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Discover in the Midst of Foreign Surroundings

Discover in the Midst of Foreign Surroundings

Celeste Ledesma's picture

Discovery in the Midst of Foreign Surroundings

I think Caleb makes a great point by addressing the theme of foreignness in The Hungry Tide. Just to briefly reiterate what has already been discussed, the two main characters, Kanai and Piya are being exposed to worlds that may hold a familiar place in each of their hearts but is relatively new to them. With this in mind, I think it is also important to take into account the evident theme of discover that compliments the foreign elements within each of their journeys. In The Hungry Tide, isolated discoveries that are made by one of the two main characters seem to unfold in a way that I would call, perhaps for lack of a better word, backtracking. The character will make an assumption: “X is this.” However, after an event or series of events, the character will realize: “X is actually that, surprisingly.” One concrete example of this would be Piya’s observation of the fisherman that she sees in the distance. She thinks he is an older man: “It seemed to her that he had the grizzled look of an experienced hand: around his chin mouth was a dusting of white that suggested stubble or a beard…His frame was skeletal, almost wasted, in the way of a man who’d grown old on the water. Of course, Piya then comes to realize that the fisherman is actually a young man.

Another instance that is similar in terms of a shifting perspective is when Piya shows Mej-da the picture of the Gangetic dolphin. He asks her in English if what he’s looking at is a bird. Piya then tries to see the image the way he does. The image transforms into something she hadn’t seen before and poses the question, “The Gangetic dolphin a bird?” Although she may not believe this perspective, she forms the question regardless. This instance in particular reminds me of the initial question that Haraway poses in When specied Meet: “Whom and what do I touch when I touch my dog?” However, the idea surrounding this question would best be appropriated to Piya’s experience by thinking of it as, How is it that we as humans can perceive the same feature in nature differently?

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Our conversation in class about the braided narration/narrative voices of this novel struck me as I continued to read and delve into The Hungry Tide.  The “perspective switching” the Celeste names and can be seen in the novel, or the appearance of one thing which is shown up (or not) to be another, extends beyond the characters. I think that the reader implicated as well in the telling of these complex and interwoven stories. This has occurred several times, most notably when one character is telling another character a story of their own.

Weaving

In response to Celeste's post about shifting perspectives, I too was really struck by the moment where Piya shows Mej-da the picture of the dolphin and he sees it as a bird. When I got to this section, I was immediately reminded of our discussion of contact zones. First of all, this exchange was a contact zone between Piya and Mej-da, who clearly live in different worlds, speak different languages, and have different goals (Piya to find the dolphins, Mej-da to get paid).

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