Narrating the City: Calcutta in Raj Kamal Jha???s If You Are Afraid of Heights and The Blue Bedspread

Narrating the City: Calcutta in Raj Kamal Jha???s If You Are Afraid of Heights and The Blue Bedspread

The portrayal of the city in literature is not a recent phenomenon. The city in literature has a history as old as the history of the city itself. This thesis titled ???Narrating the City: Calcutta in Raj Kamal Jha???s If You are Afraid of Heights and The Blue Bedspread??? is an attempt to understand how the city of Calcutta is portrayed in these two novels and how the city affects the people and vice versa. Every narration happens within the coordinates of time and space. Narrative is the representation of movement within the coordinates of time and space. Literary narrative is the literary or semiotic representation of movement within the coordinates of time and space. In the same manner narrating the city is the literary representation of the movement of the city and things in the city both living and non-living within the coordinates of time and space. The introductory chapter places the study in the context analysing the representation of the city in literature. The definition of key concepts and a literature review are done in order to understand the narrative, city and above all the narrating of the city in literature. The second chapter titled ???Calcutta in The Blue Bedspread???, shows how the city of Calcutta is portrayed in the novel The Blue Bedspread. This chapter is divided into different subsections according to the different themes identified. The third chapter titled ???Calcutta in If You are Afraid of Heights??? shows how the city of Calcutta is portrayed in the novel If You are Afraid of Heights. The fourth and the final chapter details the general conclusions derived from the study. Calcutta is narrated differently through these two novels. The Blue Bedspread presents a city of Calcutta which is more of a realistic nature. There is an over emphasis given to the description of the places as the novel is stacked with references to the buildings and places in the city. Thus it becomes a story of the city than the story of a specific person (character) or persons viii (characters). There is a close connection between the city and the people and vice versa. The names of the characters are not mentioned in the novel and this anonymity of the main characters points to the fact that this is a novel about anybody who is influenced by the city, in this case the city of Calcutta. If You are Afraid of Heights is a magic realist portrayal of the city of Calcutta. The characters of the city oscillate between reality and fantasy. This novel is not stacked with references to the places or spaces in the city, even though there are some references to them. The Blue Bedspread is the story of the city being projected through the realistic places and on the other hand If You are Afraid of Heights is the story of the city being projected through the magic realist presentation of the places, spaces and time in the city.

George Mathew

English