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The IUP Journal of English Studies

Negotiating Cultural Spaces Through Language: A Comparative Study of Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies and Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence

Article Details

Pub. Date	: Sep, 2020
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJES80920
Author Name	: Atri Majumder, Jayashree Tripura, and Gyanabati Khuraijam
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Arts & Humanities
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 12

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Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the cultural heterogeneity of language and how language transforms in tandem with culture. Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie's works have been noted for the dexterous use of language and the representation of multicultural spaces. Rushdie has succeeded in creating a distinctive style within the tradition of Indian writing in English-his characteristic "chutnification" of English. Ghosh has also created a unique style by extensively blending different Indian languages with English persistently in his works. Both Ghosh and Rushdie explore the juxtaposition of cultural spaces through the linguistic variants used in the historical novels Sea of Poppies and The Enchantress of Florence. The hybrid identities are amplified by the multilingual and multicultural cast of characters populating the novels. Rushdie effectively recreates the cosmopolitan Renaissance atmosphere prevalent in the Mughal era by interweaving the particular cultural identities with the idiosyncratic uses of language. Ghosh's novel is also embedded in a historical context, and the story is unfolded from multivocal perspectives, while simultaneously establishing diasporic identities. Rushdie and Ghosh have thus both explored multiculturalism, hybridity, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, and migrancy in their fiction, and this paper focalizes on these themes from the perspective of language.

witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits or magic wands. Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough. (Rushdie 2008, 93)

History and Fiction

Fiction proffers a pristine space for rewriting and reinvigorating the past imaginatively, yet this space is paradoxically adulterated with distortions of the always already inscribed