Character analysis of ‘The Shadow Lines’ on how the main characters of the

novel represent.
Thakuma: Thakuma is a character through which Amitav Ghosh has discussed the idea of
nation, nationalism and nationhood. She is a nationalist. As a young woman she finds herself
in the greatly charged milieu of 19th century Bengal when the extremist strand of nationalism
was in its full glory. As a college going young woman she upholds these young extremists as her
true heroes and secretly desires to be a part of such extremist organizations as Anushilan and
Jugantar. She idealise these young men who indulge in clandestine extremism with the larger
goal of independence in mind.

Thakuma also represent the character of a self-dependent woman. Life is simple for her. She
believes in the values of honesty and hard-work and has been a tremendously scrupulous teacher
and mother. She believes so completely in the ideal of hard work that when she meets her poor
migrant relatives she can think of no other reason but lack of hard work as the reason for their
penury.

Narrator: The role of the narrator in the novel represents the the character of obscurity. The
character of the narrator, whose name remains unnamed till the end of the story, seems
interesting and thought provoking. The deliberate intention of the writer in keeping the narrator’s
character as vague and obscure as possible, is justified when one notices that almost anything is
described in described in detailed precision: the exact mailing address of the Prices, the brand
names of most objects, as Rennie’s digestives tablets,. Lyon’s assorted toffees, that the watch is
Omega of cars are Studebakers…etc. Despite all these precise descriptions, there is one blank
space: we never get to know the narrator’s name, nor can we visualize how he looks like. He
represents the role of colonized people who seems to be inferior, subordinate and unimportant.
That is why his name is not mentioned.

The narrator holds a hybrid identity, as he is born in India but received English education.

Tridib: Tridib is an imaginative and influential character with philosophical knowledge and
wisdom. Sometimes he seems to be an introvert. He persuades the narrator to use his mental
faculty and imagine places he has never been to and conjure up the incidents he has never
experienced in real life. As a young school boy, he imagined London so clearly that he could
easily recognize places just by their names when he visited London some years later. Tridib is
sometimes noticed as an introvert type of character. He is seen in the novel not to talk with
people easily. He likes loneliness and likes to see the world in his imagination.

Ila: Ila is the character who represents the ideas of diaspora, hybridity and racism. Ila feels
uncomfortable in Calcutta and finds its social environment tough and unbearable. She believes
that she must find or create her own place in the world. So she flees Calcutta to seek a home in
London. She marries an Englishman, buys a house, finds a job, tries to settle down, but all in
vain. She escape culcutta because she was in quest fo freedom, a freedom that brought
rootlessness.

What is bildungsroman novel?

Bildungsroman novel is is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of
the protagonist from youth to adulthood. The German word Bildungsroman means “novel of
education” or “novel of formation.”