Genre
Literary fiction
Setting and Context
The novel is mostly set in Calcutta, West Bengal in the 1950s and 60s. It is also set in Rhode Island, USA.
Narrator and Point of View
It is told from the third-person narrator's point of view.
Tone and Mood
Somber, Funereal, Suspenseful
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Subhash Mitra; Antagonist: Gauri Mitra and also the tragedies, loss, and secrets in the family
Major Conflict
Subhash and his younger brother Udayan were close and inseparable as children but as they grew up their ideologies differed. Their sibling rivalry worsens the more Udayan becomes radicalized as a member of the Naxalite rebel group. Tragedy befalls the family with Udayan’s death and those left behind have to cope with the loss and secrets through two generations.
Climax
The climax perhaps occurs when Gauri returns and meets her daughter Bela for the first time since she left her behind with Subhash.
Foreshadowing
The description of the lowlands where the two brothers live in their childhood foreshadows the struggles and unsteady relationship they will have in their adulthood.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The novel alludes to the political tensions in India and the rise of the Maoist-influenced rebellion, the Naxalite movement during the 20th century.
Imagery
“Subhash had never seen such grass, as uniform as a carpet, unfurled over sloping contours of earth. Undulating like dunes a desert, or gentle dips and swells in a sea. It was shorn so finely on the putting green that it felt like moss when he pressed against it. The ground below was as smooth as a scalp, the grass appearing a shade lighter there.”
Paradox
The presence in absence is the paradox in the narrative. In Udayan’s absence, the family feels his presence more than when he was alive as his death affects them for years.
Parallelism
“You’re the other side of me Subhash. It’s without you that I’m nothing.”
The narrative parallels the two brothers as they are too similar yet so different in their ideologies.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Vermillion no longer marks the parting of her hair.”
Vermillion as a color is a metonymy for sindoor powder.
Personification
“The future haunted but kept her alive: it remained her sustenance and also her predator.”
