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Part 1: The Letter
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Hungry Tide, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Language
Man vs. Nature
The Human Cost of Environmental Conservation
Idealism and Theory vs. Practicality and Action
Summary
Analysis
Piya notices that Fokir's boat is pieced together out of pieces and bits of various objects and materials. Fokir pulls out an old sari, puts Piya's backpacks under the covered area at the end of the boat, motions her in, and covers the shelter with the sari. Piya realizes he's giving her privacy to change. She's touched and thinks it's a way for him to recognize her humanity, even if they can't speak. After Piya changes, she feels the sari between her fingers; it feels much like the ones Piya’s mother wore. She wonders if this sari belongs to Fokir's wife (Moyna).
When Piya thinks of her mother while touching the sari, it begins to show that these textile items like saris are capable of facilitating connections between people and between different times and countries. This will become more prevalent later with the gamchha cloths, but this first instance shows that clothing can connect people.
Themes
When Piya comes out from behind the sari, she notices that Fokir has changed, and the sun is setting. When the boat starts to move, Piya scans the water through her binoculars, her GPS monitor recording her every movement. Her binoculars are her most prized possession; she bought them when she was still in grad school. The weight of the binoculars surprised her at first, as did the clarity of the images. It made her wonder how others managed to use heavy binoculars for hours on end. She never understood until she was on her first survey that when the view is interesting enough, the weight doesn't matter.
The GPS monitor is a motif that occurs throughout the novel and shows that there are ways to join earth and science in a way that creates a greater sense of understanding. For Piya in particular, the GPS locates her in space and makes the environment something that she can later read when she retrieves the monitor's information. In this way, it becomes yet another form of communication.
Themes
