Abstract
Human society, locally or globally, is characterized not only by its diversity but also by interdependence which accords harmony among people even within a varied global context. For instance, in the time of COVID-19, we saw people dealing with the pandemic by extending physical, mental, and logistic support, transcending the demarcated lines of religion, nation, race, creed, and by standing with each other with compassion and solidarity. In this era of rapid global modernization, intercultural exchange metamorphoses social environments worldwide by embracing heterogeneity as an essential trait of contemporary times. The Jnanpith Award-winning Indian writer in English Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island (2019) undertakes an exploratory voyage into the fourteenth-century with the legendary story of the Gun Merchant while simultaneously being rooted in the socio-political and climatological crises of contemporary times. It depicts that the disadvantaged inhabitants of the Sundarbans and many other people from different countries migrate, illegally, to Italy transcending national and continental boundaries in search of employment and opportunity. This paper intends to investigate how the refugees from the various national, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds portrayed in the novel under discussion can be grouped in terms of their shared plight while battling for life during migration like all pandemic (COVID-19) - stricken people of the world, building a global society despite the multiplicity of differences.
Author Information
Trina Bose, IIT Bhubaneswar, India
Amrita Satapathy, IIT Bhubaneswar, India
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