Journey as a Motif in Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason

Abstract

Ghosh chooses a circular pattern for this novel, taking clues from Indian philosophy. In contrast the Christian belief is that everyone is a born sinner and is doomed. The western belief is that, life is a journey and this journey has a definite initial and final point. The article explores many circles that take place at different levels in the novel as these circles imply different things.

Amitav Ghosh’s first novel, The Circle of Reason, has the distinction of being different in structure from the traditional novel. In fact, the novel could be taken as the starting point of a whole generation of new writers often called ‘Ghosh generation’ (Trivedi 185) who have left a lasting imprint in the novels of eighties making a new epoch in Indian fiction in English. Coming as it were, these novels, published in mid-eighties, made a drastic change in the area of fiction writing. These novels are, therefore, known for their internationalism, experimentation in structure and form, and also doing away with linguistic barriers, which are constant sources of trouble in the earlier ones.