Flowing Narratives: Anthropomorphic Mythologemes of River in A River Sutra and The God of Small Things

Abstract

Rivers, with their ceaseless flow and dynamic character, have long captured the human imagination, serving as both literal and metaphorical lifelines for communities around the world. In the realm of literature, rivers have been anthropomorphized, endowed with human-like qualities, and used as powerful symbols to convey complex narratives and themes. This paper aims to analyse the mythologeme of the river where it is anthropomorphised as depicted in two distinct yet interconnected literary works—A River Sutra by Gita Mehta and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Mythelogeme is aword coined by Carl Jung for describing a mythological image, motif or theme which came across cultures and time. Considering the river, it is a very celebrated mythologeme in the Indian context where it is considered either as mother or goddess.