Ecology Reflected in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

Presentation by

Deepanjali K. Borse

Assist. Prof. Dept. of English

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Exploration of ecology through the analysis of The Hungry Tide

• The Hungry Tide is a combination of eco-cultural, anthropological research.
• It is a combination of anthropology, migration, travel, environmentalism, ethnography, photography and landscape; wrapped under the cloak of fiction.

• Sunderbans is the natural habitant of many endangered species including the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Irawaddy dolphins and is the home of the mangrove forest or Sundari trees.

• characters like Piya, Kanai, Fokir, Nilima, Nirmal,and Moyna are entangled with each other and with the natural and sociocultural geography of the Sunderbans.
• Piya and Kanai reveal the ecological and anthropological concerns of Ghosh‟s own research on the tidal land in the form of their professions.
• Fokir and Piya share a common love – love for nature and love for the Irawaddy dolphins.

• Inspite of the communication barrier , Piya does her research with the help of Fokir.
• As the novel progresses, the main text keeps moving with Kanai, Fokir, Piya, Nilima, and Moyna and their encounters with the ecological and cultural layers of the tidal land
• The “ecology” projected by The Hungry Tide would mean looking deeper into the problems of human-environmental-cultural aspects. .

Fear motif

• Fear plays a key role in the ecological set up of the tidal land.“
• fear” for unseen forces of nature

Eco-friendliness of Fokir

• Fokir lives in a time that perhaps Bakhtin would call, “sunk deeply in the earth, implanted in it and ripening in it”.
• The dolphins feel safe near Fokir‟s boat since they seem to understand that he is not interested in capturing them. They come and play near his small boat and throw up crabs for him

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• Amitav Ghosh attempts to compare the concerns of ecologists and environmentalists regarding the disturbance of ecosystems by human interference with the presence of human traces in the natural ecosystem
• . Who is actually the outsider in the ecosystem of the tidal land? Are the “native” fishermen responsible for destroying the natural ecosystem or are the forces of industrialisation, urbanisation, and forms of government and semi-government interference responsible for the actual destruction of the ecological balance?

Nature versus Civilization

• The tide which kills Fokir changes Kanai & Piya too. They realize the insignificance of border & boundary present between science & religion. They also realize that science cannot stand up before the fury of nature.
• The tide also exposes the transitory nature of human constructs posited against elemental forces.
• It is clear from the above discussion that tide (nature) erases the notions of border and boundary & allows everyone to live freely.

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Conclusion

• Ghosh presents before us the wrath of nature and fragility of humans of the mercy of the nature.
• Reason for environmental degradation is the increasing population & the increasing need of this ever rising population.
• Emotional dilemma: Intellectually it logical to encourage conservation but on humanitarian ground we cannot stopthe helplessness of the people while they were brutally killed & evicted from the island.
• Ghosh tries to show the vastness and terrorof the nature & the limitations of human beings.

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