Hidden Forms of Imprisonment in Sea of Poppies Anonymous College

A major theme of the novel Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh is imprisonment. The novel explores the lives of many different characters on the eve of the opium wars. Over the course of the novel, many characters feel a variety of forms of imprisonment, ranging from physical imprisonment, social imprisonment and gender imprisonment. The author shows that there are many different forces that can imprison someone, and that these forces might not be as obvious as a physical prison. Ghosh uses the stories of the Zachary, Kalua and Paulette to depict imprisonment in its varying forms from racial, to societal to gender imprisonment respectively.

Ghosh uses the character Zachary’s story to show imprisonment based on one’s own race. Zachary is a half black and half white freedman from America, who through a series of fortunate accidents manages to become the second mate on the ship Ibis. He is in part able to achieve this rapid ascension because he can pass as a white man, and though his story, Ghosh shows that one’s own race can act as an imprisoning force. Zachary recalls a scene from when he used to work at a shipyard in America, where one his fellow workers, after being beaten, says, “It’s about jobs; the whites won’t work with you,...