Exploring Walls As Memory Scapes And Their Role In Preserving Collective Memory In Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb Of Sand

Abstract

The walls in Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand transcend their physicality, carrying the weight of countless stories, emotions, and metamorphoses within them. Thus, in order to identify and explain the presence of walls in the novel, it is possible to divide walls into the following groups: the storage of personal memories, barriers that can be crossed, collective memory, change agents, time markers, and emotional space and the walls as silent witnesses. Analyzing the quotes and scenes, the article under analysis provides a detailed account of how walls transform within the context of the novel Tomb of Sand and grow with the characters. Drawing from the theoretical perspectives of French philosopher and historian Pierre Nora’s "Lieux de Mémoire" and German Egyptologist Jan Assmann’s cultural memory and Bachelard’s "The Poetics of Space” provides an informative understanding of how walls as structures serve as mediators of constitution and transmission of memory and identity. Through the drawings on Shree’s walls, the reader can understand how personal environment reflects and shapes personal memory/identity, thus supporting the connection between space, memory, and identity in people’s experience