The Glass Palace By Amitav Ghosh Analysis

Amitav Ghosh was conceived in Calcutta and experienced childhood in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the writer of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and the initial two volumes of The Ibis Trilogy; Sea of Poppies, and River of Smoke.

The Circle of Reason was granted France’s Prix Médicis in 1990, and The Shadow Lines won two distinguished Indian prizes the same year, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke award for 1997 and The Glass Palace won the International e-Book Award at the Frankfurt book fair in 2001. In January 2005

Spreading over three nations and three eras, the book inquires into the intimate lives of Ghosh’s characters, intermixed with a feeling of affection alongside the voyage of life. This atmosphere is again and again broken and hindered by the repulsions brought in by colonization and the ensuing disarray that it prompts.

Beginning with a prologue to an eleven-year-old stranded Indian kid, Rajkumar, the story continues in Mandalay, Burma (now Myanmar), portraying the conditions that carried him here alongside the feeling of association he established for the place. Rajkumar is acquainted to Saya John, who turns into a father-figure in Rajkumar’s life. Later, the English frenzy the city, however the warriors are primarily Indians who have come gone ahead the requests of their frontier aces. Hence commences the general feeling of discord, wreckage, and fleet that establishes a major piece of the book. With the attack of the British, the citizens of the city look for shelter in the Glass Palace, where King Thebaw and his family used to administer and dwell. What takes after is the family’s outcast to Ratnagiri (a port town in India), Rajkumar’s marriage to Dolly, a woker in the King’s family unit, trailed by the birth of their children Neel and Dinu and the blending of the groups of Rajkumar, Saya John, and Uma in the three countries of Burma, Malaya, and India respectively.

The initial segment is called “Mandalay,” portraying the Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. It concentrates on the rough greed that drives all people alike; this gluttony is shown to rise above one’s status, race, caste, group, or country. Besides, the pillage shown all over this part delivers as a presentation of the crude avarice of the colonizers, which drove them to plunder and control their settlements in the severe way that they did. The second part, called “Ratnagiri,” indicates frontier oppression and majestic strength. With the fuse of Burma with India as a solitary pioneer subject, the state of mind to surrender oneself and the contradictory approach to oppose are introduced. The third section, “The Money Tree,” demonstrates how Rajkumar thrives through timber business. The fourth segement, called “The Wedding,” manages with the second era. Rajkumar’s son Neel marries Manju, and individuals like Arjun and Dinu indicate interest for the British. The fifth section, “Morning Side” portrays the result of the Second World War in Malaya. The penultimate segment, “The Front,” illustrates how characters endure because of the flare-up of the Second World War. The last segment of the novel titled “The Glass Palace,” manages with the Indian National Movement at its pinnacle and India’s last accomplishment of