Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason: A Clash between Superstition and Scientific Reason

Life in the modern world is made of myriad impressions and we find various types
of people having their own way of reasoning on certain things. Some people
strictly follow the scientific temper while others are still preoccupied with the
traditional beliefs imbibed with the characteristics of ignorance and superstitions.
The latter type of people are so deeply engrossed in their superstitious beliefs that
they have totally lost all the scientific reasoning power and start having a blind
faith on any traditional practice. This type of contradictory beliefs often brings
about clashes amongst the people.And this very fact is clearly presented in Amitav
Ghosh’s debut novel, The Circle of Reason,whichmarks “a break from the
traditional themes of the Indian English novel and structure of the well-made
novel” (Rao 31). In fact, it can be taken as the beginning of the entire generation of
new writers who came up in the 1980s, often termed as “Ghosh Generation of
writers”(Advani 17) or “Stephanians”(Trivedi4) who have left an enduring
impression in the novels of the eighties giving a new turn and meaning tothe Indian
English fiction.