Nature as Creator and Destroyer in the Hungry Tide
N.Sukanya
PhD Research Scholar
Department of English
Periyar University
Salem-11
Nature as a Creator and Destroyer in The Hungry Tide Man, though wonders at the beauty of nature and its creations, fails to realize that they are also part of the web of life in the earth. Moreover, they adopt an anthropocentric attitude towards nature which, in fact, results in exploitation of it. This kind of attitude towards nature has urged several critics and writers to warn them of nature’s two-sided faces - its power and its rebellious nature. They create many nature-centred texts and bring in the importance of establishing a harmonious relationship with nature through their concepts and critical essays. This becomes evident when Serpil Oppermann in his article “Ecocriticism: Natural world in the Literary Viewfinder” says, “Ecocriticism does enable the critics to examine the texualizations of the physical environment in literary discourse itself and to develop an earth-centered approach to literary studies” (1). In this way, Amitav Ghosh has examined the physical environment in his novel The Hungry Tide. As an anthropologist, he finds it easy to locate the problems encountered by the people living in an immense archipelago of islands, the Sundarbans. The Hungry Tide, a complex novel revolves around the very little known but a beautiful part in the world, the Sundarbans stretching from India which is named after the Sundari tree, as the mangrove is locally called. The land often disappears and reappears due to heavy tides and the land has many survivors who battle against nature and its calamities. “There are no borders here to divide fresh water from salt, river from sea. The tides reach as far as three hundred kilometres inland and every day thousands of acres of forest disappear underwater only to re-emerge hours later.”(HT 7). They attempt to live amongst the man-eaters, crocodiles and mangroves that often submerge in the tide. Piyali Roy, Kanai, Fokir,
PhD Research Scholar
Department of English
Periyar University
Salem-11
Nature as a Creator and Destroyer in The Hungry Tide Man, though wonders at the beauty of nature and its creations, fails to realize that they are also part of the web of life in the earth. Moreover, they adopt an anthropocentric attitude towards nature which, in fact, results in exploitation of it. This kind of attitude towards nature has urged several critics and writers to warn them of nature’s two-sided faces - its power and its rebellious nature. They create many nature-centred texts and bring in the importance of establishing a harmonious relationship with nature through their concepts and critical essays. This becomes evident when Serpil Oppermann in his article “Ecocriticism: Natural world in the Literary Viewfinder” says, “Ecocriticism does enable the critics to examine the texualizations of the physical environment in literary discourse itself and to develop an earth-centered approach to literary studies” (1). In this way, Amitav Ghosh has examined the physical environment in his novel The Hungry Tide. As an anthropologist, he finds it easy to locate the problems encountered by the people living in an immense archipelago of islands, the Sundarbans. The Hungry Tide, a complex novel revolves around the very little known but a beautiful part in the world, the Sundarbans stretching from India which is named after the Sundari tree, as the mangrove is locally called. The land often disappears and reappears due to heavy tides and the land has many survivors who battle against nature and its calamities. “There are no borders here to divide fresh water from salt, river from sea. The tides reach as far as three hundred kilometres inland and every day thousands of acres of forest disappear underwater only to re-emerge hours later.”(HT 7). They attempt to live amongst the man-eaters, crocodiles and mangroves that often submerge in the tide. Piyali Roy, Kanai, Fokir,