Author Archives: Eduardo J Ortega

Final Annotated Bibliography

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How does Amitav Ghosh explore the cultural relationships that people have with nature through his examination of the people from the Sundarbans?
White, L. A. (2013). Novel Vision: Seeing the Sunderbans through Amitav Ghosh’s “The Hungry Tide.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 20(3), 513–531. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44087261
This article explains the Motivation and reasoning for Amitav Ghosh to write about the Sundarbans and the novel as a whole. White tells the readers that Ghosh wrote his novel as a way of presenting the Sunderbans in a way that most have not seen them with the human and nonhuman parts of this unique environment. The author presents motifs and unique stories of the hungry tide for readers to better understand.
Hasan, N. (2013). Tracing the Strong Green Streaks in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh: An Eco-critical Reading. Indian Literature, 57(1 (273)), 182–193. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43856755
Hasan focuses on the importance of nature that Ghosh places in the story of his novels. Amitav Ghosh pushes for the inclusion of environmental protection and brings brought into the mainstream consciousness through his novels. The author believes that one of the main recurring motifs and themes throughout Ghosh’s literary works is his goal to make his readers think about what it means to be on this earth with nature.
Olupona, J. (2009). Comments on the “Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77(1), 60–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25484105
Olupona comments on the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature explaining the relationship between nature and religion that is seen in other cultures. One of the main sources of commentary from this piece was the old and storied relationship that African cultures have with nature and the theoretical/methodological look at religion and nature.
Chakrabarti, R. (2009). Local People and the Global Tiger: An Environmental History of the Sundarbans. Global Environment, 2(3), 72–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43201488
This article places a focus on the history and environment of the Sundarbans and the animals that inhabit it. The article tells the readers about the Sundarbans from an ecological point of view. Chakrabarti explores the problems that plague the ability of people to research the Sundarbans properly such as the tigers preventing research.

Ghosh, A. (2005). The Hungry Tide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

This novel by Amitav Ghosh explores the ecological relationship between humans and the Sundarbans. The story takes place in the Bay of Bengal and revolves around 2 main characters making their way through this new and mostly unknown area with danger at every corner in the form of the nature around them and the tigers that inhabit the area.

Simple Bibliography

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How do Butler and Ghosh use the human and ecological relationship to explore the effects and affects that humans have?
Sources
WILLIAMS, K. D. H. (2018). EARTHSEEDS OF CHANGE: Postapocalyptic Mythmaking, Race, and Ecology in The Book of Eli and Octavia Butler’s Womanist Parables. In L. Nishime & K. D. H. Williams (Eds.), Racial Ecologies (pp. 234–249). University of Washington Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnm95.20
Strang, V. (2014). Lording It over the Goddess: Water, Gender, and Human-Environmental Relations. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 30(1), 85–109. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfemistudreli.30.1.85
Reid-X, Mercedes Alayna. (2022). Octavia E. Butler’s Earthseed and the God of Change. In BSU Honors Program Theses and Projects. Item 560. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj/560 Copyright © 2022 Mercedes Alayna Reid-X
Hasan, N. (2013). Tracing the Strong Green Streaks in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh: An Eco-critical Reading. Indian Literature, 57(1 (273)), 182–193. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43856755
Olupona, J. (2009). Comments on the “Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77(1), 60–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25484105
My research process was riddled with different problems and the fact that my original research question was so broad was helpful and a curse at the same time as I knew the general idea that I wanted to go in but I was lost at the same time. However, the more I began to research the topics around the research question and the novels they are based on it helped me narrow down the question. I worked backward for a little bit to define the question more clearly. The main databases that I used to look for articles were Jstor and Google Google scholar to get a more defined cut on my articles and Google and Google Scholar as a wider net for my research question.

Time

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The chapter opens up with a narrator having a progressively worse existential crisis on donating his sperm for his friend. He discussed this with his friends who in turn laughed at him saying that he would be fine.  While the opening scene can be construed as comical the narrator has very real concerns about the existential implications of him donating his sperm to his friend to let them have a child. The narrator begins to spiral and does not want to abandon his “obligations” and tries to calm himself before he has to do what he has to. This leads him to imagine his future child trying to explain the whole situation to them. He goes into extensive detail as the child that he is imagining is asking him about the details of their “conception”.

The narrator tells us this story by jumping back and forth from the past and future. His ramblings give us a look into his feelings about becoming a father and how he percives the world. The narrator is a believable and human character, he is a smart person but this also comes with the anxiety that he gets from understanding the world arround him of his consequences. The idea of him having a kid and having to explain the complexcites of him having to go to the “mastubatorium” to make a child. The more he talks to his child the harder the questions become. He is justifying and go through the possible sceineros that he is going to have to face when he decides to go through with this. While he makes all these assumtions for the future he hopes that once he does go through with it, his sperm turns out to be worthless because of all these doubts and axiety. The narrator is riddle with these thoughts and the different possiblities that are coming this way so like any person would he jumps to a time that is far more comfortable for him.

The narrator finishes his narrative with explaining that he finally goes through with giving his sample. The narrator is a believable person for us to follow throughout the story showing us his insecurities on full display about becoming a father. We learn more about his quirks like thinking about everything and about how he feels.This chapter started off great and is exploring the narrator and the rules about the story telling of this novel. Time is a very improtant part of the novel.

 

Religion and Nature

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Religion has been a central part of the human experience for nearly all. Religion, for centuries, has been used to explain the world around us by all major civilizations. Humans by nature have always felt the need to explain the world around them, and this applies to the natural and the unnatural. The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh describes and builds his world around the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal. Ghosh’s use of his characters and religion, and in particular the use of gods such as Dokkhin Rai and Bon Bibi, helps the audience grow to understand the forests that our main characters are researching. The characters use religion and the stories that derive from the gods they are about to gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and its rules.

The novel’s ending hits its climax with a natural disaster of a cyclone hitting the forest they are researching. Time and time again Piya gets caught off guard by the Sundarbans but she, along with Fokir, notices the storm before it comes but it is much to their dismay as there is not much that they can do against the storm but weather it. Fokir has always been very connected to nature and his belief in the gods that rain over the Sundarbans has been his greatest strength when it comes to others in the story such as Kanai or Piya. Fokir in the face of this storm puts his life and Piya’s on his belief that the tree he ties both of them to with save them while the other characters going through this storm are hiding in a shelter. One of the greatest visuals from the novel is seen when a statue of the protection goddess Bon Bibi is taken away by the storm showing the readers that not even the gods are able to protect Fokir and Piya from the cyclone overtaking them. Piya is left as the only survivor, Fokir is killed by the storm after a heavy object strikes him. He sacrificed himself to save Piya. Fokir’s death in the story tells the readers that not even the gods that these characters pray to can save them. Bon Bibi’s failure to save Fokir, someone who worshiped this god, shows the readers that even the gods aren’t able to save them from the danger that they are faced with.

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh explores the themes of religion and nature and how they intertwine to explain the world they live in. The climax of this novel comes out of nowhere but it represents the themes of nature being unpredictable even to the characters of the story. While being very abrupt Ghosh was more than capable of bringing together the characters of the story and the aspects of religion and nature together into the ending. Religion plays a central role in the narrative of the story and is used to explain the nature of the Sundarbans. Religion is used in this novel to explain the Sundarbans and the dangers around them but even then it is impossible to explain at times.