A Journey into the Self:

A Liminal Reading of Days and Nights in the Forest

Abstract

hen society became increasingly differentiated, …the new urban man felt increasingly alienated from nature; social discipline called for by new productive techniques created a sense of anxiety among the more individualistic non-conformists. At such periods of inner crisis and difficulty, man retreated into the forest to test his own strength and recover the sense of identity with his surroundings. (Richard Lannoy in Darius Cooper, 157)

The aim of this paper is to explore Sunil Gangopadyaya’s novel Days and Nights in the Forest (2010) as a liminal space which accommodates the journey into the self. The study uses the journey metaphor of a ritual pilgrimage in the quest for the self. Applying the concept of ‘the rites of passage’, this study builds on and extends Victor Turner’s concept of Liminality. Attempt is also made to analyse this forest space as place of Bakhtinian Carnivalesque which subverts and liberates the assumptions of the dominant style or atmosphere through humour and chaos.