Author(s): Bharat Ram, Dr. Lila Dhar Mishra

Abstract: “Shadow line” by Amitav Ghosh is one of the prominent novels in Indian English Literature. It is a popular historical novel which has been written under the canopy of postcolonial literature. This is the second novel of Amitav Ghosh which was published in the year 1988 and earned the Sahitya Academy Award in 1989. In the current research paper, themes of alienation and dislocation have been analysed. Amitav Ghosh, one of India’s the greatest contemporary novelists, strongly depicts the social, cultural and psychological experienced by individuals and marginalised communities uprooted from their native lands. The study also examines, how the writer presents the poor lives are disrupted by migration, war and the brutal partition of India. The main objective of this study through the close textual analysis is to bring into limelight the brutal impact of the brutal division of India that results into pain and trauma of the oppressed community members of the society.

Keywords: Alienation, Dislocation, Contemporary, Trauma, Underprivileged.

Article Info: Received: 07 Sep 2026; Received in revised form: 03 Oct 2026; Accepted: 08 Oct 2026; Available online: 12 Oct 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.115.47