empire's loss;I claim that Margaret Drabble has a similar project in The Gates of /vory, in which she too explicates this traumatic loss of cultural identity resulting from the end of empire;and then I proceed to an examination of how Amitav Ghosh shows the restrictions of war as the narrative of a nation in The Shadow Lines,while also proving war to itself be a significant means of empire's perpetuation.Despite the fact that the British Empire has been officially dismantled,imperialism and the novel are still inter- connected. vi