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Gowher Ahmad Naik, LPU Unit 3: Amitav Ghosh—Shadow Lines: Detailed Study—II (Plot and Criticisms)

Unit 3: Amitav Ghosh—Shadow Lines: Detailed Study—II Notes

(Plot and Criticisms)

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
3.1 Plot
3.2 Novelist’s Criticism and Philosophy
3.3 The Shadow Lines—A Critique
3.4 Summary
3.5 Key-Words
3.6 Review Questions
3.7 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Understand—the Plot of Shadow Lines.

• Discuss the Novelist’s Criticism and Philosophy.
Introduction

The novel is primarily a tale and as such it must be strong in the story interest. It must provide
amusement for the leisure hour and a welcome relief from the strain of practical affairs. It must be
gripping in its interest. Any novel, which provides wholesome and stimulant refreshment, is fully
justified, but to be really great it must deal not with sheer trifling, which lie upon the surface of
life, but with passions, and conflicts and problems, which constitute the very quality of life. It
must have greatness of subject and universality of appeal. It does not mean that the subject chosen
must be from high life, as the simplest story of the humblest people may also be as appealing as
the story of kings or princes.
1. A good plot that deals with events and actions.
2. The characters i.e. men and women who carry out its action and to whom things happen.
3. Dialogue, that is, the conversation of the characters.
4. Scene and time of action i.e. the place and time where the action proceeds and the actors play
their parts. It may be some limited region or its action may span large number of places, cities
sometimes even countries.
5. Its treatment of life and its problems should be realistic. Thus, it is realism, which distinguishes
it from the earlier prose romances. The novel does not provide escape from life and its problems,
but rather a better understanding of them. It also reflects the very spirit of the age in which it
is written.
6. It demonstrates the author’s views of life and of some of the problems of life. It thus gives the
author’s criticism of life or his philosophy of it.

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