February 23, 2015 - 23:36
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?