interest in each other’s field of work. It makes one wonder if the closeup narration from Piya’s perspective was crafted to serve as a wall against which the other segments of the story would bump. Ghosh does not hesitate to elaborate on the development between Fokir and Piya as one based on instinct and experience. This elaboration interacts with Fokir a lot more than expected. 

With the introduction of one essential difference, this working relationship starts to crumble from Piya’s perspective. The portrayal of Fokir and Piya’s journey possessed a unique style that encompassed their character traits and personalities. However, with the shift of focus to Piya and Kanai, the latter insinuates the possibility of a romantic relationship, and the style makes a massive shift. Apart from the fact the purpose and role of language take priority in their communication it also creates a space that none of the other characters can invade. Kanai in particular is given multiple opportunities to speak and reintroduce his intelligent, impressionable presence. Quite surprisingly Ghosh utilizes Kanai’s speech to disrupt the careful balance that existed in the previous chapters. It almost seems counterintuitive to disrupt the pacing and diction, but in doing so Ghosh subtly hints at the difference between Fokir and Kanai, not solely based on their traits, but also by creating a split between city and country.

Piya’s character remains constant to her surroundings quite similarly mirroring how despite the many occurrences that disrupt her study, her presence creates a thread of commonality tying together the various frames of reference narrations. It is not clear if Ghosh consciously chooses to present Kanai as a loud loquacious character compared to the others who serve as a backdrop of his preaching. Just like the interaction between Piya and Fokir, and Piya and Kanai, are different, the same can be said for Moyna and Fokir, and Moyna and Kanai. What stands out in the adoption of this structure is the standing of the combinations as possible romantic interests. 

Ghosh utilizes his composition beyond language, requiring its readers to reach beyond the words printed on the pages. There are multiple examples where the relevance or significance of Ghosh’s literary decisions determine what the narratory style will reflect. The relationships of the characters share many similarities with the pacing of the chapters and the choice in developing or elaborating on parts of his plot. Nirmal’s introduction and constant stay parallel to the story mirror the convergence and divergence of the book as a port of stories that connects many others, some of which are continued, while others die down.