Transitional Maps in Shadow Lines: A Response to Silvia Albertazzi

Abstract

My response to Silvia Albertazzi’s paper on The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh focuses on a key element of the discourse: the function and use of the map in the definition of subjectivity.

The first step I take is to identify the presence of a relationship between the individual subject and that of the collective in Ghosh’s novel. From there forward, the relationship between real and imaginary becomes critical to the analysis of the question of the construction of the self in the narrator.

The real/imaginary dichotomy acquires meaning when placed in contact with the notion of the borders lying between the external world and the internal world.

The concept of the Transitional Object developed by Donald W. Winnicott is used in this context to formulate the hypothesis of representation in the Ghosh’s novel, of transitional maps which facilitate the passage of the character of the internal world (the self) to the external world (the non-me).

Using maps such as these, the narrative representation of the connection between internal space and external space contributes to the literary construction of the physical features of the individual subject.