British Empire and Resistance in Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace

Abstract

The present paper presents analytical themes of Amitav Ghosh,The Glass Palace. It tries to analyze how the novel is related to Empire. In addition, Ghosh has received many awards, among them commonwealth prize when he wrote The Glass Palace. But he refused the prize, because he perfectly knew that the whole business of commonwealth is repackaging of Empire. This paper intends to investigate imperialism in the narrative of Indian writer; with special focus on subaltern voices who expose their  bitter experiences during British Empire. The term 'subaltern' was used by Antonio Gramsci who supports us with the history of subaltern.  After that, it was adopted to Subaltern Studies by  Ranajit Guha. Guha subordinates South Asian society and addresses them in different way; cast, class, gender, race,.. etc.  The research seeks to expose the colonizer's oppression in general and British colonizers in particular; voice the subaltern writers who expose their hard life because of political corruption.       Further, others previous Indian writers narrate the subaltern nations throughout elites who have ambiguous picture about subaltern nations. Rather, elites are not portraying the authentic voices of subaltern. On the other hand, Ghosh asserts that the expansion of British Empire has a significant role on different aspects: woman's oppression, Indian partition into India and Pakistan, and the division of the nations into different classes and parties. To bridge the gap that other writers leave in terms of neglecting woman's rule towards the British colonizer. Ghosh's fiction portrays the woman as the leading spirits, he avoids victimization and degradation of woman. However, other writers depict woman and her experience in patriarchal societies with a deep sympathetic way.