Magister Artium - MA / One can think of an aesthetic as one’s artistic mode and purpose. The aesthetic is differently foregrounded in each of Ghosh’s three selected novels: in the first novel studied, aesthetic concerns are linked with beauty. Female beauty in particular, is the primary aesthetic focus in The Glass Palace since it is beauty that inspires love and appreciation. In the second novel, The Hungry Tide, the aesthetic explores techniques of writing that encompass environmental questions. This novel shows nature as its primary aesthetic since it is through the encounter with nature that its aesthetic is realised and an appreciation for all life forms are established.

This doctoral dissertation focuses on Amitav Ghoshs Sea of Poppies (2008) to investigate, from a postcolonial perspective, the way in which the writer deconstructs gender in the nineteenth-century India. In Chapter I, I analyze men and women within the Indian familial space in the nineteenth century, demonstrating how both are subjected to the disempowering effects of traditional rituals (such as sati), structures of Brahminical morality and patriarchal violence. The main character pair Deeti and Kalua is an example of how the persons are sexually assaulted (rape) and then silenced by an oppressive system. Chapter II, I examine men and women within the British colonial space, indicating how they are effected by the opium cultivation in the Indian hinterland. The peripheral characters peasants, eurasian and convicts are highlighted to show how they are uprooted from homeland and forced to be taken across the seas by the colonial administration to work as indentured labour. In Chapter III, I investigate the gender roles ascribed to Indians by the British colonizers. The secondary character pair Nob Kissin and Taramony shows how Ghosh deconstructs gender with the use of Indian mythology and storytelling. In the conclusion, I point out how Indian mythology is retrieved as an instrument of resistance. / Esta tese de doutorado tem como objetivo investigar, sob a luz do questionamento póscolonial, como Amitav Ghosh em Sea of Poppies (2008) desconstrói a narrativa colonial sobre gênero na Índia colonial no século XIX. No Capítulo I, analiso homens e mulheres dentro do espaço familiar indiano, demonstrando como ambos estão sujeitos aos efeitos de desempoderamento dos rituais (como sati), da moralidade bramânica e da violência patriarcal. As personagens Deeti e Kalua exemplificam como os sujeitos, vítimas de violência sexual (estupro), são silenciados pelo sistema opressor. No Capítulo II, examino homens e mulheres dentro do espaço colonial britânico, indicando como os indivíduos são afetados pelo cultivo do ópio na Índia. As personagens periféricas camponeses, anglo-indianos e condenados servem de exemplo para destacar como essas pessoas são arrancadas de seu país e forçadas a migrar para as colônias inglesas. No Capítulo III, investigo como os ingleses inferiorizam os indianos. As personagens secundárias Nob Kissin e Taramony mostram como o conceito de gênero é desconstruído através da mitologia. Concluo argumentando que Amitav Ghosh faz uso da mitologia indiana como um instrumento de resistência.

This doctoral dissertation focuses on Amitav Ghoshs Sea of Poppies (2008) to investigate, from a postcolonial perspective, the way in which the writer deconstructs gender in the nineteenth-century India. In Chapter I, I analyze men and women within the Indian familial space in the nineteenth century, demonstrating how both are subjected to the disempowering effects of traditional rituals (such as sati), structures of Brahminical morality and patriarchal violence. The main character pair Deeti and Kalua is an example of how the persons are sexually assaulted (rape) and then silenced by an oppressive system. Chapter II, I examine men and women within the British colonial space, indicating how they are effected by the opium cultivation in the Indian hinterland. The peripheral characters peasants, eurasian and convicts are highlighted to show how they are uprooted from homeland and forced to be taken across the seas by the colonial administration to work as indentured labour. In Chapter III, I investigate the gender roles ascribed to Indians by the British colonizers. The secondary character pair Nob Kissin and Taramony shows how Ghosh deconstructs gender with the use of Indian mythology and storytelling. In the conclusion, I point out how Indian mythology is retrieved as an instrument of resistance. / Esta tese de doutorado tem como objetivo investigar, sob a luz do questionamento póscolonial, como Amitav Ghosh em Sea of Poppies (2008) desconstrói a narrativa colonial sobre gênero na Índia colonial no século XIX. No Capítulo I, analiso homens e mulheres dentro do espaço familiar indiano, demonstrando como ambos estão sujeitos aos efeitos de desempoderamento dos rituais (como sati), da moralidade bramânica e da violência patriarcal. As personagens Deeti e Kalua exemplificam como os sujeitos, vítimas de violência sexual (estupro), são silenciados pelo sistema opressor. No Capítulo II, examino homens e mulheres dentro do espaço colonial britânico, indicando como os indivíduos são afetados pelo cultivo do ópio na Índia. As personagens periféricas camponeses, anglo-indianos e condenados servem de exemplo para destacar como essas pessoas são arrancadas de seu país e forçadas a migrar para as colônias inglesas. No Capítulo III, investigo como os ingleses inferiorizam os indianos. As personagens secundárias Nob Kissin e Taramony mostram como o conceito de gênero é desconstruído através da mitologia. Concluo argumentando que Amitav Ghosh faz uso da mitologia indiana como um instrumento de resistência.

Drawing on recent interdisciplinary scholarship on the sense of place, this dissertation examines how the literary landscapes of formerly colonized countries embody colonial and post-colonial history. The project focuses on the ways in which specific material places both preserve and trigger memories, especially memories relevant to the colonial and postcolonial history of these places, and how the conjunction of place and the past leads us to “bump into” social memories often dismissed from formal histories. The “rememory” that one encounters in a particular place recuperates the territorial significance of formerly colonized countries in a deterritorialized world. In this sense, landscapes serve as material palimpsests of colonial and postcolonial history. To discuss the recovery of memories etched on landscapes, this dissertation investigates works by three postcolonial writers: Paule Marshall’s The Chosen Place, The Timeless People (1969), Zoë Wicomb’s You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (1987) and Playing in the Light (2006), and Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2005). Employing their liminal location as diasporic writers to examine the colonial and post-colonial history of their home countries, these writers recuperate the memories of the marginalized that are not visible in the official archives of those countries. Set on a fictional Caribbean island, Marshall’s work unburies the history of resistance to colonial governance, a history neither glorified nor written about in formal history. Narrating the story of a “white” woman who discovers that she is actually of mixed-race descent, Wicomb’s Playing in the Light reveals the past of racial passing buried in the urban landscapes of post-apartheid Cape Town. Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide unfolds the dismissed history of the Indian Partition on the border of India and Bangladesh, awakening memories of refugees marginalized because of their class, religion and ethnicity. Disclosing memories of the past, Marshall, Wicomb, and Ghosh demonstrate how inextricably entangled the past colonial conflicts of the homelands are with their present post- or neo- colonial socio-political issues. Drawing on memories bound to places, Marshall, Wicomb and Ghosh recover the specificity and diversity of postcolonial history and place, challenging the neoliberal and neocolonial promise of a border-free world market and the postmodern illusion of multi-national or non-territorial world citizens.

A literatura indiana de lingua inglesa desenvolveu uma identidade própria desde que o gênero romance foi levado para o subcontinente indiano pelos ingleses no século XIX. O encontro desse romance com as narrativas orais e as tradições locais favoreceu um tratamento diferente do tempo e do espaço nas obras. Esta disertação tem por objetivo analisar dois romances de Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (1988) e The Hungry Tide (2004), tendo como foco as questões relativas ao tempo e ao espaço, às fronteiras, às grandes e perquenas narrativas e às figuras femininas nelas retratadas. Ao ultrapassar os limites impostos pelos ideais nacionalistas e patriarcais, a mulher dos romances de Amitav Ghosh cruza as fronteiras culturais e sociais, rompendo com os padrões atribuídos a ela. Sua capacidade de transformar um espaço, vista antes como uma tribuição do homem, é folcalizada nas duas obras estudadas. Se Ghosh questiona as grandes narratibas em contraponto com as pequenas, as quais retratam as pessoas excluídas da historiografia oficial, e redefinem o papel da mulher na sociedade que atua, quais são os conflitos gerados por esse contraponto? O ato de cruzar das fronteiras é um espaço simbólico das transformações e rupturas originadas pela ação feminina ou elas não dependem da mulher? Na nossa apreciação, a agência política da mulher propicia tais transformações, devido às rupturas ligadas ao processo do deslocamento, e acontecem em dois níveis: no sujeito, na busca identitária do pertecimento, analisada no primeiro capítulo com o romance The Shadow Lines, e no da prática social pela agência do próprio sujeito, assim como apresentado no romance The Hungry Tide. Um dos tópicos analisados na dissertação é a representação da mulher como agente dessas rupturas por meio dos diferentes recursos textuais usados pelo narrador. Desde uma perspectiva da teoria pós -colonial, destacamos nas duas obras o uso de paralelismos históricos e sociais como via de entendimento dos dramas e lutas pessoais. Tendo a consciência de que todas as narrativas, sejam oficiais ou secundárias, caminham lado a lado estabelecendo relações conflituosas, ressaltando o papel das personagens femininas, cujos recorrentes deslocamentos questionam e problematizam os paradigmas sociais vigentes e constroem espaços simbólicos que se configuram pelo cruzamento de fronteiras geográficas e sócio-culturais. / Indian literature in english has developed its own identity since the genre novel was taken to the Indian subcontinent by the British in the 19th century. The encounter of the novel with the oral narratives and the local traditions made different ways of dealing with space and time in the works possible. The main purpose of this dissertation is to analyse two of Amitav Ghosh\'s novels, The Shadow Lines (1988) and The Hungry Tide (2004), focusing on the questions related to time and space, frontiers, history, and stories and the female characters depicted in them. Crossing the borders imposed by nationalist and patriarcal ideals, woman ideals, womam in Ghosh\'s novels crosses cultural and social frontiers, breaking stereotypes and social patterns given to them. Her ability to transform a space, normally dominated by men, is studied in the two novels. If Ghosh questions history as opposed to stories which depict peopel excluded from national historiography, redefining the woman\'s role in the society where she lives, which are the conflicts that spring from this opposition? Is the act of crossing borders a symbolic space of transformation and ruputures caused by female action, or do these ruptures not depend on the women? According to our view, woman\'s political agency provides these transformations, due to the broken bonds resulting from the process of dislocation, and they happen on two levels: the level of the subject , in her desire for bellonging, analyzed in the first chapter with the novel The Shadow Lines, and the level of social practice by the subject agency, as represented in the novel The Hungry Tide. Onde of the themes analyzed in this dissertation is the representation of woman as the agent of these ruptures through different literary approaches used by the narrator.Following the post-colonialtheory, we highlight in the two novels the use of historical and social parallelisms as a means of understanding the dramas and human predicaments. Being aware that all narratives, primary or secondary, have the same background, establishing conflicting relations, we point out the role of female characters, whose various displacements question and challenge the existing social paradigms and construct symbolic spaces which are built up by crossing geographical, social and cultural frontiers.

Cette thèse s’intéresse aux romans d’Amitav Ghosh, auteur d’origine bengalie, écrivant en langue anglaise. Elle les met en regard autour des trois notions de voix, langue et langage. Une analyse croisée des romans selon ces trois axes, qui eux-mêmes se chevauchent, permet de définir une écriture du métissage, une écriture de l’entre-deux. Les notions s’articulent autour d’une problématique axée sur la parole et s’appuie sur la théorie bakhtinienne du roman comme espace dialogique. Dans un premier temps, le métissage pose la question de la parenté de l’écriture, et permet d’interroger l’intertextualité qui y est à l’œuvre. Le métissage est mélange et dispersion, et brouille l’origine. Le métissage, que l’on prendrait dans son acception génétique, fonctionne par ailleurs comme un tissage. Ce travail analyse le tressage narratif du texte et met en évidence l’influence de la tradition orale. Le texte se trame sur un métier qui tisse voix et points de vue. Polyphonie et hétéroglossie permettent d’illustrer les stratégies du mélange déployées par l’auteur. Les langues du texte ainsi mises en perspective permettent de définir le métissage comme stratégie de l’imprévisible. Les romans s’hybrident de langues étrangères et permettent de placer le romancier dans le questionnement du roman contemporain sur la traduction. / Amitav Ghosh is a Bengali writing in English. This dissertation focuses on his novels from the standpoint of the three following notions: voice, language and speech. An interwoven analysis confronting the novels to these three notions which overlap allows us to define a writing of métissage, a writing of the in-between. Voice and language intersect, and prompts to ground the investigation of the text in a problematic revolving around speech, and based on Bakhtine’s theory of dialogism. First, métissage leads to question the parenthood of Ghosh’s writing and its intertextuality. Métissage means mixing and dispersal, and so, undermines the notion of origin. Then, the biological process of métissage parallels the act of weaving. This analysis shows how the narrative interweaves voices and points of view, and exposes its orality. Polyphony and heteroglossy are the backbones of the narrative. They illustrate the mixing strategies used by the writer. Such an approach of the languages he uses in his novels allows us to define métissage as a strategy of the unpredictable. The novels interweave foreign languages. This shows how Ghosh asserts his voice in the questioning of translation which characterizes the contemporary literary scene.

A literatura indiana de lingua inglesa desenvolveu uma identidade própria desde que o gênero romance foi levado para o subcontinente indiano pelos ingleses no século XIX. O encontro desse romance com as narrativas orais e as tradições locais favoreceu um tratamento diferente do tempo e do espaço nas obras. Esta disertação tem por objetivo analisar dois romances de Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (1988) e The Hungry Tide (2004), tendo como foco as questões relativas ao tempo e ao espaço, às fronteiras, às grandes e perquenas narrativas e às figuras femininas nelas retratadas. Ao ultrapassar os limites impostos pelos ideais nacionalistas e patriarcais, a mulher dos romances de Amitav Ghosh cruza as fronteiras culturais e sociais, rompendo com os padrões atribuídos a ela. Sua capacidade de transformar um espaço, vista antes como uma tribuição do homem, é folcalizada nas duas obras estudadas. Se Ghosh questiona as grandes narratibas em contraponto com as pequenas, as quais retratam as pessoas excluídas da historiografia oficial, e redefinem o papel da mulher na sociedade que atua, quais são os conflitos gerados por esse contraponto? O ato de cruzar das fronteiras é um espaço simbólico das transformações e rupturas originadas pela ação feminina ou elas não dependem da mulher? Na nossa apreciação, a agência política da mulher propicia tais transformações, devido às rupturas ligadas ao processo do deslocamento, e acontecem em dois níveis: no sujeito, na busca identitária do pertecimento, analisada no primeiro capítulo com o romance The Shadow Lines, e no da prática social pela agência do próprio sujeito, assim como apresentado no romance The Hungry Tide. Um dos tópicos analisados na dissertação é a representação da mulher como agente dessas rupturas por meio dos diferentes recursos textuais usados pelo narrador. Desde uma perspectiva da teoria pós -colonial, destacamos nas duas obras o uso de paralelismos históricos e sociais como via de entendimento dos dramas e lutas pessoais. Tendo a consciência de que todas as narrativas, sejam oficiais ou secundárias, caminham lado a lado estabelecendo relações conflituosas, ressaltando o papel das personagens femininas, cujos recorrentes deslocamentos questionam e problematizam os paradigmas sociais vigentes e constroem espaços simbólicos que se configuram pelo cruzamento de fronteiras geográficas e sócio-culturais. / Indian literature in english has developed its own identity since the genre novel was taken to the Indian subcontinent by the British in the 19th century. The encounter of the novel with the oral narratives and the local traditions made different ways of dealing with space and time in the works possible. The main purpose of this dissertation is to analyse two of Amitav Ghosh\'s novels, The Shadow Lines (1988) and The Hungry Tide (2004), focusing on the questions related to time and space, frontiers, history, and stories and the female characters depicted in them. Crossing the borders imposed by nationalist and patriarcal ideals, woman ideals, womam in Ghosh\'s novels crosses cultural and social frontiers, breaking stereotypes and social patterns given to them. Her ability to transform a space, normally dominated by men, is studied in the two novels. If Ghosh questions history as opposed to stories which depict peopel excluded from national historiography, redefining the woman\'s role in the society where she lives, which are the conflicts that spring from this opposition? Is the act of crossing borders a symbolic space of transformation and ruputures caused by female action, or do these ruptures not depend on the women? According to our view, woman\'s political agency provides these transformations, due to the broken bonds resulting from the process of dislocation, and they happen on two levels: the level of the subject , in her desire for bellonging, analyzed in the first chapter with the novel The Shadow Lines, and the level of social practice by the subject agency, as represented in the novel The Hungry Tide. Onde of the themes analyzed in this dissertation is the representation of woman as the agent of these ruptures through different literary approaches used by the narrator.Following the post-colonialtheory, we highlight in the two novels the use of historical and social parallelisms as a means of understanding the dramas and human predicaments. Being aware that all narratives, primary or secondary, have the same background, establishing conflicting relations, we point out the role of female characters, whose various displacements question and challenge the existing social paradigms and construct symbolic spaces which are built up by crossing geographical, social and cultural frontiers.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2015-12-11T11:16:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 giselecardosodelemos.pdf: 1950421 bytes, checksum: 5d956c19538a640bfa5a8e77dcd04747 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2015-12-11T15:02:15Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 giselecardosodelemos.pdf: 1950421 bytes, checksum: 5d956c19538a640bfa5a8e77dcd04747 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-11T15:02:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 giselecardosodelemos.pdf: 1950421 bytes, checksum: 5d956c19538a640bfa5a8e77dcd04747 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-31 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Este trabalho busca analisar as apropriações que o escritor indiano em língua inglesa Amitav Ghosh faz das noções ocidentais de ciência e religião em suas respectivas obras The Calcutta Chromosome e The Circle of Reason, por meio de diálogos, tensões e negociações destas noções com paradigmas filosófico-religiosos de caráter inclusivista e dialógico da civilização indiana, que são matrizes existenciais que perpassam gerações e influenciam inclusive a contemporaneidade da Índia. Para esse fim, esse trabalho privilegia a literatura ficcional como ferramenta crítica para as discussões sobre ciência e religião, uma vez que a ficção propicia a contextualização das coisas/seres, ou seja, a apreensão destes em sua totalidade. Com isso, também buscamos apresentar uma contextualização histórica, linguística, literária, científica e filosófico-religiosa para que sejam mais bem compreendidas algumas escolhas de Amitav Ghosh, a saber: a língua inglesa, o gênero literário romance, as temáticas da medicina tropical e da frenologia e a apropriação da doutrina da transmigração da alma (ātma), a lei do karma e a teoria dos guṇas, discutidas em fontes como os Upaniṣads e o Bhagavad-gītā. Como ferramentas de análise utilizamos, sobretudo, teorias pós-coloniais de subalternidade, tradições unitaristas da filosofia hindu, as obras não-ficcionais do próprio autor e as obras dos mais importantes críticos literários de Ghosh. Com as análises literárias mostramos que Ghosh, além de por em prática a tradição inclusivista indiana, ele demonstra a superioridade do ―domínio espiritual‖ sobre o ―domínio material‖, (conceitos cunhados por Partha Chatterjee) e reabilita a noção de uma racionalidade ocidental excludente tornando-a uma razão iluminadora e libertadora. / This study analyzes the appropriations of Western notions of science and religion by the Indian writer in English Amitav Ghosh, in his respective works The Calcutta Chromosome and The Circle of Reason, through dialogues, tensions, and negotiations between these notions and religious and philosophical paradigms of the Indian civilization, characterized by its inclusive and dialogical characteristics. These paradigms form an existential matrix that crosses generations and even influences contemporary India. To this end, this work focuses on fictional literature as a critical tool for the discussion on science and religion, since fiction provides contextualization for things/beings, that is, the comprehention of these in their entirety. With this, we also seek to provide a historical, linguistic, literary, scientific, philosophical and religious context in order to better understand some of Amitav Ghosh‘s choices, namely the English language, the novel as literary genre, the themes of tropical medicine and phrenology and the appropriation of the doctrine of transmigration of the soul (saṃsāra), the law of karma and the theory of guṇas discussed in sources such as the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-gītā. As tools of analysis, we use especially postcolonial theories of subalternity, unitarian traditions of Hindu philosophy, nonfictional works of the author himself and the works of the most important literary critics of Ghosh‘s work. With literary analysis we show that Ghosh, besides using the inclusivist Indian tradition, demonstrates the superiority of ―spiritual domain‖ over the ―material domain‖ (concepts coined by Partha Chatterjee) and also rehabilitates the notion of an exclusionary Western rationality transforming it into an enlightening and liberating reason.

This thesis attempts to reformulate the concept of hope represented in, and inflected by, the Indian English novel. This comparative literary study focuses primarily on Amitav Ghosh and Rohinton Mistry, whose novels offer myriad examples and resultant effects of a reflexive hope. I argue in light of their work to refigure hope in its varied and multiple articulations: positive and negative, for-life and for-death, dependency, waiting, nostalgia, narcissism. All of these, I suggest, manifest in a nominal-messianic hope that formulates a powerful critique of global capital most advantageously constellated in these Indian English novels. I arrive at this from the early writings of Jawaharlal Nehru and his unshakable belief in socialist progress that informs the productive tension within hope that inform the readings of Ghosh’s and Mistry’s novels. Concomitant to this thesis on hope is the recalibration of definitions of poverty to the principles of capabilities that allow for the simultaneous discussion of how the state can shape social opportunities for its citizens. This, I argue, is necessary for the flourishing of more nuanced understanding of hope. Moving away from purely quantitative measurements of poverty to more qualitative capabilities pushes the novel to the foreground of these arguments. Just as Nehru explores his own formulations of hope and hopefulness through the poetry of Matthew Arnold, the Indian English novel, here, is best able to enunciate a reflexive hope that is central to the notion of capabilities. This is why poverty studies in India needs the Indian English novel.

Cette thèse propose une lecture croisée des épopées traditionnelles et postcoloniales dans un cadre transculturel. Une analyse comparée de Moby Dick de Herman Melville, Omeros de Derek Walcott et la trilogie de l’Ibis d’Amitav Ghosh nous permet de cerner spécificités de l’épopée moderne postcoloniale. Celle-ci s’inscrit dans la lignée des épopées traditionnelles d’Homère, Virgile, Arioste, Camões et Milton, tout en rivalisant avec elles. Les épopées traditionnelles et modernes ont recours à des conventions qui esthétisent l’expérience collective comme les comparaisons épiques, la généalogie présentée sous forme de prophétie et la mise en abyme ekphrastique. L’épopée traditionnelle met en avant la vision d’une société unifiée grâce à des conjonctions harmonieuses entre le trope et la diégèse, des continuités généalogiques entre l’ancêtre et le descendant ainsi que des associations autoréflexives ekphrastiques entre l’histoire impériale et le texte qui la glorifie. Dans cette perspective, la spécificité de l’épopée postcoloniale semble résider dans l’articulation ambivalente de la condition postcoloniale. Ainsi, chez Melville, Walcott et Ghosh, le style héroï-comique contrebalance les comparaisons épiques opérant des transfigurations héroïques. De même, de nouvelles affiliations hybrides forgées par les personnages coexistent avec des généalogies discontinues, sans en combler toutes les lacunes créées par le déracinement et la violence coloniale. Cette vision équivoque trouve son expression la plus franche dans les séquences ekphrastiques où les textes sont confrontés au choix impossible entre commémoration de l’expérience et regard critique vis-à-vis d’elle. / This thesis offers collocational readings of traditional and postcolonial epics in transcultural frameworks. It investigates the specificities of modern postcolonial epic through a comparative analysis of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Derek Walcott’s Omeros, and Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy. It explores how these works emulate, but also rival, the traditional epics of Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, Camões, and Milton. Both traditional and postcolonial epic rely on generic conventions in order to aestheticize collective experience, setting it against the natural world (via epic similes), against history and imperial destiny (via genealogy and prophecy), and against the epic work itself (via ekphrasis). However, traditional epic emphasizes a unified worldview, characterized by harmonious conjunctions between trope and diegesis, genealogical continuities between ancestor and descendant, and self-reflexive ekphrastic associations between imperial history and the epic text commissioned to glorify it. From this perspective, the specificity of postcolonial epic can be formulated in terms of its ambivalent articulation of the postcolonial condition. In the works of Melville, Walcott, and Ghosh, tropes of heroic transfiguration are held in check by the mock-heroic, while empowering self-adopted hybrid affiliations co-exist, but cannot entirely compensate for, discontinuous genealogies marked by displacement, deracination, and colonial violence. This ambivalence finds its most powerful expression in the ekphrastic sequences where the postcolonial texts are most directly confronted with the impossible choice between commemorating experience and being critical of such commemoration.