The
Shadow Lines
uses the symbolism of maps and in particular borders throughout its novel
to identify and explore a key postcolonial theme. Postcolonial criticism
examines and criticises man-made boundaries and borders as attempts to define a
particular group as against another group ("the other"). Postcolonial
criticism attempts to rupture these apparently secure boundaries by examining
those who live on the margins of these boundaries and also deconstructing (taking
apart) the notion of the other. This is particularly true of the
"invention" of India
the nation, with the Partition of 1947 which drew imaginary lines across India, creating
the countries of Pakistan,
Bangladesh
and India
and also causing much death from the resulting riots.
The
narrative in The Shadow Lines
is constantly transgressing boundaries of space and time, thus giving the novel
its title, as the lines that divide places and even times are shown to be
easily transgressed - "Shadow Lines." Borders are thus shown to be
"illusory" and "shadowy" and often "born out of
different strands of nationalism and ideology" that in turn give birth to
violence. In this novel as in life there are multiple boundaries and dividing
lines, not just national boundaries, but borders that separate the coloniser
from the colonised, the "us" from the "them", and borders
also in time, separating the past from the present. These borders are ever
changing as the perspective from which we look at them changes.