MEMORY BEYOND BORDERS: HYBRIDITY AND THE THIRD SPACE IN AMITAV GHOSHS THE SHADOW LINES AND THE GLASS PALACE

Literary texts often provide a powerful medium for reinterpreting history and identity. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988) and The Glass Palace (2000) offer profound reflections on nationalism, borders, and identity by weaving personal and familial narratives across generations. Through the lens of personal memory and storytelling, these novels open up a space for rethinking official histories. Ghosh interrogates the rigid construction of identity. In The Shadow Lines, Ghosh explores the trauma of Partition and its aftermath across three generations of a family, using memory to mirror the fractured identity of the nation. The Glass Palace traces the displacement of the royal family and ordinary Burmese natives affected by British colonialism, highlighting how inherited memory shapes postcolonial identity. By questioning the concreteness of borders, Ghosh constructs hybrid identities that transcend fixed boundaries. Drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s concepts of “hybridity” and the “third space,” this study examines how the intersection of historical events and personal memory enables the formation of hybrid identities. A close literary analysis of the narrative structures reveals how memory becomes a site of resistance and a means to critique the violence and exclusions inherent in nationalist discourse.