-Brian Mendonca
ABSTRACT
One
of the most striking features of The
Glass Palace (2000) by Amitav Ghosh is the theme of travel. The lengthy
forays into travel in the novel are almost mind-boggling, serving in an
intricate, if subtle way, to knit the novel in a kind of geographic certitude
which makes up for the absence of any real meaning in the lives of its central
characters. The constant motion of the novel displaces the characters, exposing
them to the vagaries of circumstance and their aftermath which is often tragic
as in the case of Saya John. In many ways the exilic returns home to reaffirm
his/her roots although in a reified dimension, viz. Dolly finds her destiny in
becoming a nun in a Buddhist monastery in Sagaing, Burma; Dinu returns to set
up shop as a photographer in Burma.
However, the travelling is both voluntary as well as
involuntary. Pushed by the exigencies of the moment, Rajkumar leaves his dead
mother in the boat and proceeds with the boat captain to seek his fortune and
his life upstream. King Thebaw and Queen Supalayat have no choice but to be
carted off to Ratnagiri in a stunning sea voyage from Mandalay to Madras to
Outram House. Of course they would like to continue living in the Glass Palace
in Mandalay, but at the risk of being eliminated by the invading British
colonial forces. Travel and exile is not the comfortable binary as is usually
assumed. In The Glass Palace both
notions are problematized. Set against the tumult of resistance moments in
India, Burma, USA overarched by the mercurial Mrs. Uma Dey, travel propels the
characters into the centre of the conflict zones where at ground zero, like
Arjun they are forced to examine their motives. This paper will examine these
themes.
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