Table of Contents
Introduction.
Author Biography.
Summary and Analysis.
Chapter 1.
Chapters 2--4
Chapters 5--7
Chapters 8--11
Chapters 12—15
Chapters 16--20 6
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves!
Chapter 2, Pappachi’s Moth.
Chapter 3, Big Man the Laltain,
Small Man the Mombatti
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies
Chapter 5, God’s Own Country.
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos;
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks.
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie Mol.
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
Chapter 11, The God of Small
Things.
Chapter 12, Kochu Thomban.
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist.
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
Chapter 15, The Crossing
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later.
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus.
Chapter 18, The History House.
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu.
Chapter 20, The Madras Mail.
Chapter 21, The Cost of Living
Characters.
Aleyooty Ammachi
Baba.
Reverend E. John Ipe
Joe.
The Kathakali Men.
Ammu.
Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)
Chacko.
Estha
Mammachi (Shoshamma Ipe)
Margaret Kochamma.
Pappachi (Shri Benaan John Ipe)
Rahel Kochamma
Kochu Maria.
Kochu Thomban
Kuttappen
Inspector Thomas Mathew
Larry McCaslin
Miss Mitten.
Father Mulligan
Murlidharan
Comrade E. M. S. Namboodiripad
Orangedrink Lemondrink Man.
Comrade Pillai.
Kalyani Pillai.
Latha Pillai.
Lenin Pillai
Kari Saipu
Sophie Mol
Vellya Paapen.
Velutha
Objects/Places.
Syrian Christian.
History House.
Mol
Mon
Kochu Thomban
Kathakali Man
Paravan, Paryan and Pulyan
Untouchables
Social Concerns.
Techniques.
Themes.
Indian History and Politics
Class Relations and Cultural
Tensions.
Forbidden Love;
Love.
Social Discrimination
Betrayal.
Style.
Non-sequential Narrative.
Foreshadowing
Point of View.
Style
Setting.
Language and Meaning
Structure;
Historical Context.
Critical Overview.
Criticism
Critical Essay #1.
Critical Essay #2
Critical Essay #3
Critical Essay #4
Quotes
Topics for Further Study
Compare and Contrast.
What Do I Read Next?.
Table of Contents
Key Questions.
Literary Precedents.
For Further Reading
Bibliography.
Introduction
Arundhati Roy's debut novel The
God of Small Things rapidly became a world-renowned literary sensation after it
was published in New Delhi in 1997. Immediately recognized as a passionate,
sophisticated, and lushly descriptive work, it won Britain's prestigious Booker
Prize and launched its author to international fame. The novel tells the story
of the Kochammas, a wealthy Christian family in a small village in the southern
Indian state of Kerala. Based loosely from the perspective of Rahel Kochamma,
who has returned to her hometown to see her twin brother, it pieces together
the story of the dramatic events of Rahel's childhood that drastically changed
the lives of everyone in the family.
The God of Small Things is an
ambitious work that addresses universal themes ranging from religion to
biology. Roy stresses throughout the novel that great and small themes are
interconnected, and that historical events and seemingly unrelated details have
far-reaching consequences throughout a community and country. The novel is
therefore able to comment simultaneously on universal, abstract themes, and a
wide variety of ideas relating to the personal and family history of the
members of the Kochamma family as well as the wider concerns of the Kerala
region of India. Some of the novel's most thoroughly developed themes are
forbidden love, Indian history, and politics. It is in love and politics that
Roy's carefully constructed, multifaceted narrative tends to dwell, and it is
when love, politics, and history combine that Roy is able to communicate her
most profound authorial insights.
Author Biography
Born circa 1960, Roy grew up in
Aymanam, a village in the state of Kerala, in southern India. Her father, a
Hindu tea planter from Bengal, was divorced from her Syrian Christian mother
when Roy was very young, and Roy was raised by her mother, who ran an informal
school. Roy left home when she was sixteen and lived in a squatter's colony in
New Delhi, selling empty beer bottles for a living. She eventually went to
architectural school and married a fellow student, Gerard Da Cunha. Both quit
their studies and moved to Goa, which is in Southwestern India. Roy eventually
left Da Cunha and moved back to New Delhi where she found a job at the National
Institute of Urban Affairs.
While living in New Delhi, Roy
met the film director Pradeep Krishen (whom she later married) and accepted a
small acting role that he offered. Soon afterwards, she traveled to Italy on a
scholarship to study monument restoration. Roy began to write screenplays while
she was in Italy, and she and Krishen later collaborated on a television series
that was cancelled after they had shot several episodes. She then wrote two
screenplays that became films, and she began to write prose until her critical
essay of the celebrated film Bandit Queen caused considerable controversy. Roy
withdrew to private life to work on her debut novel, which took her nearly five
years to complete.
The God of Small Things rapidly
became an international sensation, winning Britain's Booker Prize. After its
publication, Roy began to work as a political activist, writing essays and
giving speeches on a variety of issues, including capitalist globalization, the
rights of oppressed groups, and the negative influence of United States culture
and governmental policy on the rest of the world. She has been imprisoned for
her positions and activism, but she continues to fight for a variety of liberal
causes. Roy received the Sydney Peace Prize in November of 2004.
Summary and Analysis
Chapter 1
The God of Small Things begins
with Rahel returning to her childhood home in Ayemenem, India, to see her twin
brother Estha, who has been sent to Ayemenem by their father. Events flash back
to Rahel and Estha's birth and the period before their mother Ammu divorced
their father. Then the narrator describes the funeral of Sophie Mol, Rahel and
Estha's cousin, and the point after the funeral when Ammu went to the police
station to say that a terrible mistake had been made. Two weeks after this
point, Estha was returned to his father.
The narrator briefly describes
the twins' adult lives before they return to Ayemenem.
In the present, Baby Kochamma
gloats that Estha does not speak to Rahel just as he does not speak to anyone
else, and then the narrator gives an overview of Baby Kochamma's life. Rahel
looks out the window at the building that used to contain the family business,
Paradise Pickles and Preserves, and flashes back to the circumstances
surrounding Sophie Mol's death.
Chapters 2--4
The second chapter describes the
trip in which Rahel, Estha, Ammu, Chacko, and Baby Kochamma travel to the town
of Cochin in order to pick up Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol from the
airport. They are on the way to see The Sound of Music, but they are delayed at
a train crossing by a Marxist demonstration in which Rahel sees her friend
Velutha, who is a Paravan, or Untouchable Hindu, employed by the Kochamma
family. When she yells to him out the window, Ammu scolds her furiously.
Summary and Analysis
A flashback describes Velutha and
his relations with the Kochamma family, and then one of the protesters opens
Rahel's door and makes Baby Kochamma wave a Marxist flag. Before they drive
away, Chacko says that Ammu, Estha, and Rahel are "millstones around his
neck.” In chapter 3, which takes place in the present day, the narrator
describes the filthiness of the Ayemenem House. Estha comes home, goes
upstairs, and takes off his clothes to wash them while Rahel watches.
Chapter 4 continues the story of
the family trip at the point when they arrive at the movie theater. Ammu makes
Estha go to the lobby because he cannot resist singing along, and the
Orangedrink Lemondrink Man at the refreshments counter forces Estha to
masturbate him. The family leaves early because Ammu sees that Estha will be
sick, and on the way out she comments on the sweetness of the Orangedrink
Lemondrink Man. Rahel says "why don't you marry him, then?" Ammu
tells her that comments like these make people love you a little less. Rahel
worries that Ammu will love Sophie Mol more than her. The twins fall asleep
next to each other in Chacko's room.
Chapters 5--7
Back in the present day, the
narrator describes the filthiness of the river, just a stream now because of a
saltwater barrage, and the five-star hotel that has taken over the
"History House," which was formerly the home of an Englishman who
took on traditional Indian customs. Rahel then answers Comrade Pillai's
invasive questions and remembers his son Lenin.
In chapter 6, the family picks up
Margaret and Sophie Mol from the Cochin Airport. Baby Kochamma tells the twins
they are the ambassadors of India. Chacko happily introduces everyone, but
Estha does not say "How do YOU do?" as Ammu requests, and Rahel hides
behind a curtain. Ammu later scolds them angrily, and the twins talk with
Sophie Mol.
Chapters 2--4
Chapter 7 is in the present day,
when Rahel finds her and Estha's "Wisdom Exercise Notebooks" and
reads the corrections that Ammu made in them. She remembers Ammu's last visit
before she died and the lonely circumstances of her mother's death.
Chapters 8--11
When the family arrives at the
Ayemenem House with Margaret and Sophie Mol, the narrator compares the
situation to a play. Rahel escapes from the distribution of Sophie Mol's cake
to play with Velutha, and Ammu exchanges a meaningful glance with Velutha.
In chapter 9, Rahel remembers her
and Estha becoming friends with Sophie Mol, and, in the present day, she walks
into the abandoned factory. Chapter 10 describes Estha's thoughts while he
wandered from Sophie Mol's reception at the house and into the pickle factory.
He and Rahel decide to take a stockpile of things to the History House. The
twins find a boat by the river and Velutha helps them repair it. In chapter 11,
Ammu dreams of a one-armed man until the twins wake her, and she realizes that
Velutha is the man of whom she dreamed, the God of Small Things.
Chapters 12--15
In the present day, Rahel goes to
see the traditional kathakali dancing in the Ayemenem temple and Estha shows up
as well. Chapter 13 recalls the story of Margaret and Chacko's relationship and
then describes the circumstances leading up to Sophie Mol's drowning, beginning
with Vellya Paapen's visit to the Ayemenem House. Vellya Paapen tells Mammachi
of Velutha's affair with Ammu and offers to kill his son, and Mammachi shouts,
spits at him, and pushes him to the ground. Mammachi and Baby Kochamma then
manage to lock Ammu in her room, and the next morning they receive the news
that a white child was found drowned in the river.
Chapters 5--7
At the police station, Baby
Kochamma lies to Inspector Thomas Mathew that Velutha threatened them and tried
to force himself on Ammu. The inspector then interviews Comrade Pillai about
whether Velutha has any political support and, discovering that he does not,
instructs his men to attack Velutha.
In chapter 14, Chacko visits
Comrade Pillai and asks him about Velutha. Comrade Pillai, because of his own
ambitions in the Communist Party, tells Chacko that Velutha is a dangerous
party member who should be fired. Velutha comes to see Comrade Pillai, after
Mammachi screams at him and fires him, and Comrade Pillai tells Velutha that he
has no support from the party. In chapter 15, Velutha swims across the river to
the History House.
Chapters 16--20
The twins and Sophie Mol run away
from home in chapter 16, and Sophie Mol drowns after their boat tips over on
the way to the History House. Chapter 17, in the present day, describes Rahel
and Estha lying in bed, remembering their childhood. In chapter 18, the
Kottayam police find Velutha sleeping next to Rahel and Estha at the History
House, they and beat him until he is nearly dead.
Inspector Mathew interviews the
twins in chapter 19 and discovers that Velutha is innocent. He tells Baby
Kochamma that if the children do not identify Velutha as their abductor, he
will accuse Baby Kochamma of filing a false report. Baby Kochamma tells the
twins that they and Ammu will go to jail unless they accuse Velutha, and Estha
goes into Velutha's cell to condemn him. It is not until the next morning,
after Velutha has died, that Ammu goes to the police station to set the record
straight.
Chapter 20 describes the scene at
the train station when Estha is leaving for Calcutta, and then changes to the
present tense, when Estha and Rahel begin to make love. Chapter 21 flashes back
to the point at which Ammu finds Velutha at the river and she and Velutha make
love for the first time.
Chapters 12--15
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves Summary
Rahel returns to her childhood
home on a rainy summer's day after twenty-three years' absence. The reason that
she is coming back is to see her twin brother, Estha. The only members of her
family living in the house now are Baby Kochamma, Rahel's grandaunt, and Estha.
Rahel recalls how very close she and her twin were, like one spirit. The twins
are now thirty-one, the age that their mother was when she died. On entering
the house, Rahel sees the bright blue Plymouth parked outside. Thoughts,
memories and recollections come to her, with tastes, visions and smells.
Rahel's first memory is the day
of the funeral of her eight-year-old cousin, Sophie Mol. Rahel, Estha and their
mother Ammu stand alone and ignored in the church. The rest of the family
gathers close together in the family pew. Chacko, their uncle, is grieving
deeply over his daughter's death. Mammachi, his mother, grieves because her son
is grieving. Margaret Kochamma stands in mourning next to Chacko. Baby
Kochamma, their grandaunt, is solemnly singing hymns.
Young seven-year-old Rahel seems
not to believe that Sophie is dead. After the funeral, Ammu takes the children
to the police station, where she tries to speak to the officer in charge,
telling him that there has been a mistake. The officer insults Ammu and her
children, telling her that it is too late. Ammu cries that she has killed
"him." Ammu leaves her home soon after the funeral.
Two weeks after the funeral,
Estha is sent to live with his father in Calcutta, where he is put into a boy's
school. Estha has always been a quiet child, but slowly he becomes more and
more withdrawn until he never speaks at all to anyone. He silently helps with
the household chores. He silently shops at the market. He walks alone for miles
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves on end. He returns to his childhood house when his father goes to
work abroad. It is in this silent state that Rahel finds him, twenty-three
years after the tragedy. Rahel's presence, even though she is quiet, makes a
noisy disturbance in Estha's mind.
After Rahel's cousin's death,
Rahel stays in her family home until at the age of eleven she is sent to a
boarding school, where she is in constant trouble. She is expelled from this
school and the next two schools she goes to. When she finishes school, she is
admitted into a mediocre college of architecture in Delhi. She spends eight
years at the college until she meets an American whom she marries. They go to
live in the States. After a short while, the marriage falls apart, and Rahel
returns to India and to her family home.
In the twenty-three years that
followed Sophie's death, much has changed in the Kochamma home. Chacko,
Sophie's father, eventually emigrated from India to Canada. Mammachi, the
grandmother, has passed away.
This chapter also tells Baby
Kochamma's story. She is an elderly and bitter spinster.
As a young girl, she goes into
the convent to become a nun, but she does not take her vows. She falls
hopelessly in love with a priest who is very friendly with the family. The love
seems to be unrequited, but she lives in constant memory of that hopeless love.
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves Analysis
Rahel Kochamma returns to her
childhood home with mixed feelings, anxious to see her beloved twin brother.
She has not seen him for twenty-three years. The reader receives glimpses of
the past mixed with views of the present, just as if one were reading Rahel's
mind. Thought flows are interrupted and disconnected, and memories jump back
and forth. The author makes readers feel the depth of the tragedy, without
telling us what actually happened. In this chapter, Arundhati Roy gives us an
initial introduction to the main characters. This chapter also describes what
life is like in the Ayenemen house, twenty-three years after the death of a
child.
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves
Estha's deep silence seems to be
a reflection of some very deep pain and suffering. He has withdrawn from the
world. Rahel is a character no one can understand and no one can reach. Her
marriage falls apart because her husband feels that he cannot get through to
her; there are depths he can't reach. The reader realizes that there must be
many factors at play here, deeper than the untimely death of a young cousin.
Roy makes it clear that cultural,
political and historical backdrops are an intrinsic part of the characters and
their stories. What is the story about, and when did it begin? The author
explains the story's roots in the following final statement: "...it really
began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who
should be loved, and how. And how much."
Chapter 1, Paradise Pickles and
Preserves
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth
Summary
In this chapter, readers learn
more about the Kochamma family. They are a Syrian Christian family of upper
middle class. Ammu, the twins' mother, grows up in Delhi with her brother and
parents. When her father retires, the family goes to live in the small town
Ayemenem. After a couple of years, with nothing to do and no marriage proposals
in sight, Ammu goes to visit a distant cousin in Calcutta. There, she meets a
Bengalese Hindu who is the assistant manager at a tea estate in Assam. The
couple is married and moves to Assam. Soon, Ammu discovers her husband's
drinking and his violent nature. Upon the threat of being fired, he is willing
to let his English boss take Ammu as a mistress. This is when Ammu walks away
from her marriage, gets a divorce and goes home to her parents' house with her
baby twins.
The twins' grandfather, Pappachi,
is an Imperial Entomologist working for the Pusa Institute. His full name is
Benaan John Ipe, and he is the son of a reverend who founds a school for the
Untouchables. He is a bitter man who beats his wife. Part of his bitterness
comes about when he discovers a new species of moth; however, it is not
recognized as a species by other scientists. Years later, another entomologist
claims the same discovery and receives the glory.
Chacko is a Rhodes scholar who
studies at Oxford. There he meets Margaret, who he falls in love with and
marries. After a short time, Margaret can no longer take the cultural differences
between them or his instability, and she asks for a divorce shortly after their
baby girl is born. Margaret marries another man with a more stable position.
When Margaret's second husband dies, Chacko invites her and their daughter out
to India for the Christmas holidays. A change of air will help them to recover
from their loss, he says.
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth
Mammachi, the grandmother, makes very good pickles and preserves, which she
begins to sell. With this, she builds up a profitable little business. The
business has no name until her son Chacko returns home after his father's
death. Chacko buys machines, increases employees and takes out loans to expand
the business. Paradise Pickles and Preserves is soon badly indebted.
One of the factory employees is
Velutha, a black man. In the caste-ridden Hindu and Christian Indian society,
Velutha is a Paravan, or an Untouchable. He lives with his father and paralyzed
brother in a hut by the river. Mammachi first notices Velutha when he is
eleven, because Velutha is good with his hands. He makes toys and decorations
out of tapioca stems and cashew nuts. He respectfully presents these to Ammu,
who is three years older than he is. Mammachi takes Velutha under her wing, and
he does odd jobs around the house. He completes a carpentry course with some
German missionaries, where he also learns to read and write, even though his
social caste does not allow him to be a carpenter. He is also very good with
machines and becomes a very valuable employee, though he cannot have any
position of authority. The twins love Velutha, who teaches them to fish. They
are forbidden to visit him, but they do anyway. He is their friend.
Velutha s father, Vellya Paapen,
fears Velutha's self-confidence and assuredness. It is Vellya Paapen who tells
Mammachi of Velutha's hidden love affair. Baby Kochamma overhears this
confession from the next room.
In this chapter, the reader also
accompanies the Kochamma family on their way into Delhi to pick up Chacko's
ex-wife Margaret and daughter Sophie. The family decides to make a holiday of
it. The plan is to go to the cinema to watch The Sound of Music once again and
then to pick Sophie and her mother up at the airport the next day.
On the drive into Delhi, in the
blue Plymouth, the family is delayed by a communist manifestation. Even though
Chacko is a self proclaimed Marxist, due to their social position, the family
is very uncomfortable about communists. One manifestor forces a red communist
flag into Baby Kochamma's hand. Therefore, it is very upsetting when
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth the
twins say they recognize Velutha in the crowd of manifestors.
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth
Analysis
The author has a fascinating way
of jumping from the past to the present. Rahel's disconnected memories give readers
a further glimpse and hints of the tragedy that is about to unravel. In this
chapter, the reader gets a very close insight into the complex Indian social
caste and religious system. The society is not only divided into castes, but
there is religious separation. Christianity does little to improve the lot of
the Untouchables or pariahs. Actually, it worsens their situation. They become
neither one thing nor the other, but remain Untouchable by all.
The Hindus keep their Indian or
Kerala traditions. Chacko mentions that the Kochamma family members are
Anglophiles. They follow the English traditions and make a point of speaking
the English language perfectly. Still, they are not accepted by the English.
Social, cultural, idealistic and religious discrimination and racism run strong
in all sects of the Indian society.
Chapter 2, Pappachi's Moth
Chapter 3, Big Man the Laltain,
Small Man the Mombatti
Chapter 3, Big Man the Laltain,
Small Man the Mombatti Summary
The author takes the reader back
to the day that Rahel returns home to Ayenemen to see her long-lost brother.
The house is filthy, and Baby Kochamma has taken to watching television all
day. Rahel is waiting to see her brother Estha, who has been out walking for
hours in the rain. When he comes in, he looks neither at Rahel or Baby, but he
walks silently straight to his spotlessly clean and neat room. Rahel follows
and watches while Estha peels off his sopping clothes in the bathroom and
washes them in a bucket of water. Rahel reaches and touches Estha's ear, but
Estha ignores her.
Chapter 3, Big Man the Laltain,
Small Man the Mombatti Analysis
This chapter portrays a very
strong and poignant scene. The twins, who were inseparable when they were young
children to the point that they considered themselves the one and same person,
now see each other after twenty-three years of compete separation. Rahel's
vision of him is mixed. At the same time, she sees him as a brother, a son, a
man, a stranger and a twin. Estha's silence tells the reader of his pain.
Chapter 3, Big Man the Laltain,
Small Man the Mombatti
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies
Summary
The author takes the reader back
to 1969, and the Kochammas happily finally arrive at the cinema house to watch
The Sound of Music. Chacko drops the ladies and children off, while he goes to
make arrangements at the hotel. After the long drive and the delay caused by
the communist manifestation, the movie has already begun. The children are
excited.
The twins love this film. When
the singing begins, Estha can't contain himself and sings along in a loud
voice. The other spectators, disturbed, hush him. He tries to keep quiet but
can't, so he asks his mother if he can go outside to the lobby to sing. Out in
the lobby, he sings his heart out, waking up the soft drink vendor (the
Orangedrink Lemondrink Man). The sleazy-looking vendor speaks to the little boy
in a threatening way, asking him a series of question about himself and his
family. Estha, frightened, innocently answers. The vendor then forces the boy
to have a drink. He also forces the boy to hold his penis. Folding his own hand
over Estha's, the vendor masturbates. Estha feels defiled and disgusted. He
rushes back into the theater.
The twins think together as they
watch the film about the lovely clean white children, and they feel that they
do not come up to par with the film characters. They feel that they will also
not come up to par with their white, half-English cousin, Sophie. These
thoughts together with the ugly experience with the soft drink vendor make
Estha feel physically ill. He feels like vomiting and runs up a fever. The
family leaves the cinema house in the middle of the movie because he is sick.
They want him to be well for Sophie. On the way out, the drink vendor maliciously
says that he will go to Ayemenem to visit. This terrifies poor little Estha,
who doesn't have the courage to tell his mother what has happened. Ammu, who
thinks the man is just being polite, comments on how nice he seems. Rahel
sasses her mother by asking why she doesn't marry the man if she thinks he is
so nice. Ammu is furious and tells Rahel that she has
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies made
her mother love her a little bit less.
At the hotel that night, the
children and Chacko have a hard time falling asleep, mainly because of the
impending visit of Sophie and Margaret Kochamma. Chacko still loves his ex-wife
and daughter, even though he has hardly seen the little girl. Chacko is also
worried about communist rumblings in the factory, even though he supposedly is
a Marxist himself. The children are reliving Estha's unpleasant experience at
the movies.
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies
Analysis
Innocence is stolen from a small
and happy boy. This child abuse makes Estha feel dirty, insecure and unloved.
Rahel, through telepathy, knows and feels exactly what Estha goes through. The
whole world changes for the twins. They now feel unworthy and inferior. These
happenings make the children worry even more about the arrival of the English
cousin, whom everyone will love. On top of it all, Rahel gets into trouble with
her mother, who threatens her with less love. Will they be loved less? Will
they lose their mother's love? Will everyone love their cousin more?
Chapter 4, Abhilash Talkies
Chapter 5, God's Own Country
Chapter 5, God's Own Country
Summary
The author takes the reader back
to Rahel's return to her childhood home and memories. She takes a walk along
the river. She sees the familiar old sights. The History House is on the other
side of the river, now a hotel. She stops to speak to Comrade Pillai. He was
the leader of the Communist Party years before. The chat brings back more
childhood memories, such as when Pillai's son, Lenin and Rahel coincidentally
found themselves at the same clinic at the same time to remove objects they had
shoved up their noses.
Pillai shows Rahel a photo taken
those many years ago with herself, Estha, Sophie Mol and Lenin outside the
Ayemenem house. In the photo, taken by Chacko, Sophie is posing with a thimble
in her mouth and a set of false teeth made out of lime peel. She is wearing
bell-bottoms. The other children are standing stiffly with their hands at their
sides and frozen smiles on their faces. The photo was taken just a few days
before Sophie died. Rahel recalls that at the time Sophie was arguing that
Rahel and Estha were probably bastards. Pillai doesn't really recall the
incidents of so many years ago. He remembers that something happened, a death
and a scandal, but not exactly what. He's not really that interested either.
Chapter 5, God's Own Country
Analysis
Returning after many years is
always difficult. Some things change, while others remain exactly the same.
Details that are unimportant to some have a tremendous meaning to others.
Seeing the photo brings back further details of the tragedy. Childhood
incidents, which seem unimportant to adults, can remain in one's memory with
enhanced importance. The difference in clothing and behavior of the twins and
their cousin Sophie is beginning to become evident.
Chapter 5, God's Own Country
"She arrived on the
Bombay-Cochin flight. Hatted, bell-bottomed and Loved from the Beginning.” The
last sentence of this chapter is also very revealing of how the twins initially
feel about their cousin. They see her with awe, love and jealousy. In this
chapter, as in the others, the author is giving us glimpses of life in India.
Chapter 5, God's Own Country
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos
Summary
Sophie Mol and her mother
Margaret finally arrive. The family is at the airport to receive them. The
twins have been reminded so many times lately to be on their best behavior that
they are nervous and very timid. Everyone is dressed in their very best.
The children are fascinated by
the airport and especially with the concrete trashcans shaped like kangaroos.
The airport is crowded, mainly with people of all classes waiting for those who
work abroad to come home for the holiday season. By Baby Kochamma's comments
and behavior, it is quite obvious that the Kochamma family feels superior.
When finally Margaret and Sophie
arrive, everyone is feeling a bit nervous and uncomfortable. Chacko makes a
point of formally introducing everyone. Baby Kochamma, in her typical snobbish
way, immediately broaches the subject of Shakespeare, trying to impress the
little girl. When Estha answers, "Fine thank you," to Sophie's,
"How do you do?" he is publicly corrected by his mother. Ammu insists
that he repeat the correct form of speech, but Estha stubbornly refuses,
further angering his mother. When Rahel is introduced, she hides behind a
curtain in shyness. This behavior infuriates and embarrasses Ammu.
The children are left to their
own devices, and they soon seem to get along, talking about things that only
other children understand. They make lists of the people they love best. On
Rahel and Estha's list, the first is Ammu, then Chacko, Mammachi and then
Velutha. After Velutha, they add Sophie to the list of people they love, simply
because she is their cousin.
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos
Analysis
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos
This chapter brings out clearly
the complex and deep-rooted social class structure. The Kochammas have an
ingrained snobbishness. They are educated people, and they are very concerned
with speaking English and keeping up English traditions and manners, even
though they are Indian.
Small and seemingly unimportant
things build up in a child's mind. They see things in a different way. Love to
them is a very important thing. They consider how much they are loved, whom
they love, and who loves them. These are all serious issues. The difference
between the twins and their cousin is that the twins love Sophie simply because
she is their cousin. Their Uncle Chacko, who they love, loves her. They have
been taught to love her. They love simply and freely.
Chacko loves his daughter very
much, but Sophie feels nothing for him. Has she not been encouraged to love
him? Does she simply not love him because her mother no longer loves him?
Chapter 6, Cochin Kangaroos
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks Summary
Rahel, as an adult, finds her
childhood treasures hidden in the same place she left them years before. Estha
silently watches her, thinking of trains. Amongst the treasures she finds their
old school notebooks, where the twins did their first lessons. In Estha's
notebook, he wrote a happy little story about his mother's birthday. They gave
Ammu a diary as a present, and then they lay on the bed talking and had a
little feast. It was such a happy scene Estha had written about.
Rahel sadly recalls the last time
she saw her mother. Rahel was eleven at the time and already being expelled
from school. No longer living in Ayemenem because Chacko said she had destroyed
enough already, Ammu was weak and sick with asthma. She couldn't keep a job
because of her illness. When she came back to visit that time, she brought
presents for Rahel that she really couldn't afford. She told Rahel of her plans
to get a good job and rent a room so that her two children and her could be united
again. Ammu's sick bloated face, endless coughing and phlegm disgusted Rahel at
the time. When Ammu left, Rahel didn't see her to the door. She never saw her
mother again. Ammu died shortly after the visit, alone in a little lodging room
in a strange town. Ammu was cremated. Rahel was at the cremation, with her
Uncle Chacko holding her hand. Estha was not brought from his father's. The
family wrote to him about his mother's death. Rahel recalls that Ammu always
said that she loved them doubly because she had to be their mother and father.
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks Analysis
In this chapter, the author shows
readers part of the very sad consequences of a tragedy. The reader does not yet
know what happened or how it happened. All the reader knows is that a young
girl died those many years ago. The depth of the tragedy can be felt in simple
scenes, as Rahel looks at old notebooks, as Chacko holds Rahel's
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks hand at the cremation and as Estha is left out of it all. The author
imbues these small scenes with an amazing depth of feeling.
Chapter 7, Wisdom Exercise
Notebooks
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie Mol
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie Mol Summary
The reader is taken back to the
day that Sophie arrives. Mammachi is waiting to receive them all. Though blind,
she still manages to play the violin and does so now. Mammachi has a very soft
spot in her heart for her son Chacko, especially as once he stopped Pappachi
from beating her. She knows that her son has affairs and relationships with the
girls at the factory. She has had a separate entrance to his room made so that
he can care for his "Men's Needs."
Kochu Maria, the maid, has baked
a cake for Sophie. Kochu raises Sophie's hands to her face and smells them. Both
Sophie and Margaret are taken aback by this gesture. It is explained that this
is a local habit, like kissing. Margaret asks whether that is how men and women
kiss. Ammu makes a sarcastic reply, arousing Chacko's anger. The atmosphere is
stilted and uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, Rahel sees Velutha
walk by the terrace. She runs outside to play with him. Ammu watches admiringly
as Rahel rides on Velutha's strong black back. Ammu is surprised at the easy
relationship that exists between the man and her children. Ammu recalls when
Velutha was a child. Chacko mentions that he thought Rahel and Velutha were too
familiar.
A big fuss is made of Sophie and
Margaret. Rahel, in her child's mind, calls the welcoming the Play. To her,
they are all playacting. While Sophie is being fussed over, Rahel and Estha are
practically ignored.
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie Mol Analysis
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie MolThis chapter highlights different cultures, different habits and
different colors. Both the newcomers from England and the family expecting them
have differences that take them by surprise and need adapting to. The Kochammas
are proud of their English relatives, while Sophie, though not actually
ashamed, does not accept her Indian family so easily.
Chapter 8, Welcome Home Our
Sophie Mol
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs Rajagopalan
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan Summary
This chapter starts back with
Rahel as an adult. She is at a loose end. She has no definite plans. Having
just come back from the States, Rahel has only seven hundred dollars and a gold
bangle. Baby Kochamma is pressuring her, asking how long she is planning to
stay. More importantly, she is asking what Rahel is going to do about Estha.
Baby Kochamma has become a TV
addict and bought herself a satellite dish. She watches the TV all day. Rahel
wonders idly if she and Estha could go and live in the dish, or whether the
world's happenings would invade their privacy. Rahel's thoughts take her back
to her childhood. Sophie Mol Rahel and Estha are quite pleased with Sophie
because she does nothing to endear herself to the family. Sophie tells Chacko
that she loves him less than Joe, her mother's second husband. She turns down
Mammachi and Baby Kochamma's overtures. To top it all off, she cries because
she is lonely.
At this point, the twins decide
to let Sophie join in their play games. They all dress up in saris and go to
visit Velutha. They pretend to be Mrs. Pillai, Mrs. Eapen and Mrs. Rajagopalan.
Velutha receives them and plays with them. He whittles them each a little
spoon. The children paint Velutha's nails with red nail varnish. Rahel recalls
the Touchable policeman making fun of Velutha's painted nails. Rahel remembers
that Velutha was the only true victim of the tragic day.
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan Analysis
When the twins realize that their
cousin is no threat to them, they allow her into their
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan life and play games. They do this not because they like
her and not because they feel sorry for her, but simply because she will not
make them be loved any less. The author shows us children's simple logic. Is
this always the rule for humans? Do we only accept those who are not a threat
to us?
In this chapter, the scene shows
a big, strong adult playing with three little children. His generosity to these
kids is very touching. Velutha is open and receptive to their innocent playing.
Even though he is an Untouchable and they represent the top echelons of
society, Velutha shows no resentment to them or their social class. He goes out
of his way to make them happy.
Chapter 9, Mrs. Pillai, Mrs.
Eapen, Mrs. Rajagopalan
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
Summary
The incident with the soft drink
vendor affects Estha badly. He is always afraid the "Orangedrink
Lemondrink Man” will walk in at any moment to find him. Estha is in the pickle
preserve kitchen, his favorite thinking place. His thoughts are actually very
deep for a seven-year-old. "Anything can happen to Anyone. ... It's best
to be prepared." These two thoughts determine his actions. Estha picks up
the communist flag given to Baby and decides to prepare to be prepared. If the
soft drink vendor comes, Estha will need a place to go. This is when he decides
to slowly start taking a few little things out of the house to the riverside.
Estha finds his way to the river
and sits outside Velutha's house. He waits for Rahel. When Rahel joins him,
they plant the flag in front of Velutha's hut and sit on a hump in the grass.
The twins look at what they are sitting on and discover it is an old boat.
The twins can swim very well and
can cross the river easily. They have been taught to do so by Chacko. They need
the boat to take things in, though, so they pick up the little boat and put it
in the river. They see it sink. Not discouraged, they pick up the boat and head
to Velutha's hut. The hut is tiny but clean. It contains things that have been
discarded from the Kochamma household.
Only Velutha's bedridden brother,
Kuttapen, is at home. The children show Kuttapen the old boat and ask his
advice. He tells them to plug the holes. Velutha returns home to find the
children. He helps them fix the boat, but he warns them not to do anything
dangerous. Velutha looks at the twins lovingly and sees their mother in them.
This will be the boat that Ammu uses to meet her love on the other side of the
river.
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
Analysis
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
In this chapter, the author shows
the very precarious and sad living conditions of the Paravan or Untouchables.
Kuttapen has been paralyzed and bedridden for years. His mother died in the
same corner of the four-cornered hut. They have no medical help and no support.
The author mentions that Kuttapen is a good, safe Paravan, or Untouchable. He
does not know how to read or write. Apparently, he cannot upset the established
order. He is an Untouchable who apparently keeps to his own place. At the end
of the chapter, he has a short conversation with Velutha, showing his concern
that the twins might have seen him in the demonstration, which shows the reader
that Kuttapen is not as ignorant as he might seem.
The story is slowly unfolding.
The love and friendship the children have for Velutha, the Untouchable, can
only bring heartbreak in a caste-ridden society. It also is becoming evident
that Velutha has deep feelings for Ammu, who he has known since childhood.
Chapter 10, The River in the Boat
Chapter 11, The God of Small Things
Chapter 11, The God of Small
Things Summary
The twins come back to the house
to find their mother asleep in a deep dream. At the beginning of her dream,
Ammu is with a cheerful one-armed man. He is holding her close. There is
tenderness. There is confusion. The man with her leaves no footsteps in the
sand and no ripples in the water. He is the God of Small Things.
The children are frightened by
Ammu's changing sleeping expressions, and so they wake her up by make small
noises and disturbances in the room. When she wakes, she tells them she was
dreaming. On seeing the twins, Ammu realizes that they have been at Velutha's.
Without mentioning his name, she gently reprimands them for having gone to his
house. At this moment, she becomes aware of her feelings for him.
The twins lie down with their
heads on her tummy and ask her questions about the day they were born. They
spend very tender and loving moments. Ammu rises and locks herself in the
bathroom. Here, she slowly studies her body and the firmness of her breasts.
The dream has aroused her. She is a young woman still. At that moment, she sees
her future as a loveless dead end in the pickle factory. She longs for the
unknown and for adventure.
Ammu cannot foresee that a few
days later, four days after the funeral, Chacko, crazed with grief, will expel
her from the house. She does not foresee that she will be packing Estha's
belongings in a trunk and promising to write to him. She will be making her
children promise to always love each other.
Chapter 11, The God of Small
Things Analysis
With each chapter, the author
makes the reader feel the depth of the tragedy, even though the story is not
yet told. This chapter shows us the extreme love between
Chapter 11, The God of Small
Things
Ammu and her two-egged twins.
Readers also realize that Ammu is a young and beautiful woman, trapped in a
humdrum life. She has her womanly desires and needs. It becomes evident that
somehow her womanhood is to play an important part in the tragedy which is
unfolding.
Chapter 11, The God of Small
Things
Chapter 12, Kochu Thomban
Chapter 12, Kochu Thomban Summary
Rahel makes her way to the temple
to take a coconut to the temple elephant, Kochu Thomban. The elephant has aged.
That night, the kathakali performers come to the Ayemenem temple. Kathakali are
storyteller performers who put on all-night plays. The kathakali are a part of
the old Indian culture, and nowadays, they are being forgotten and pushed
aside. When once children were proud of their kathakali parents; now they deride
them. The modern day world has no more room for them. The kathakali have become
part of the Regional Flavor, and their audience is made up mostly of tourists.
Tonight, Rahel watches the
performers act out their dramatic story of love and violence. Estha silently
joins her. Now once again as adults, their silent communication is at work.
When the play is over, the two walk silently back to the house. On their way
back, they run into Pillai, who was the first to take them as children to see
the kathakali. Pillai is pleased to see they are still interested in Indian
culture. The twins ignore him.
Chapter 12, Kochu Thomban
Analysis
In previous chapters, the reader
has been made aware of how close the twins were as small children. How they
feel as if they are one person. They have now been separated from each other
for twenty-three years. Their lives have taken them to completely different
places. They are now different people. Estha, who was a very smart, talkative
and alert boy, is now a silent and withdrawn man. Rahel, who was once a happy
and curious little girl, is now an adult who does not know where she belongs.
However, the silent and telepathic communication still exists.
Chapter 12, Kochu Thomban
30
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist Summary
Little Sophie Mol wakes in
Chacko's room and feels lonely and homesick. Chacko has temporarily moved out
of his room so that his ex-wife and daughter can use it during their visit. On
the bedside table, there is a photo of Chacko and Margaret's wedding day. The
only family member present that day was Margaret's mother. Her father did not
approve of the marriage, as he disliked Indians.
The reader now learns Chacko and
Margaret's story. While Chacko is a Rhodes scholar, Margaret is a waitress in
an Oxford cafy. An untidy and cheerful Chacko first strolls into the cafy, and
after giving his order, he strikes up a conversation with Margaret. He tells
her the story of the man who has twin sons, one a pessimist and the other an
optimist. The man gives the pessimist son a watch, a carpentry set and a
bicycle for his birthday. To the optimist, he gives a room full of dung. The
pessimist complains about all the presents. The optimist is anxiously looking
for the pony that has created the dung.
This story brings on a laughing
fit from Margaret. This is the beginning of a happy friendship, deepening into
love and marriage. Margaret is Chacko's first female friend and first lover.
They get married to her family's disapproval and his family's ignorance. When
they wed, Chacko has just lost his scholarship, so they live in a very tight
financial situation. Just after their baby Sophie is born, Margaret leaves
Chacko for a more stable partner. Chacko, broken hearted, returns to India. They
keep up correspondence, though, and over the years, they establish a very
strong friendship. When her second husband dies, Margaret is devastated, so
Chacko invites her out to India for a change of air. She accepts the
invitation, but it is a decision she will always regret, as she sees her little
daughter laid out in a coffin. She never forgives herself for
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist leaving her little daughter in Ayemenem while she and Chacko go off
for two days to Cochin to confirm her passage home.
The author now takes the reader
to the morning when Mammachi and Baby Kochamma receive the news that a little
white girl's body has been found floating in the river. Rahel and Estha still
have not been found. When the three children do not appear for breakfast, Baby
Kochamma goes to the room that Ammu was locked in to ask if she knows where the
children are. Ammu goes into a panic, remembering the last words she spoke to
the twins. The twins came to her bedroom door and asked why she was locked in.
Emotionally upset and not measuring the consequences of her words, she put the
blame on them, telling them to go away and leave her alone.
On that rainy afternoon Vellya
Paapen, Velutha's father, appears on the Kochammas' doorstep in a very excitable
state. Even though Koch Maria tries to send him away, he insists on staying to
speak to Mammachi. When he does speak to her, he first humbly tells Mammachi
how much she has done for him and how his family is indebted to her. He then
tells her how Velutha has shamed him. Crying, Vellya tells how he saw Ammu
crossing the river to meet Velutha in the History House. Ammu and Velutha are
lovers.
Mammachi and Baby Kochamma are
shocked and disgusted. Baby wonders how Ammu could stand the smell. How will
the family get over the scandal of an affair with an Untouchable? They concoct
a plan. First, they lock Ammu into her room.
They then send for Velutha to get
him to leave Ayemenem before the scandal gets out.
The next morning, Baby goes to
the police station and reports how they have to fire their employee, Velutha,
since he tried to force himself on Ammu. She invents that he has threatened the
family. She goes as far as to hint that now Sophie's drowned body has been
found, and the twins are missing. Little does she know that eventually Ammu
will go to the police to try to set things straight.
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist With this information in hand, the chief of police first checks with
Pillai. Pillai does not mention that Velutha is a member of the Communist
Party. He also does not say that the Untouchable passed by his house on the
previous evening and denied the rape charges. Pillai does tell the officer that
Velutha does not have the patronage or protection of the Communist Party. The
chief then gives the orders to his force.
Chacko and Margaret return from
Cochin to find their daughter dead. They are naturally devastated. Margaret
takes out her anger on the twins and for some odd reason puts the blame on
Estha. Some time later, she writes to apologize for this. By that time, Estha
has been sent to his father and Ammu has been expelled from the house. Margaret
has no thought for or recollection of Velutha. "He left no footprints in
the sand and no ripples in the water."
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist Analysis
In this chapter, the reader
learns more about the facts. A little girl drowns. An upper class woman has an
affair with an Untouchable. How do these facts relate? What is the worst
tragedy for the family? It seems that the possible social scandal is the very
worst thing that can happen. Just the thought of an upper class woman making
love to an Untouchable is disgusting to the family.
The caste system is deeply
ingrained. Velutha is considered a nothing in the end. He is helped by the
family, and in his turn he proves himself hardworking and intelligent. The
Kochammas consider themselves a strong Christian family. The grandfather founds
a school for the Paravan. However, if a Paravan dares touch an upper-class
woman, if he dares think he has rights, he is immediately scorned.
Chapter 13, The Pessimist and the
Optimist
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
Summary
This chapter takes us to the day
after the communist march. Chacko, concerned about the situation of his workers
and the fact that Velutha has been seen in the manifestation, goes to speak to
Mr. Pillai, the Communist Party leader in Ayemenem. Pillai is also the owner of
a printing shop, and he does label printing work for the Kochamma's Paradise
Preserve and Pickle business.
To begin with, Chacko asks about
the march and its success. Chacko is, after all, a known Marxist sympathizer.
Just in order to know how things stand, Chacko asks about Velutha. Pillai
admits that he is a good Communist Party worker and that he holds a Communist
Party card. However, he warns that the Paravan is going to be trouble and goes
so far as to advise Chacko to get rid of Velutha. This takes Chacko aback,
especially as Velutha is such a valuable factory worker.
Pillai explains that the caste
system is so strong that the other workers do not accept a Paravan working with
them. They get especially jealous because Velutha is such a good worker, and he
maintains a privileged position with the Kochammas. Chacko is very surprised by
this attitude. He tells Pillai that Velutha is irreplaceable and that
communists should be against the caste system. Sincerely concerned with the
well being of his factory workers, he suggests to Pillai that the factory
organize a workers' union, where the workers will elect their own
representatives. Pillai refuses this offer, saying that the workers have to
organize themselves and fight their own battles.
A few days later, Velutha answers
Mammachi's summons and goes to the Kochamma household. Mammachi passionately
riles him, insults him, spits in his face and fires him. Baby Kochamma silently
supports Mammachi's tirade against Velutha. The foul language that the educated
lady uses is shocking. Finally, Mammachi threatens to "castrate him like a
pariah dog" if he ever appears again. To all this, stunned Velutha
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
answers, "We'll see."
Stunned, Velutha goes to the only
place he feels he can find protection - the Communist Party. Arriving at
Pillai's house, Velutha is shunned. Pillai informs him that the Party is not
responsible for personal lack of discipline. The Party will not defend him; it
is not in the Party's interest to take up a Paravan cause. Pillai already knows
about Velutha's affair, and so do his wife and the whole village.
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
Analysis
The author is very strongly
criticized by the Communist Party in India. In this chapter, readers begin to
see why. This chapter shows clearly how ideology is manipulated for political
interests, but not to defend the individual. Here two people's ideals are
betrayed. At first, Chacko's sincere wish to help the laboring class in his own
factory is refused. At one moment, according to interests, he is an important
Communist Party supporter, and at the next he is marked as a capitalist
oppressor. Pillai also betrays Velutha. Velutha, who thinks that at least as a
Communist Party member, he will be treated as an equal, is proved wrong. Once
one is a Paravan, one is always a Paravan.
Chapter 14, Work Is Struggle
Chapter 15, The Crossing
Chapter 15, The Crossing Summary
It is past midnight when Velutha
goes to the river. He removes his clothes and swims naked to the other side. He
goes to the History House. He is naked but for his nail varnish. He tells
himself that things will get worse, and then they will get better.
Chapter 15, The Crossing Analysis
Velutha's world has just fallen
apart. He has nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He is an anguished young
man. The swim across the river soothes his anguish.
Chapter 15, The Crossing
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later
Summary
The three children are on the
riverbank. They put their little boat into the water. They are running away
from home. They put extra provisions in the little boat. For two weeks, they
have been taking little things down to the river as a precaution. Estha fears
that the Orangedrink Lemondrink man will come to get him.
The twins remember Ammu's angry
words when she sent them away. They contemplate whether they would return home
if Ammu came after them and asked them to. They decide that she would have to
beg. Sophie Mol has convinced Estha and Rahel to let her come along with them.
The three get into the boat and
start crossing the river. In the middle of the river, the boat runs into a log
and turns over. The boat is swept with the current. The twins manage to swim to
the shore. Sophie doesn't. The brother and sister run up and down the riverbank
looking for their cousin. By four o'clock in the morning, they are exhausted.
They go to the verandah of the History House and lay down to sleep. They don't
see the man sleeping near them.
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later
Analysis
Three children run away from
home. The reasons they go are diverse and complex. Estha has been nervous ever
since the incident at the cinema house. His mother's angry words just top it
off. For weeks, he has been preparing for something.
"Anything can happen at any
time." This he instinctively knows. He just doesn't realize how deep a
tragedy could affect them so suddenly.
Rahel just wants to be loved.
Sophie wants adventure. She is lonely and wants to be accepted by her cousins.
The children run from their protected world to what in their
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later
childish innocence they think is
safety. They have no idea of the real dangers. They are immortal. They know how
to swim. They know all the tricks of the river. They never imagined that
tragedy could happen. They are only very small children.
Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus Summary
Years after the tragedy, life at
the Kochamma household has changed. With only Baby Kochamma and the cook Kochu
Maria in the house, everything is run down and no longer cared for. The blue
Plymouth is stopped outside unused, and the garden is overrun and uncared for.
All Baby Kochamma and Kochu Maria do all day is to watch the television. Baby
still pines over the priest, Father Mulligan, who she has been in love with
since she was a young novice. He has kept up correspondence with her over the
years. Four years before Rahel and Estha's return, the priest passed away. To
date, Baby starts her diary each day with "P love you."
The Paradise Pickle and Preserve
factory no longer exists. It has been taken over by the communists. Comrade
Pillai claims that the management falsely accused Velutha of kidnapping to the
police because he was a Communist Party member. The Communist Party alleges
that Velutha was accused in order to stop union activities in the factory.
Baby Kochamma worries about how
long Rahel and Estha will be staying and what they are doing. The twins after
twenty-three years are once again inseparable. Rahel reminds Estha of their
mother. He recalls the day he took that lonely train ride to live with his father.
His mother said goodbye to her little boy alone on a big train. The train
station was full of people: hungry people, homeless people, blind and sick
people. An acquaintance of the family was supposed to care for the boy on the
train. Ammu tried to think that it was for the best. Chacko expelled her. The
family said they could only keep one twin. Estha was sent to his father.
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus Analysis
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus
The author here shows the
hypocrisy and manipulation of idealism. Velutha, who was betrayed by Pillai, is
transformed into a martyr for the communist cause. Any situation can be used
for political manipulation.
Chapter 17, Cochin Harbor
Terminus
Chapter 18, The History House
Chapter 18, The History House Summary
The story returns to the tragic
day. Six policemen cross the river to find Velutha, accused of abduction. They
invade the History House where Velutha and the twins are sleeping, totally
unaware of each other's presence. The children are on one side of the verandah,
and Velutha is on the other. The police kick Velutha awake. The children watch
horrified while the Paravan is mercilessly beaten. They try to convince
themselves that it is not Velutha they are seeing beaten. They don't know why
he is being beaten. There is no need to beat the man like that, but the police
do so anyway.
The police have no reason to beat
Velutha so terribly. They crack his skull in three places and smash his nose
and cheekbones. They splinter four ribs, piercing his lung. His intestine is
ruptured. His spine is damaged, and both kneecaps are broken. Then, he is
handcuffed and dragged off. This all happens in the presence of the two small
children.
After the beating, the police
turn to the children and treat them gently. Only then do they ask if the
children are well and if they have been harmed. The police take the things that
the kids have been stashing away over the days, toys and pens, to give to their
own children.
Chapter 18, The History House
Analysis
Is senseless brutality and
savagery also a part of men's needs? What is it that brings about such
violence? One wonders whether it is fear that one educated Paravan who dares
touch a Touchable could upset a whole caste system that ingrained in the Indian
culture. It could be that the fury is aroused by deep hidden frustrations in
the policemen's own lives. They may be jealous that this Untouchable has the
courage not to abjectly accept the social condition imposed on him. It could
also be that the life of
Chapter 18, The History House
a Paravan is worth nothing. He
can be kicked around like a stray dog. The Untouchables are considered less
than human. Most likely, a combination of all these factors leads to the
beating.
Chapter 18, The History House
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu Summary
The children are taken to the
police station, where they are given soft drinks. Inspector Thomas Mathew, the
same one who heard Baby Kochamma's accusation, now questions the twins. Soon he
realizes that a terrible mistake has been made. Velutha had not kidnapped them.
Sophie's death was an accident.
The police officer has Baby
Kochamma brought to him. He coldly explains to her that Velutha has committed
no crime. Baby mentions the rape charges, but these would have to be placed by
the supposed victim, Ammu. Mathew explains that Velutha will more than likely
die from his beating. The police are in a very delicate situation. They beat an
innocent man. The older lady assures the officer that she will solve it. While
Mathew goes to get the children, Baby says her prayers.
The twins are brought to her. She
accuses the two seven-year-old children of murder. She claims that they have
always been jealous of Sophie and that they forced her to go with them. She
goes so far as to accuse them of throwing Sophie out of the boat. Baby then
threatens the children with prison, not only for them but for Ammu too. She
tells the children that Velutha is going to die anyway. They must save Ammu
from prison by simply going with the police and answering yes to one question.
The frightened children agree to save Ammu.
The policeman takes Estha to the
dark cell where Velutha is. The prisoner looks at the child and tries to smile.
The little boy answers yes to the question. The light is turned off, and Velutha
is left along in the dark. The children try to convince themselves that it
wasn't Velutha, but an imaginary twin brother. Velutha does not make it through
the night. Just after midnight, he dies. His body is dumped in the pauper's
pit.
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu
Baby Kochamma is shocked when
Ammu goes to the police after Sophie's funeral to try to put things right. She
never thought that Ammu would expose her affair with Velutha and shame the
family. She decides that Ammu must leave. Baby works on Chacko's deep grief to
convince him that Ammu and her children are to blame for his little daughter's
death. Baby manages to convince Chacko to send Ammu away.
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu Analysis
The lengths that people can go to
in order to protect themselves, their position or their status are amazing.
Anything can be justified, even using innocent children as a cover up. A little
prayer beforehand makes it even more acceptable. What importance does a poor
Paravan's life have in comparison to a family's name and reputation? What
importance does the Untouchable's life have in comparison to the cover-up of a
police force bungle? Baby Kochamma is indirectly responsible for the death of a
man. She manages to ruin the life of two innocent children. Yet, she feels no
regret or stirrings of conscience.
Chapter 19, Saving Ammu
Chapter 20, The Madras Mail
Chapter 20, The Madras Mail
Summary
The chapter begins with Estha
sitting on the train ready to be sent to his father's house. Through the
window, he speaks to his mother and sister. They swear that they will write to
each other. The three make plans. They will all be together soon. They will
have school, and Ammu will teach. As the train pulls out, Estha cries to his
mother that he is feeling ill. He fears that their dreams and plans will never
be realized.
The twins take years to realize
the part that Ammu has played in the whole tragedy. They saw her tears, but
guiltily thought that they were to blame for her sadness. All those years
later, Rahel and Estha lie together, comforted by the love they feel for each
other. Breaking the laws of love, they complete each other.
Chapter 20, The Madras Mail
Analysis
The children are separated from
each other and from their mother. The trauma of this loss is tremendous. Estha
tries to behave himself in the proper manner. He tries to be stoic and not cry.
Estha does not become a bitter man, but he becomes a silent one. For
twenty-three years he is isolated from all those he loves. For twenty-three
years, Rahel feels empty. She also has lost all those she most loved in the
world. When the twins finally do come together after all this time, their love
for each other is even stronger. This love takes on new forms. All the
emptiness and silence that has been a part of these two young adults for so
long must be relieved. The twins have a need to totally complete each other in
their love. They belong to each other, and they manifest this in every way.
Chapter 20, The Madras Mail
Chapter 21, The Cost of Living
Chapter 21, The Cost of Living
Summary
Late on the night that Sophie
arrives, Ammu finds her way down to the riverbank. Somehow she knows Velutha
will be there, and he knows she will. Velutha is swimming in the river when
Ammu arrives on the banks. He swims to her, and they come together. Velutha is
afraid of the consequences. He worries about what could happen to him if they
were to be found out. He would lose his job, his family and his livelihood.
When they begin to make love, Velutha loses his fear. He is ready to pay the
price for his love. They make love tenderly and passionately.
The lovers meet every night for
the next thirteen days. During this time, they take pleasure in small things,
and they speak about small happiness. The lovers just don't know how high the
price of their love is.
Chapter 21, The Cost of Living
Analysis
Everything in life has its cost.
All actions and decisions have their consequences. Sometimes one does not
realize how high this cost might be. Sometimes it is more than can be paid.
Ammu and Velutha's love costs them more than they can possibly imagine. That is
the price that society puts on them for having broken the rules. They break the
laws of love. Yet, for Ammu and Velutha, it might just have been worth it.
Chapter 21, The Cost of Living
Characters
Aleyooty Ammachi
Aleyooty Ammachi is Rahel and
Estha's great-grandmother. Her portrait hangs prominently beside that of
Reverend Ipe in the Ayemenem House.
Baba
Baba is Estha and Rahel's father.
Ammu divorces him when the children are very young. He was a violent alcoholic
who not only beat his wife and children, but attempted to prostitute his wife
to his English employer. Baba has remarried, resigned from his job on a tea
plantation, and "more or less" stopped drinking when, after Sophie
Mol's death, Estha moves in with him in Calcutta. When Estha is an adult,
Baba sends him back to Ayemenem
and emigrates to Australia.
Reverend E. John Ipe
Estha and Rahel's
great-grandfather, Reverend Ipe had been known as Punnyan Kunju, or
"Little Blessed One," since he was blessed by the Syrian Christian
Patriarch at age seven.
Joe
Joe is Margaret Kochamma's second
husband, who dies in a car accident shortly before Margaret and Sophie Mol
travel to Ayemenem.
Characters
The Kathakali Men
Karna and Kunti, the Kathakali
Men, perform the traditional Hindu dancing that Rahel and Estha go to see.
Ammu
Ammu is Rahel and Estha's mother.
She is a beautiful and sardonic woman who has been victimized first by her
father and then her husband. While raising her children, she has become tense
and repressed. Ammu grew up in Delhi but, because her father said that college
was an unnecessary expense for a girl, was forced to live with her parents when
they moved to Ayemenem. She met her future husband at a wedding reception. She
later divorces him and returns to the Ayemenem House when he starts to abuse
the twins.
Ammu's latent "Unsafe Edge,”
full of desire and "reckless rage,” emerges during Sophie Mol's visit and
draws her to Velutha. After the horrific climax to the affair, Ammu sends Estha
to live with his father and leaves Rahel in the Ayemenem House while Ammu looks
for work; but Ammu loses a succession of jobs because she is ill. Ammu dies
alone in a cheap hotel at the age of thirty-one. Chacko has her cremated
because the Syrian Christian Church will not bury her.
Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)
Nicknamed "Baby,"
Mammachi's sister, Navomi Ipe Kochamma, is a judgmental old maid with tiny
feet. Rahel thinks, "She's living her life backwards," because Baby
Kochamma renounces the material world when she is young, but becomes very
materialistic when she is old. Throughout her life, Baby Kochamma is an
insecure, selfish, and vindictive person.
The Kathakali Men
When she was a girl, Baby
Kochamma fell in love with a handsome Irish monk named Father Mulligan who made
weekly visits to her father. Although they did nothing more than flirt while
talking about the Bible, when he moved to Madras she became a Roman Catholic
and entered a convent in Madras in the hopes of being with him.
After her hopes were crushed, she
left the convent and traveled to the United States to study, returning to India
obese and devoted to gardening. During the time of Sophie Mol's visit, Baby
Kochamma is a nuisance who pesters the twins because she dislikes them and
Ammu. She is later revealed to be cruel and insidious, because she is the one
that convinces the twins to condemn Velutha; and it was due to her
manipulations of Chacko that Ammu is forced to leave the house and Estha is
returned to his father. In her old age, Baby Kochamma becomes a bitter and
lonely woman addicted to television, after having locked herself inside the
family house.
Chacko
Chacko is Ammu's intellectual and
self-absorbed older brother. He was a charming but very unclean Rhodes Scholar
at Oxford, and he met Margaret while she was working in an Oxford cafA©. Deeply
in love with Margaret, in part because she never depended on him or adored him
like a mother, he marries her without telling his family. She grows tired of
his squalor within a year, however, and divorces him around the time that their
daughter is born.
Between his divorce and Sophie
Mol's death, Chacko grew fatter and became obsessed with balsawood airplanes,
which he unsuccessfully attempted to fly. He was also unsuccessful at running
the pickle factory, which started to lose money as soon as he attempted to
expand the operation. A "self-proclaimed Marxist," Chacko attempts to
be a benevolent employer and even plans to organize a union among his own
workers. However, he is insistent that he is the sole owner of his factory, his
house, and other possessions that he actually shares with women. Sophie Mol's
death is completely devastating for him. After her death, he emigrates to
Canada.
Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)
Estha
Estha, which is short for
Esthappen Yako, is Rahel's twin brother. He is a serious, intelligent, and
somewhat nervous child who wears "beige and pointy shoes" and has an
"Elvis puff." His experience of the circumstances surrounding Sophie
Mol's visit is somewhat more traumatic than Rahel's, beginning when he is
sexually abused by the Orangdrink Lemondrink Man at the Abhilash Talkies
theater. The narrator stresses that Estha's "Two Thoughts" in the
pickle factory, which stem from this experience (that "Anything can happen
to Anyone" and "It's best to be prepared") are critical in
leading to his cousin's death.
Estha is the twin chosen by Baby
Kochamma, because he is more "practical" and "responsible,"
to go into Velutha's cell and condemn him as their abductor. This trauma, in
addition to being shipped to Calcutta to live with his father, contributes to
Estha becoming mute at some point in his childhood. Estha never went to college
and acquired a number of habits, such as wandering on very long walks and
obsessively cleaning his clothes. He is so close to his sister that the
narrator describes them as one person, despite having been separated for most
of their lives.
Mammachi (Shoshamma Ipe)
An elegant woman in her old age
although she is nearly blind, Mammachi is Rahel and Estha's grandmother. Brutally
beaten by her husband, she nevertheless cries at his funeral and shares many of
his values, including an extremely rigid view of the caste system. She began
the pickle factory and ran it successfully, and she was an "exceptionally
talented" violinist, although Pappachi disallowed her to take further
lessons when he heard this. Mammachi loves Chacko with blind admiration and
deeply dislikes Margaret Kochamma. Nevertheless, she tolerates and even
facilitates Chacko's affairs with factory workers, although she is so horrified
when she hears of Ammu's affair with Velutha that she attacks both Velutha and
his father, and locks Ammu in her room.
Estha
Margaret Kochamma
Margaret is Sophie Mol's mother
and Chacko's ex-wife. She is from a strict, working-class London family and was
working as a waitress in Oxford when she met Chacko. Marrying him because of
his uncontrolled personality that made her feel free, Margaret soon realized
that she did not need him to accept herself, and she divorced him. When her second
husband Joe dies, Margaret accepts Chacko's invitation to Ayemenem for
Christmas, and she is haunted by this decision for the rest of her life. When
Margaret sees her daughter's body, she feels an irrational rage towards the
twins and seeks out Estha several times to slap him.
Pappachi (Shri Benaan John Ipe)
Shri Benaan John Ipe, known in
the family as Pappachi, is Rahel and Estha's grandfather. He was an
"Imperial Entomologist" under British rule and an Anglophile whose
greatest setback was not having named a moth that he discovered because
government scientists failed to recognize it as a new species until later.
Seventeen years older than his wife, he was extremely resentful of her and beat
her regularly with a brass vase until Chacko ordered him never to do it again.
Pappachi Kochamma also beat his daughter and smashed furniture, although in
public he convinced everyone that he was compassionate and neglected by his
wife. In his old age, he rode around in his blue Plymouth that he kept entirely
to himself.
Rahel Kochamma
Rahel is Ammu's daughter and
Estha's younger sister by eighteen minutes. An intelligent and honest person
who has never felt socially comfortable, she is something of a drifter, and
several times the narrator refers to her as the quality "Emptiness."
When she is a girl, her hair sits "on top of her head like a
fountain" and she always wears red-tinted plastic sunglasses with yellow
rims.
Margaret Kochamma
Although Ammu often chastises
Rahel for being dirty and unsafe, she loves her very deeply, and Rahel is
equally devoted to her mother. Rahel also loves Velutha and her brother, with
whom she shares a "single Siamese soul." She is traumatized by Sophie
Mol's drowning, Velutha's death, and Ammu's death. Although these events do not
seem to deprive her of her quirkiness or brightness, they contribute to her
sense of sadness and lack of direction in later life. After Ammu dies, Rahel
drifts between schools, receiving little attention from Mammachi or Chacko.
Rahel then enters an architecture school but never finishes the course, marries
an American named Larry McCaslin, and lives with him in Boston until they are
divorced. She moves to Washington, D.C. and spends several years as a night
clerk at a gas station before returning to Ayemenem to see Estha.
Kochu Maria
Kochu Maria is the Kochamma
family's "vinegar-hearted, short-tempered, midget cook." She does not
speak any English and, although she has always "noticed everything,"
she eventually stops caring about how the house looks and becomes addicted to
television.
Kochu Thomban
Kochu Thomban is the Ayemenem
temple elephant. When Rahel sees him in the present day, he is no longer
"Kochu Thomban" ("Little Tusker") but "Vellya
Thomban" ("Big Tusker").
Kuttappen
Velutha's older brother,
Kuttappen is paralyzed from the chest down and confined to his house, which he
shares with his brother and father.
Rahel Kochamma
Inspector Thomas Mathew
The Kottayam police chief is a
practical, cynical, and brutal man who deals carefully with the scandal of
Sophie Mol's death and Ammu's affair with Velutha. He taps on Ammu's breasts
and insults her when she comes to make a statement about Velutha because the
police chief strongly believes in the conventional caste system.
Larry McCaslin
Larry is Rahel's American husband,
whom she met at the college of architecture in Delhi while he was working on a
doctoral thesis, and with whom she moves to Boston. He holds her "as
though she was a gift" and notices a hollowness in Rahel's eyes that seems
to contribute to their lack of understanding and eventual divorce.
Miss Mitten
Rahel and Estha's tutor whom they
dislike, Miss Mitten is a Born Again Christian who scolds the twins for reading
backwards. She is killed by a milk van.
Father Mulligan
Father Mulligan was Baby
Kochamma's would-be lover. An Irish monk who came to Kerala to study Hindu
scriptures "in order to be able to denounce them intelligently," he
flirted with Baby Kochamma while ostensibly talking about the Bible.
Eventually, he converts to Hinduism, staying in touch with Baby Kochamma, and
dies of viral hepatitis.
Inspector Thomas Mathew
Murlidharan
Perched on the milestone of an
intersection, Murlidharan is the "level-crossing lunatic" the family
encounters on their way to Cochin.
Comrade E. M. S. Namboodiripad
Chacko's hero and the leader of
Kerala's democratically elected Communist government, Comrade Namboodiripad is
a moderate, particularly during his second term.
Orangedrink Lemondrink Man
The man who works behind the
refreshments counter at the Abhilash Talkies movie theater forces Estha to
masturbate him. He looks like an "unfriendly jeweled bear" and deeply
traumatizes Estha, who believes the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man will find him in
Ayemenem.
Comrade Pillai
Comrade Pillai is
"essentially a political man" who plots to become the leader of the
Communist Party in Ayemenem. With many connections and building influence, he
is involved in a number of business ventures, including making signs for the
pickle factory. After he betrays Velutha because he wants to rid himself of any
competition in the party ranks, Comrade Pillai lays the seeds for
dissatisfaction among the workers of Paradise Pickles and organizes the
unionization that contributes to the factory's collapse. This does not help him
rise to power in the party, however.
Kalyani Pillai
Kalyani is Comrade Pillai's quiet
wife.
Latha Pillai
Comrade Pillai's niece, Latha,
recites a poem by Sir Walter Scott for Chacko.
Lenin Pillai
Lenin is Comrade Pillai's son. He
is a slightly awkward boy who grows up to be a secretary in Delhi.
Kari Saipu
Kari Saipu is the "Black
Sahib," the Englishman who took on traditional Indian customs. The twins
know his house, which was unoccupied after Kari Saipu shot himself, as
"the History House." This house is the location of Ammu and Velutha's
meetings.
Sophie Mol
Sophie Mol is Chacko and
Margaret's daughter. She is a frank and spirited English girl characterized by
her bellbottoms and her go-go bag. Although the twins are prejudiced against
her because they have been so insistently instructed about how to behave when
she arrives, she manages to win them over. This is partly because she is
charming and outgoing, and partly because she rejected the advances of Chacko,
Mammachi, and Baby Kochamma in favor of befriending Rahel and Estha.
One reason Sophie Mol's death is
so important to the book's main themes is that she represents a combination of
Indian and British identities. The narrator is careful to call her
"Sophie," her English name, combined with "Mol," the phrase
for "girl" in the local language of Malayalam. Although Sophie Mol
never takes to Indian culture, she does make a great effort with the twins
before she accidentally falls into the river and drowns.
Vellya Paapen
Velutha's father, Vellya is an
"Old-World Paravan" who feels he is indebted to Mammachi for paying
for his glass eye. He is tortured about his son's affair with Ammu and tells
Mammachi about it.
Velutha
An Untouchable worker at the
pickle factory and a close friend to Rahel and Estha, Velutha is blamed for
killing Sophie Mol and raping Ammu. In fact, he has nothing to do with Sophie
Mol's death, and he carries on a brief and voluntary affair with Ammu until
Inspector Thomas Mathew's police officers beat Velutha until he is nearly dead.
Velutha's name means
"White" in Malayalam, so-called because he has such dark skin.
Mammachi noticed his prodigious talents in making and fixing things when he was
young and convinced his father to send him to the Untouchables' School founded
by her father-in-law. Velutha became an accomplished carpenter and mechanic,
and acquired an assurance that scared his father because it was unacceptable
among Untouchables. Velutha disappeared for four years and was hired by
Mammachi upon his return to Ayemenem. A member of the Communist Party, he never
quite fits into his role as an Untouchable, and he begins an extremely
passionate affair with Ammu when Sophie Mol arrives in Ayemenem. After Comrade
Pillai refuses to help him, the police officers beat him, and Estha identifies
him as their abductor. Velutha dies in jail.
Objects/Places
Syrian Christian
Syrian Christian is an Indian
Christian religion established by Apostle St. Thomas, who established
Christianity in Malankara.
History House
The History House is an abandoned
house on the other side of the river. The house was built and lived in by an
Englishman who had "gone native."
Mol
Mol is a term of endearment
meaning little girl.
Mon
Mon is a term of endearment
meaning little boy.
Kochu Thomban
Kochu Thomban is the Hindu temple
elephant, whose name means Little Tusker.
Kathakali Man
Kathakali Man is a Hindu
storyteller and public performer.
Paravan, Paryan and Pulyan
The terms Paravan, Paryan and
Pulyan are used to define the Untouchable castes in different regions of India.
Untouchables
Untouchables are members of the
lowest Indian caste who are not permitted to touch Touchable caste members in
any way.
Social Concerns
The difficulty of living in a
caste-based society, for those towards the top, and those near the bottom, is
the focus of this novel. The family around which the novel centers, descendants
of the Reverend Ipe, are at a comfortable level in society. The family is
comprised of all ages and attitudes, from the twins, Estha and Rahel and their
mother Ammu and her brother Chacko, to the strict Baby Kochamma, to Pappachi
and Mammachi at the head of the family.
They maintain a certain level of
decorum and have become even better known with the creation of their company,
Paradise Pickles and Preserves, based on the natural culinary abilities of
Mammachi. The existence of the company itself demonstrates the opportunities
afforded to higher class members, as they are able to move in and out of
whatever positions they choose, and do what they wish to do. They have great
freedom, but their position comes with the price of the same social constraint
that those who are not as well off must suffer. They may be allowed to do what
they would like to do, but if they want to do something that goes against the
codes developed by their society, they will be expelled and the social fabric
will be destroyed. This is the difficulty of being near the top; one has enough
freedom to look down upon others, but not enough to make things happen the way
you would like. As for those at the bottom of the caste system, the
Untouchables, they have no freedom, except that which is granted by the
Touchables. The people at the bottom of the social structure have no freedom to
do anything except what they are told. The caste system is stretched to a
breaking point when Ammu, a Touchable, finds love and desire in Velutha, an
Untouchable. Since this threatens the structure of society, those involved must
be broken down emotionally and the relationship must be destroyed.
In Roy's novel, it is this aspect
of the caste system in India that is brought into the foreground. Ammu has made
the mistake of finding value and desire in one who has been placed on the
outside of her society, and as a result, her life, and his, is destroyed.
One manifestation of the caste
system is the act of naming and categorizing people and groups of people. It is
a necessary exercise, because people who are placed outside must be marked and
recognized for what they are. Velutha, Ammu's lover, belongs to the class of
Paravans, who are referred to collectively by this demeaning title. Working
against this social construct of the caste system, Estha and Rahel, throughout
the novel, rename themselves and others. They allow themselves to take on
different identities to counteract the role into which they are pigeonholed as
a result of the caste system. This is also their way of dealing with being the
children of a woman who has taken the liberty of living her life independently
of the family's wishes.
In a way, it is one way in which
they deal with the tragedies in which they find themselves a part, such as the
death of cousin Sophie Mol and Estha's molestation by the Orangedrink
Lemondrink Man. Baby Kochamma resents the children's ability to escape the
social constructs to find happiness and closeness within each other, and works
to humiliate and punish them both for this ability.
The culture of the Ipe family
becomes even more complex due to the interaction of Western principles with
Indian society at several levels. Later in the chronological development of the
story, Rahel marries an American and lives in the States for a time.
Her husband is unable to
understand her and they subsequently divorce. In this case, American meets
Indian and the result is a lack of understanding and sadness. In another
instance, Baby Kochamma buys a satellite dish, and all other things fall to the
wayside as television becomes the center of attention for Baby Kochamma and
Kochu Maria. Baby Kochamma's garden, for which she and her house are well
known, falls into disrepair as she wiles away the hours watching English and
American television shows.
Ironically, television becomes a
uniting factor as Baby Kochamma and Kochu Maria, master and servant, become
connected as they are lit from the same glow of the television screen.
Television aside, the primary
occasion in which the West collides with the Indian culture of this family
forms the center of the story Sophie Mol's visit. She and her mother bring
Western ideas and values, which are in turn raised to a higher level by Baby
Kochamma and Mammachi. This is true especially for Chacko, for whom, after
attending Oxford, the value of Western ideology has never been surpassed.
Chacko's frequent use of his "Reading Aloud" voice and frequent
referral to his Oxford experiences are indications of this affinity. Ammu and
her children react against the preference for the Western over the native
Indian, and the seemingly patronizing tone that some take when expressing their
preference for the Western. This conflict comes to a head with Sophie Mol and Margaret
Kochamma's visit, who are favored and fawned over. Because of Baby Kochamma,
Mammachi, and Chacko's desire to please and impress the two visitors, Estha and
Rahel are asked to ignore their Indianness and try to appear more English. Baby
Kochamma makes them speak only English, rather than their native tongue, they
are taught English car songs for the ride from the airport, and they are
dressed up in their uncomfortable best in order to make the best impression
possible. They are forced, against their will, to conform to an uncomfortable
and unnatural standard because of the family's belief that English is almost
always necessarily better than Indian. Ammu in turn allows this to happen but
can only take so much of the pageantry, especially when it appears that
Margaret herself insults Indian customs. The children, likewise, try to escape
from the pageant that Chacko and his family are putting on for the English
visitors by playing with Velutha, an Untouchable. The fact that they are more
comfortable with an Untouchable than with any other member of their family,
except their mother, speaks to the unnatural and disabling segregation that the
caste system establishes. This becomes completely clear as Ammu and Velutha's
affair destroys the fabric of the family.
Techniques
As this story focuses on two
children and their impressions of the world, Roy uses various techniques to
represent the children's viewpoint and their innocence. One technique that Roy
employs is the capitalization of certain words and phrases to give them certain
significance. Similarly, the children will restate things that the adults say
in a new phonetic way, disjoining and recombining words. This echoes the
children's way of looking at the world differently from the grown-ups that surround
them. They place significance on words and ideas differently from the adults,
thereby creating a new way of viewing the world around them. They pick up on
certain feelings and ideas that the adults around them either fail or refuse to
recognize, and give new significance to things that the adults may or may not
ignore for their own purposes. The children use and repeat these phrases
throughout the story so that the phrases themselves gain independence and new
representational meanings in subsequent uses.
Roy also employs a disjointed,
nonsequential narrative that echoes the process of memory, especially the
resurfacing of a previously suppressed, painful memory.
The uncovering of the story of
Sophie Mol's death existing concurrently with the forward moving story of
Rahel's return to Ayemenem and reunion with Estha creates a complex narrative
that reiterates the difficulty of the subject of the story and the complexity
of the culture from which the story originates. Time is rendered somewhat
static as the different parts of the one narrative line are intertwined through
repetition and nonsequential discovery. This is also part of the way in which
Roy uses real life places and people that she has shifted and altered for use
within this story. All of the multifarious elements come together to construct
a diverse look at one instance of Indian culture and the effect of the caste
system on life and love during a time of postcolonialism. As the children
attempt to form their own identities, naming and renaming themselves in the
process, Roy places in parallel the effect of the process, by intertwining the
past and the present.
Similarly, this process echoes
the progression of the Indian people, like all other cultures that attempt to
find ways to maintain their traditions within a time of increasing
globalization.
Themes
Indian History and Politics
Indian history and politics shape
the plot and meaning of The God of Small Things in a variety of ways. Some of
Roy's commentary is on the surface, with jokes and snippets of wisdom about
political realities in India. However, the novel also examines the historical
roots of these realities and develops profound insights into the ways in which
human desperation and desire emerge from the confines of a firmly entrenched caste
society. Roy reveals a complex and longstanding class conflict in the state of
Kerala, India, and she comments on its various competing forces.
For example, Roy's novel attacks
the brutal, entrenched, and systematic oppression at work in Kerala, exemplified
by figures of power such as Inspector Thomas Mathew. Roy is also highly
critical of the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of the conventional, traditional
moral code of Pappachi and Mammachi. On the opposite side of the political
fence, the Kerala Communist Party, at least the faction represented by Comrade
Pillai, is revealed to be much more concerned with personal ambition than with
any notions of social justice.
Class Relations and Cultural
Tensions
In addition to her commentary on
Indian history and politics, Roy evaluates the Indian postcolonial complex, or
the cultural attitudes of many Indians towards their former British rulers.
After Ammu calls her father a "[sh t]-wiper" in Hindi for his blind
devotion to the British, Chacko explains to the twins that they come from a
family of Anglophiles, or lovers of British culture, "trapped outside
their own history and unable to retrace their steps," and he goes on to
say that they despise themselves because of this.
A related inferiority complex is
evident in the interactions between Untouchables and Touchables in Ayemenem.
Vellya Paapen is an example of an Untouchable so grateful to the Touchable
class that he is willing to kill his son when he discovers that his son has
broken the most important rule of class segregation that there be no
inter-class sexual relations. Nearly all of the relationships in the novel are
somehow colored by cultural and class tension, including the twins'
relationship with Sophie Mol, Chacko's relationship with Margaret, Pappachi's relationship
with his family, and Ammu's relationship with Velutha. Characters such as Baby
Kochamma and Pappachi are the most rigid and vicious in their attempts to
uphold that social code, while Ammu and Velutha are the most unconventional and
daring in unraveling it. Roy implies that this is why they are punished so
severely for their transgression.
Forbidden Love
The many types of love in Roy's
novel, whether they are described as erotic, familial, incestuous, biological,
or hopeless, are important to the novel's meaning. However, Roy focuses her
authorial commentary on forbidden and taboo types of love, including Ammu's
love for Velutha and Rahel's love for Estha. Both relationships are rigidly
forbidden by what Roy calls the "Love Laws," or "The laws that
lay down who should be loved, and how. / And how much." Although breaking
these laws is the worst of taboos, and those who break them are brutally
punished, desire and desperation overcome the Love Laws at the key moments of
Roy's novel.
One interpretation of Roy's theme
of forbidden love is that love is such a powerful and uncontrollable force that
it cannot be contained by any conventional social code. Another is that
conventional society somehow seeks to destroy real love, which is why love in
the novel is consistently connected to loss, death, and sadness. Also, because
all romantic love in the novel relates closely to politics and history, it is
possible that Roy is stressing the interconnectedness of personal desire to
larger themes of history and social circumstances. Love would therefore be an
emotion that can be explained only in terms of two peoples' cultural
backgrounds and political identities.
Love
This book is basically about
love. Although the book is tragic, it is a most beautiful love story. The
beauty of Ammu and Velutha's love for each other is that it is forbidden. It is
a wild and dangerous love. This is what gives it its special flavor and
intensity. Arundhati Roy gives the reader a deeper understanding of all of the
different dimensions of love.
Chacko's love for Margaret is
forgiving and undemanding. No matter how badly Margaret has hurt him, he will
always be there for her. His love is secure and comforting. Baby Kochamma finds
a meaning to her life through an impossible and unrequited love for a priest.
Life without love is no life at all.
The book speaks about family
love. Here readers see the love between brother and sister. Rahel and Estha's
love for each other is so strong and deep that they instinctively know what
each other is thinking and doing. Ammu's love for her children is so deep and
demanding that they all seem to belong to each other body and soul.
Other examples of love are found
throughout the book. Mammachi dotes on her son, Chacko. He is her world who can
do no wrong. Chacko adores his daughter Sophie, though he doesn't really know
her at all. Chacko's love for his niece and nephew is simple and cheerful.
Rahel and Estha feel they should love Sophie, simply because she is their
cousin. Velutha's tender and unselfish love for the twins is a reflection of
his love for their mother.
Social Discrimination
The story is set in the caste
society of India. In this time, members of the Untouchable Paravan or Paryan
were not permitted to touch members of higher castes or enter their houses.
This extreme form of discrimination was deeply embedded over centuries in the
Indian society. The Untouchables were considered polluted beings. They had the
lowliest jobs and lived in subhuman conditions. In India, the caste system was
considered a way to organize society. Arundhati Roy's book shows how terribly
cruel such a system can be.
Along with the caste system,
readers see an economic class struggle. The Kochammas are considered upper
class. They are factory owners, the dominating class. Mammachi and Baby
Kochamma would not deign to mix with those of a lower class. Even Kochu Maria,
who has been with them for years, will always be a servant of a lower class.
However, Roy shows other types of
less evident discrimination. For example, there is religious discrimination. It
is unacceptable for a Syrian Christian to marry a Hindu. In more than one
passage of the book, the reader feels Rahel and Estha's discomfort at being
half Hindu. Baby Kochamma constantly makes disparaging comments about the Hindus.
On the other hand, there is discomfort even between the Christian religions, as
is shown by Pappachi's negative reaction when Baby converts to Catholicism.
Chacko suffers more veiled racial
discrimination, as it seems his daughter also did.
His English wife's parents were
shocked and disapproving that their daughter should marry an Indian, no matter
how well educated. Sophie Mol at one point mentions to her cousins that they
are all "wog," while she is "half-wog."
The Kochammas are very class
conscious. They have a need to maintain their status. Discrimination is a way
of protecting one's privileged position in society.
Betrayal
Betrayal is a constant element in
this story. There are big and small betrayals. Love, ideals and confidence are
all betrayed, consciously and unconsciously, maliciously and innocently. It
seems that everyone has suffered some type of betrayal.
Comrade Pillai betrays not only
Velutha's trust and ideals but also Chacko's. Pillai does this with no qualms,
to further his own and his party's interests. Another character prepared to
further his own interest at any cost is Ammu's ex-husband who, in order to save
his job, would have been willing to allow his boss to take Ammu as a mistress.
Chacko is betrayed by his wife.
Baby Kochamma is capable of lying
and betraying everyone, even innocent children, to protect her own social
position. Vellya Paapen, also in fear of his own position, betrays his son by
telling Mammachi about Velutha and Ammu. Little Esthappen has his innocence
betrayed by a dirty old man.
Velutha, the purest of all, is
the one who is most betrayed. He is even betrayed by a little seven-year-old
boy who loves him dearly. Estha suffers guilt for years after, maybe because
his betrayal was unintentional. The novel asks the question: up until what
point can we trust others, or even ourselves? How easy is it to put our own
interests and convenience over loyalty?
Style
Non-sequential Narrative
The God of Small Things is not
written in a sequential narrative style in which events unfold chronologically.
Instead, the novel is a patchwork of flashbacks and lengthy sidetracks that
weave together to tell the story of the Kochamma family. The main events of the
novel are traced back through the complex history of their causes, and memories
are revealed as they relate to each other thematically and as they might appear
in Rahel's mind. Although the narrative voice is omniscient, or all-knowing, it
is loosely grounded in Rahel's perspective, and all of the episodes of the
novel progress towards the key moments in Rahel's life.
This non-sequential narrative
style, which determines the form of the novel, is an extremely useful authorial
tool. It allows Roy a great deal of flexibility as she chooses which themes and
events are most important to pursue. The author is able to structure her book
so as to build up to the ideas and events at the root of the Kochamma family's
experience.
Foreshadowing
Throughout Roy's novel, the
narrative voice emphasizes that it is building towards a mysterious,
cataclysmic, and all-important event. Roy even provides details and glimpses of
the event, which she refers to as "The Loss of Sophie Mol," and
quotes characters remembering it and referring to it vaguely far before the
reader discovers what has happened. Because of this technique, called
foreshadowing, Roy builds considerable tension and intrigue into The God of
Small Things, and she is able to play with the expectation and anticipation
that the reader feels.
Point of View
The book is narrated in the third
person. However, during a great part of the narrative, the reader sees
everything through Rahel's eyes. This gives the reader a very special insight
into the happenings and characters. The are various moments which cross each
other all through the book. One moment is in 1969 when Rahel is a
seven-year-old child. At these moments everything is seen through a child's eye
with a child's feelings and rationale. Facts, objects and people are seen in a
complete different light. The child's view gives the book a very special charm
and poignancy. It also brings in moments of light comic scenes.
Another moment is twenty-three
years later of an adult woman, searching for something she has lost in her
childhood. The adult's eye is more critical. Through her eyes, the reader feels
the sadness and horror of how the facts came together, causing such a terrible
tragedy.
Some other parts of the book are
written from the point of view of an observer who has no direct involvement in
the scene. The background information on the family and facts are written in
pure impartial narrative form, as is the last love scene. The impartial view,
which purely relates the facts, brings the story together, making it real and
believable.
The author uses this style to
create an exquisite atmosphere and a beautiful but very sad story. Roy imbues
the plot with a mixture of innocence, love and malicious manipulation.
Setting
The story is set in the small
town of Ayemenem in the Kerala province, southwest India. The main part of the
plot takes place in 1969, a time when the caste system in India was still very
strongly imbedded. It is also the time of increased awareness around the world
and a peak of communist ideology and influence.
India is a very complex society
with various cultural and religious habits and beliefs. Hindus, Buddhists,
Christians and Muslims share the same space. Society is divided not only by the
very strict caste system but also by class consciousness. There are a number of
languages spoken in India, but the higher classes make a point of speaking
English, sending their sons to study in England and adopting certain English
habits.
The God of Small Things is a book
about India, not India as seen by the western world or by western standards.
This is a story about the real India, beautifully written by one of its own
nationals. The book is filled with deep emotion that is closely tied to place.
Arundhati Roy describes her book
as "an inextricable mix of experience and imagination."
Language and Meaning
The book is written in English
because English is the most commonly used language throughout India, and it is
the natural language for Arundhati Roy to write in. Throughout the book, there
are also a few sentences written in the Indian Malyaman dialect.
The author makes very free use of
the English language in this book. She uses languages in a completely unique
and fascinating manner. Sometimes her writing takes on a poetic dimension.
Playing with words and phrases, she manages to give a whole new dimension to
the language.
At times during the book, Roy's
writing expresses a child's thought process. Using a child's language, Roy
gives readers whole new and interesting definitions of people, objects and
facts. For example: "Aristocrats were people who didn't blow spit bubbles
or shiver their legs. Or gobble."
As a child, Arundhati Roy studied
free style writing. She does this brilliantly by putting different emphasis on
words. The author seems to have fun playing with words. Sometimes she has the
children split words apart, and other times the children glue them together.
For example, "Later" becomes "Lay. Ter." and "An
owl" becomes "A Nowl."
Roy writes as if she were
thinking. Sometimes thoughts ramble on illogically, and other times random
thoughts and remembrances just melt together. It is this free style of writing
that makes the book convey such a depth of emotions.
Structure
The book is divided into
twenty-one chapters. Some chapters have subdivisions in them. Other chapters
are very short. The story is not told in a linear time frame. The author takes
the reader back and forth from the present to the past. Facts, thoughts and
recollections are interrupted in one chapter and further expanded on a few
chapters later.
At certain points, Roy follows no
sentence or paragraph rules. This deviation from a formal style serves to
enhance the atmosphere of the book.
In the first chapter, Roy gives
readers an outline of the story. The other chapters have no chronological
order. The last chapter, depicting the love scene, is actually the middle of
the story itself. It ends the telling of a very sad story in a beautiful way.
There is no real end to the story itself. The author lets the reader imagine
what the future may hold for Rahel and Estha. Will they ever find happiness and
how?
The author has structured the
novel in this way in order to put more emphasis on the events that lead up to
the story, the consequences and the characters themselves involved. This is
very effectively accomplished.
Historical Context
Because of the efforts of the
political and religious leader Mohandas Gandhi, India became independent on
August 15, 1947 at the stroke of midnight, after more than three hundred years
of a British colonial presence. The British partitioned the former colony into
the nations of India and Pakistan (comprised of East and West regions), but
this was unsuccessful in quelling agitations between Hindus and Muslims. The
borders were only rough designations of religious majorities, and millions died
as Hindus in Pakistan moved to majority-Hindu India, and Muslims in India moved
to majority-Muslim Pakistan. Ammu was five years old in 1947, living with her
family in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime
Minister of India from Independence until his death in 1964, struggled to foster
economic growth and became involved in various territorial disputes. In Kerala,
the Communist Party of India (CPI) was elected to power in a state government
led by E. M. S. Namboodiripad in 1957, but Nehru dissolved it in 1959. In 1962,
the year Rahel and Estha were born, India fought a limited war over a border
dispute with China. As a result of the Chinese conflict, the CPI split between
a pro-Russian faction, still called the CPI, and a faction that grew to be less
influenced by foreign governments, called the Communist Party of India
(Marxist). In the mid-1960s, a further split in the Indian communist parties
formed the Naxalites, who advocated an immediate communist revolution, while
tensions between Pakistan and India flared into war in 1965.
After Prime Minister Lal Bahadur
Shastri died of a heart attack in 1966, Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi (no
relation to Mohandas Gandhi) assumed the post amidst a severe draught and
growing unemployment. These conditions contributed to the major losses that Gandhi's
Indian National Congress Party suffered in the 1967 elections. As Gandhi's
intentions for the Congress Party became clear, tensions arose between liberal
and conservative members of the party, and in 1969, the year of Sophie Mol's
visit to Ayemenem, the Congress Party split. Although Indira Gandhi remained in
control of the larger, liberal faction, she was forced to forge alliances with
left-wing parties in order to maintain control of the government.
Further tensions with Pakistan
led to India's involvement in a conflict between East Pakistan and West
Pakistan in 1971, which led to the independence of Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan). Indira Gandhi was convicted of minor election law violations in
1975, but she declared a state of emergency in order to stay in power. Widely
unpopular, this move allowed her to arrest opposition leaders and censor the
press, and she was defeated in the 1977 elections. Gandhi was elected once
again in 1980, however, and began to meet with foreign leaders while dealing
with several insurgencies in India. In 1984, she sent Indian troops to storm a
Sikh temple, killing the Sikh guerillas inside, and this event led to her
assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Gandhi's son, Rajiv, succeeded her
to the leadership of the Congress Party and was elected prime minister in 1985.
Rajiv Gandhi sponsored economic reforms, but he was criticized as an indecisive
leader and lost the 1989 election.
Roy wrote her novel in the early
1990s, during a period in which Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Sri Lankan
Tamil in 1991 while campaigning for an election that political analysts believe
he would have won. The present-day events in The God of Small Things occur in
1992, when Congress/I (formerly the Congress Party) leader P. V. Narasimha Rao
was prime minister. Rao became known for his sensitive handling of Hindu-Muslim
tensions, his economic reforms, and his progressive foreign policy in response
to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He lost power in 1996 amidst charges of
corruption, however, and this began a series of leadership struggles that
continued through India's announcement in 1998 that it was a nuclear power;
Pakistan made a similar announcement shortly thereafter.
Critical Overview
The God of Small Things was an
unprecedented international success for a first-time author. It won a
publishing advance reputed to be near one million dollars, and it won Britain's
most prestigious writing award, the Booker Prize, in 1997. Reviews in the
United States were very positive, often including high praise such as that of
Ritu Menon in her review for Women's Review of Books: "The God of Small
Things is a seduction from start to finish." Although the novel was
generally well-reviewed in Britain, there was some controversy about its
success, and a minority of critics, including the previous Booker Prize
Committee Chairperson Carmen Callil, said on television that it did not deserve
the prize. The novel has also caused some controversy in India, where it was
first published. Communists, including E. M. S. Namboodiripad, took exception
to Roy's portrayal of communist characters, and the lawyer Sabu Thomas filed a
public interest petition claiming that the novel was obscene.
Critics generally group the novel
into the genre of post-colonial Indian literature that takes Indian politics
and history as its subject. For example, the anonymous reviewer in the March
15, 1997 edition of Kirkus Reviews characterizes Roy's style as
"reminiscent of Salman Rushdie's early work." Like the novels of the
influential Indian-British author Salman Rushdie, The God of Small Things is
written in English, for a Western readership as much as an Indian readership,
and it takes on a variety of historical and political themes.
Criticism
• Critical
Essay #1
• Critical
Essay #2
• Critical
Essay #3
• Critical
Essay #4
Critical Essay #1
Trudell is an independent scholar
with a bachelor's degree in English literature. In the following essay, Trudell
discusses the significance of the sexual encounters between Rahel and Estha,
and Ammu and Velutha.
The God of Small Things builds an
incredible amount of anticipation and expectation for the definitive moment of
the story. With all of its foreshadowing, its emphasis on tracing one's steps,
and its insistent suggestion that everything, from politics to erotic desire,
is intimately connected, Roy's novel places a great deal of emphasis on the
central event of the twins' childhood that caused the momentous changes in the
Kochamma family. The reader comes to expect, because of the narrator's many
references to "the Loss of Sophie Mol," that everything will boil
down to one key moment, and that this moment will involve Sophie Mol's death.
It eventually becomes clear,
however, that Sophie Mol's actual drowning is an accident, an understated tragedy
in which she simply vanishes in the river. Like all of the characters' lives
and the events of the plot, Sophie Mol's death is intimately tied to many other
elements, including Estha's sexual abuse, Sophie Mol's relationship to the
twins, and the host of factors that led to the tragedy. But the actual loss of
Sophie Mol does not reveal much about the deep historical forces at work in
Ayemenem, and it does not explain what truly causes or defines the Kochamma
family's experience.
Instead, Roy's trajectory of
foreshadowing and anticipation leads to the two forbidden, taboo erotic
relationships of the novel between Ammu and Velutha, and Estha and Rahel. These
are the episodes at the core of the unraveling plot and the crux of the book's
meaning. All of the tension, desire, and desperation beneath the surface of the
narrative converges into these expressions of love, which are examples of
perhaps the greatest, most unthinkable taboos of all. This essay will discuss
why the two forbidden sexual episodes in the final two chapters of The God of
Small Things are so crucial to the history of the Kochamma family and the
emblematic of the meaning of the novel.
Before discussing the
significance of these episodes, however, it will help to establish how and why
they are so closely connected. It is immediately clear that they have much in
common as doomed, forbidden love trysts, and it is no coincidence that they are
revealed and described next to each other, at the end of the narrative.
However, there are other, less obvious connections. During Estha and Rahel's
erotic encounter, for example, there are repeated references to Ammu such as
calling Rahel's mouth "Their beautiful mother's mouth" and there is
the statement that the twins are at the "viable die-able age" of
thirty, Ammu's age between her affair with Velutha and her death. Equally
important is the phrase, "They were strangers who had met in a chance
encounter," because it is more applicable to Velutha and Ammu than to the
twins.
Also key at this point, late in
chapter 20, is the narrator's statement about Rahel and Estha that "once
again they broke the Love Laws," which uses the term that had previously
been applied to Ammu and Velutha and implies that the twins' situation is a
reoccurrence of the affair of 1969.
By closely connecting Rahel and
Estha's sexual relationship to Ammu and Velutha's, Roy suggests that
present-day events converge with the events surrounding Sophie Mol's death, and
that each strain of the plot has the same thematic resolution. The two instances
of breaking of the Love Laws form a key to understanding the rest of the book;
they are both the result and the cause of the novel's action. This is why the
narrator writes that the story "really began in the days when the Love
Laws were made," back through the colonial and pre-colonial history of
Kerala. The Love Laws represent the strict confines on human behavior the caste
systems, social pressures, and political restrictions that horrify people
beyond expression when they are broken. The central action of the novel is
about breaking them, and the tragedy that results from breaking them.
For one thing, therefore, the
forbidden love affairs at the end of the novel are crucial because they reveal
the disgust and horror with the lovers that is at the root of the violence and
tragedy directed against them. Present-day Western readers probably do not
consider inter-caste romance repulsive, but they are quite likely to be shocked
and offended by incest. Incest is as taboo in twenty-first-century Western
society as an inter-caste sexual affair would have been in the 1960s, and
probably still is, in Kerala. The reader's reaction to such violations of the
Love Laws allows him/her to understand how and why such drastic social and
political consequences could have resulted from the transgressions at the end
of The God of Small Things. Roy allows the reader an insight into the emotional
basis behind the careful, planned brutality of those dedicated to Kerala's
social code, such as the Touchable Policemen who believe that in beating
Velutha to death they are enforcing the Love Laws and "inoculating a
community against an outbreak."
However, the love affairs also
allow the reader to identify with the transgressor, and they inspire a
sympathetic reaction for four people who are abused, tortured, and betrayed by
their society's most fundamental rules. The reasons for Ammu's turn to Velutha
are sharply drawn and inspire a great deal of sympathy when she studies her
body, the body of an "inexperienced lover," in the mirror and peers
"down the road to Age and Death through its parted strands." Ammu's
love affair is, in a sense, the cause of the novel's tragedy because it
shatters her family, condemns Velutha to a brutal death, traumatizes Rahel and
Estha for the rest of their lives, and results in her own decay and death. It
is also, however, the result of an entire lifetime of abuse, confinement, and
imprisonment in a stinting social code. This code not only fails to protect
Ammu against her father beating her with a brass vase, her father imprisoning
her in the house even when she is an adult, and her husband beating her; it
actually leads to these consequences. When she recognizes that Kerala's social
code is in the process of forcing her down Baby Kochamma's path of bitter,
joyless confinement to the house until death, she acts in perfectly
understandable desperation and attempts to find some brief joy with Velutha.
Similarly, Rahel's affair with
Estha can be interpreted as the result of a social code, both in Kerala and in
the United States, that has traumatized her and deprived her of her childhood.
The "Quietness and Emptiness" that characterize Estha and Rahel stems
from Velutha's death and their parents' difficulties in raising them, but also
stems from a society that is cruel, harassing, and violent towards a single
mother and her children. From Baby Kochamma to Chacko to the Orangedrink
Lemondrink Man, people are prejudiced towards Ammu and her children, and take
advantage of them. Rahel and Estha's incestuous contact is their attempt to
find comfort in each other, although, unlike Ammu and Velutha, they are not
even able to reach a joyful release from their problems, and "what they
shared that night was not happiness but hideous grief."
In addition to what they reveal
about the cultural and political content of Roy's novel, the two affairs
communicate a great deal about the novel's psychological subtext. In the course
of the book, both Ammu and Rahel experience identity crises whose primary goals
are, in a sense, discovering who and what they are in relation to their culture
and family. Rahel travels back to Ayemenem to see her brother, but her journey
is perhaps better described as a quest, through her memories, to discover
herself and the roots of her history. The third-person narrator of The God of
Small Things is omniscient, and not strictly confined to any particular
perspective, but the narrative voice is grounded in Rahel's memories. Events
and remembrances weave into the story as they might appear in Rahel's mind, and
the novel is structured around her search to understand herself and her past.
Rahel's incestuous contact with
Estha is so crucial and definitive in this identity search because, as the
narrator stresses insistently, her brother is herself. In opening passages of
the novel, the narrator relates that, during their childhood, "Esthappen
and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually,
as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically
separate, but with joint identities." The twins' love-making is a metaphor
for their search for this fractured and traumatized joint identity in their
adulthood, and it is a real, physical and emotional expression of their grief
and longing.
Ammu's affair with Velutha is
also, in a sense, a search for herself; this is clear from the lengthy passages
in which the narrator describes the desperation in Ammu's strictly confined
life and her need to live and experience joy. When Ammu studies herself in the
mirror and tests whether a toothbrush will stay on her breast, she reveals that
she understands herself through her body and her sexual identity, and she seeks
out Velutha in order to discover the beautiful part of herself.
The forbidden love affairs that
come at the end of Roy's novel, therefore, work together to provide a single
metaphor for the key struggles and meanings of the novel. The twins' incestuous
contact and Ammu's affair with Velutha are metaphors for, and physical
enactments of, the psychological identity struggles of the novel's
protagonists. These struggles extend, by implication and because they are so
closely connected to the political subtext of the novel, to the wider political
and psychological identity struggles of all those afflicted by the oppressive social
code of southern Indian culture.
Source: Scott Trudell, Critical
Essay on The God of Small Things, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.
Critical Essay #1
Hart is a freelance writer and
author of several books. In the following essay, Hart goes behind the story
contained in The God of Small Things to study Roy's poetic language and unique
writing style.
Arundhati Roy's novel The God of
Small Things has many excellent qualities. The setting is exotic; the voice is
unique; the characters are complex; and the plot line is mysterious. Any one of
these, done as well as Roy's skills have provided, might have been enough for
the author to win the Booker Prize, one of the most distinguished literary
awards; but with one more distinctive characteristic added to the mix Roy's
poetic and imaginative writing style there is no question that this book will
long remain one of the most fascinating novels of the twentieth century.
Upon the first read of The God of
Small Things, one cannot help but be drawn into the story that Roy has created,
wondering, with each succeeding chapter, what could possibly happen next. There
are questions about who these characters are; where the plot line is going; and
what the missing details are that the author has purposefully left out,
taunting the reader to hurriedly move forward. Even the setting of the story is
alluring with its freshly conceived scenery, unusual town names, striking
tropical flora and fauna, as well as the strange social customs. The storyline
twists around unsuspecting corners, as the narrator takes readers into the dark
depths of the characters' souls. And even though, after reading this book, one
might sense the quality of writing of this gifted novelist, it might take a
second, and maybe even a third, reading before one can actually pay attention
to the underlying style that makes this novel so invigorating to read. The
purpose of this essay is to do just that: to examine not the story but Roy's
unique writing technique; and to point out the poetic qualities of her writing.
One of the first elements of the
author's writing that readers confront as they begin this novel is Roy's
creative vocabulary creative in the sense that she makes up new words. In the
first pages, for example, Roy uses the words "dustgreen trees" and
later portrays a smell as "sicksweet." Two things happen when she
puts two words together like this (which she consistently does throughout the
novel). First, she captures the attention of the reader. There are no such
words as "dustgreen" and "sicksweet," which her audience
will immediately realize, and yet readers will know exactly what the author has
intended by using such new words. Secondly, the words not only make sense, they
describe the objects they are referring to with much greater depth than most
single adjectives and metaphors could possibly do, and the author accomplishes
this with minimum verbiage. "Dustgreen," for instance, is used to
describe both a color and a condition, and with this one inventive word, Roy
gives her readers a fully sensual image. Dust is gritty and dry, like the
weather she is trying to depict. So in using a word such as
"dustgreen," Roy helps readers not only to visualize the setting but
also to feel it. A similar double sense is created with the word "sicksweet."
Readers not only can taste and smell it, they can feel it in the pit of their
stomachs, just as Rahel and Estha feel when they think about the world that Roy
has created for them in her novel. The sweetness of the odor has attracted
these characters to explore their world; but the consequences and the reactions
of their world have made them sick. Thus, these "double words" are
more than the sum of their parts. They are not just two words haphazardly added
together, but rather they are almost like short poems. They offer the reader
vivid images through short expressive words.
Other examples of combining words
appear when the narrator pulls readers into the funeral of Sophie Mol, a
flashback that occurs at the beginning of the novel. When a baby bat climbs up
Baby Kochamma's sari, making the woman scream, Roy provides her readers with a
sample of the noises of confusion in the congregation, which she represents
with the words: "Whatisit? Whathappened?" and "a Furrywhirring
and a Sariflapping." With these new words, readers are given a complex
picture of the bewilderment that is occurring inside the church. Not only do
these words refer to sounds, they also provoke a sense of movement. People are
turning their heads back and forth, searching for the source of the yelling and
its cause as they try to figure out what is happening ("Whatisit?
Whathappened?"); bats are beating their wings, trying to escape
("Furrywhirring"); and women are flapping the material of their
costumes to make sure that there are no bats climbing on them
("Sariflapping"). Once again, Roy has created vibrant descriptions in
using her newly conceived words. It is as if she has captured a whole movie
scene, filled with motion and sound, with just a minimum use of syllables.
There is another form of creative
vocabulary that Roy makes up. This one reflects children trying to make sense
of the adult world through little bits of information that they receive. For
instance, again at Sophie Mol's funeral, the protagonist Rahel attempts to
repeat words that she has heard during the religious ceremony. But in a child's
world, not only is it hard to grasp the full meaning of language; it is also
sometimes difficult to take hold of the full word. So in repeating the Biblical
quote that refers to the body decomposing and returning to the dust from whence
it came, Rahel tries to mimic the priests. But instead of saying "dust to
dust," she says: "Dus to dus to dus to dus to dus." This is what
the words sound like to her. And by Roy using this phrase (as well as other
similar, child interpretations throughout the novel), she places her readers
inside the mind of the very young. Readers thus are provided with a different
view of reality, one that is seen through the eyes of her young characters,
children who must face some very tragic circumstances very early in their
lives.
Rahel, in this instance, cannot
fully comprehend death, so she repeats the priests' words as best she can,
twisting her tongue around them, attempting to make a kind of song out of them,
hoping that eventually the phrase might help her understand. "Sophie Mol
died because she couldn't breathe," Rahel believes. "Her funeral
killed her." And it is Roy's creative use of language that makes readers
not only mentally visualize what is happening inside Rahel's mind but to feel
the confusion, the struggle with her conflicts, and the great challenges that
confront her.
In the middle of the story, the
narrator shines more light on Roy's understanding of how children perceive the
world through language that they do not fully understand. While the family is
awaiting the arrival of Sophie Mol and her family at the airport, Estha and
Rahel are misbehaving. Their uncle suggests that their mother deal with them
"later," a word that plays with Rahel's mind. "And Later became
a horrible, menacing, goose-bumpy word. Lay. Ter. Like a deep-sounding bell in
a mossy well.
Shivery, and furred. Like moth's
feet." This passage sums up the foundation upon which Roy has built her
literary vocabulary, her creative construction of language for this story. It
explains why she is so focused on language, especially when dealing with her
youngest of characters. Roy is sensitive to the distorted world that children
must plow through, hoping to find their way. She remembers how difficult
language was to understand and yet at the same time how powerful words could be
for children. Even when words are not fully comprehended, or at least not
identified with proper dictionary meanings, they are felt. Words for children
have more than sound; they have lives of their own. And the tone of them can be
frightening. Roy knows that sometimes words that children hear are creepy,
furry insects. Other times they are slimy wells that threaten to swallow all
who hear them.
One more way that Roy adorns her
story is through the use of poetic images which are as colorful as the tropical
paintings of Paul Gauguin. The author obviously does not paint with oils to do
so but rather with vibrant words, such as when she is describing the first
raindrops of the monsoon season when she writes: "Slanting silver ropes
slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire." The first component
that makes this sentence so beautiful is the alliteration with the letter s,
which sounds slippery just like the rain she is portraying. Then there is the
overall image of hard raindrops falling on the dry earth. The rain is so hard
and the earth is so dry that when the water first hits the dirt, dust flies up
into the air as if the earth is being shot at. This sentence is poetically
powerful on many different levels. But besides creating an image, it also
provides a psychological reference. Rahel has just returned in Ayemenem as the
narrator describes this scene. Change is in the air as the edge of the monsoon
season pushes the dry weather away. But there is also a sense of danger
presented here. The author uses the word gunfire in her metaphor, as if a
warning is being given. The timeframe of this novel is contorted, moving from
the present to the past and back again, over and over again. So when the above
sentence appears in the story, the damage to Rahel has already happened; but
the reader is still in the dark because the story has just begun. So the
warning is not given for Rahel's sake but for the reader's.
It is as if the author is
alerting the reader that this is not going to be an easy, entertaining story.
There are many events that will be hard to take, and Rahel's return is but one
of the markers for these difficult changes.
There is another passage that
serves a dual purpose. It appears on the first page of the novel. The narrator
is describing the landscape as the monsoon season begins. "Boundaries blur
as tapioca fences take root and bloom." Here there is another reference to
great change, as dried out branches that once looked like a fence are now
blossoming and thus fading into the rest of the vegetation around it. Whereas
fences normally standout as rigid boundaries, in this instance the boundary
itself becomes part of the garden. Besides creating a poetic image, Roy
foreshadows a theme that will prevail throughout the story, one in which
boundaries between sex, race, social status, and rational and irrational
reality will cease to exist. As a matter of fact, the whole first chapter
provides a foreshadowing of the rest of the novel. Roy either cleverly hints at
events that will come, or else she completely throws her readers into very
specific events but only gives readers quick, short glimpses, teasing them
forward.
Examples of how Roy gives hints
and glimpses into the future of the novel include her reference to the
"Orangedrink Lemondrink Man" and her mentioning that he did something
to Estha; but she does not say what that was. And Roy describes Rahel as being
"brittle with exhaustion from her battle against Real Life," although
readers have no idea what this battle entailed. Then later in the first
chapter, Inspector Thomas Mathew toys with Rahel's mother, Ammu, when the woman
goes to the police station: "He tapped her breasts with his baton. Gently.
Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket." There is a lot
suggested in this phrase. First there is the superior stance of the inspector.
There is also the sexual overtone. And then there is the reader's curiosity,
which is aroused by questions such as why has Ammu gone to see the policeman?
And why is he intimidating her? Then shortly after this encounter, Ammu says:
"He's dead." Readers do not know who has died nor what all these
passages mean. Roy is fully aware of keeping her readers in the dark, but she
does not worry about the confusion. The author does not rush to fill in all the
gaps. This is because she is a profoundly confident and creative writer. Roy
tells her story the way she wants to relate it. And she does it in a language
that suits her characters' minds. And it is her confidence, creativity, and
poetic style that make Roy's writing so refreshing, make her story so enticing
to read over and over again.
Source: Joyce Hart, Critical
Essay on The God of Small Things, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.
Critical Essay #3
Carter is currently employed as a
freelance writer. In this essay, Carter considers the social malaise present in
Roy's version of contemporary Indian society as a function of Western
influence.
Permeating Arundahti Roy's The
God of Small Things is an India devoid of a sense of history, one that has laid
waste to the Western world. It is a desolation foreshadowing what lies, even
eats away at, the core of the novel when a people, in this case, the people of
India, lose their sense of history, the results are devastating to all. In the
opening chapter of her work, Roy introduces the reader to world of what was.
Relationships are broken, gardens go asunder, homes lay waste, victims of
abject filth fueled by apathy and neglect. It is a circumstance Roy paints
aptly and repeatedly from the opening pages until Sophie Mol's tragic end.
The British influence of the
Indian culture insidiously lurks at the heart of the novel. Baby Kochamma
appears at the beginning of the novel to Rahel to be a caricature of her former
self, defined by her dyed jet-black hair along with its by-product, a pale gray
stain imprinted on her forehead. She has also begun to wear makeup, that when
applied in the dark confines of her home, appears to be slightly off, "her
lipstick mouth having shifted slightly off her real mouth." The silence
between Baby Kochamma and Rahel when they are reunited, both now as adults,
mirrors this strangeness, described as sitting "between grandniece and
baby grandaunt like a third person. A stranger. Swollen. Noxious."
Conversation is stilted, and the two struggle to find words. But the reader
soon learns that circumstances were once different. The narrative recalls a
past featuring a different Baby Kochamma, one who had previously spent her
afternoons in a sari and gumboots, where she tended to an ornamental garden
fantastic enough to attract attention from neighboring towns.
But much has changed. The garden
is as toxic as the reunion between relatives, abandoned, having "grown
knotted and wild, like a circus whose animals have forgotten their tricks. The
reason for Baby Kochamma's neglect, stems from her "new love," a
satellite dish antenna. This event generates "impossible excitement"
in Baby Kochamma literally overnight, hypnotic in its intrusion into her
existence. She abandons her love for gardening for the sake of the WWF and
other televised amusements. "In Ayemenem," says the narrator,
"where once the loudest sound had been a musical bus horn, now whole wars,
famines, picturesque massacres and Bill Clinton could be summoned up like
servants." This newfound attraction, the reader also discovers, is the
catalyst for Baby Kochamma's absurd new look, defined by badly dyed, brittle
hair and painted lips, influenced by television programming the likes of The
Bold and the Beautiful and Santa Barbara.
The social malaise framing the
events of the novel is aptly described by Chacko, an India-born, Oxford
educated man who sees, yet cannot transcend, the hypocrisies of his westernized
culture. It is Chacko who is quick to point out that the family's desire to see
The Sound of Music is "an extended exercise in Anglophilia." He tells
the twins that they are all Anglophiles, "pointed in the wrong direction,
trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because
their footprints had been swept away." He explains to them that history is
"like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors
whispering inside." To understand one's history is to enter this house, to
understand and hear the whispers, to see the books, pictures and smell the
smells that linger within its walls. Yet in the next breath, he is apt to
express himself in what is characterized as his "reading aloud
voice," an affectation developed during his studies at Oxford. His
fondness for his Oxford days culminates not only in his affinity for
literature, but for the reverence he holds for both his American-born ex-wife
and their daughter.
No one character seems to escape
the tentacles of Western culture. An element of violence punctures the novel,
first, in Baby Kochamma's husband, Pappachi, who beat her regularly yet fancied
himself to be a proper English gentleman within the context of his own
arrogance and exceedingly destructive nature. Then there is Ammu, his daughter,
mother of Rahel and Estha, who returns home after surviving a violent attack
from her drunken husband. The cause for the assault, the reader learns, stems
from a request by her husband's British employer to sleep with Ammu as a way to
preserve his position with the company. Ammu's refusal to comply spurns the
attack from her spouse. When she decides to leave her husband, her family's
response is surprisingly negative, according to the narrator. In the Kochamma
family, Ammu's integrity takes a backseat to preconceived notions of British
values. "Pappachi would not believe her story not because he thought well
of her husband, but simply because he didn't believe that an Englishman, any
Englishman, would covet another man's wife." It is this Western influence
that further polarizes the family. As a result of this influence, Ammu is
osterisized by her own people, as are her innocent children, predicated or
based on a sort of high-flying, false perception of English decorum as having
transcended Indian culture.
Velutha is in a similar, if not
worse position in modern Indian society. When the British came to his town,
his, among other Paravans, Pelayas and Pulayas, wanted to avoid
"Untouchability" by Christian conversion and membership in the
Anglican church. Rather than escape persecution, these groups found that they
had instead relinquished any claims to government benefits, their Christianity
rendering them "casteless" outcasts in their own society. Recalling
Chacko's own lesson in histrionics, Roy says of the fate of Velutha's people,
"It was a little like having to sweep away your footprints without a
broom. Or worse, not being allowed to leave footprints at all." In so much
as Velutha is loved, and even admired by Baby Kochamma, he remains a social
outcast. Because of this imposed status and its perceived impact on the
Kochamma family, i.e., the affair between Velutha and Ammu, Velutha is
eventually betrayed by Baby Kochamma to preserve the family name. In the end,
authorities misuse this information to their advantage to subdue the Indian
community. A brutal beating meant to send a message to quiet rebellious
rumblings results in Velutha's death.
Sophie Mol's death remains at the
heart of the story, and weighs heavily on Estha and Rahel. It functions as a
leveling force for all concerned. It is the pivotal point at which familial
bonds are permanently severed. Her life is symbolic and central to the novel.
She epitomizes all that is British, described upon her arrival: "She
walked down the runway, the smell of London in her hair." Her father,
Indian, her mother, American, Sophie Mol is a product of a biracial marriage.
Ironically, despite these familial ties, she has little or no connection with
India. She has instead been raised in England by her American-born mother,
well-removed from the influences of the India people. Ironically, Sophie Mol's
British affectations have elevated her status, somehow overshadowing her Indian
origins. Her cousins, Estha and Rahel, stand in her shadow. Rather than being
elevated or embraced for their Indianness, they are overlooked in Baby
Kochamma's home. And when Sophie Mol tragically dies, the event tears apart
core relationships in the Kochamma household. The family puts all of their
energy into Sophie Mol, and her death, even though their history with the child
suggests she is more or less a stranger, admired more for her golden hair,
western mannerisms and dress. Instead of accepting responsibility for their
part in the accident, tragically, both Chacko and Baby Kochamma blame Rahel and
Estha, and begin to treat them as outcasts.
Roy speaks of India's history as
if it were creeping in the shadows, represented by "History House"
looming in the "Heart of Darkness" at the other side of the river.
History House is haunted by an Englishman who had gone native, the "Black
Sahib" who it was intimated had committed suicide after his family was
permanently separated by his young lover's parents, presumably Indian and
perhaps, ironically so, bent on the child's Anglicization. Driven by their need
to escape from a hostile family life, the twins look to History House as a way
to escape the constraints of their own world. What happens when they decide to
cross the river, to be with Velutha, the man they "weren't supposed to
love" on that fateful day on the back veranda changes the course of their
lives, and their affinity to the world forever. Adds Roy, "While other
children of their age learned other things, Estha and Rahel learned how history
negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws."
Both of the twins hear history's "sickening thud," they in fact
"smell its smell and never forget," a smell described as "old
roses on a breeze."
Estha and Rahel's lost innocence
culminates in the tragic events on the veranda at history house. It is there
that Velutha's blood is spilled. He is violently beaten in front of the
children as the result of lies Baby Kochamma has told merely out of vanity, to
protect her "good name" and reputation. His death is also a function
of the social climate in the area. Velutha is used as an example by the
authorities of those who remain out of step with the new regime or the British
way of life. He is beaten and killed, so preaches Roy, in an account as seen
through Rahel's and Estha's eyes. What they witnessed in History House, the
author contends, was "a clinical demonstration in controlled
conditions" of "human nature's pursuit of ascendancy." She goes
on to explain, "Structure. Order. Complete monopoly. It was human history,
masquerading as God's Purpose, revealing herself to an under-age
audience." Ultimately, it is the influence of outside political and social
forces that kill Velutha both spiritually and physically, as well as
permanently scar Estha and Rahel's psyches.
The author, when asked just what
the god of small things is, simply stated that it is "the inversion of
God," a "not accepting of what we think of as adult boundaries."
Roy asserts that throughout the course of the narrative, "all sorts of
boundaries are transgressed upon." It is, according to Roy, small events
and ordinary things "smashed and reconstituted, imbued with new meaning to
become the bleached bones of the story." Subsequently, it is these small
events and ordinary things that form a pattern for her narrative. "A
pattern," says Roy, "of how in these small events and in these small
lives the world intrudes." She believes that because of these patterns,
and what they imply, that people go virtually unprotected, "the world and
the social machine intrudes into the smallest, deepest core of their being and
changes their life."
Returning to the story, it is
easy to identify the psychological undercurrent Roy speaks of. All of the
events in the story are a by-product of Western influence in what has become,
more or less, a British colony. Tepid river waters bloated with dead finish
mirror the encroachment of the industrial machine, as does the hypnotic quality
of the satellite dish holding the Kochamma house hostage. Throughout the novel,
the twins are encouraged to speak English rather than their native language, to
covet whiteness instead of their Indian heritage, yet they cannot transcend who
they are and fail miserably. Compounding their failure is Sophie Mol, their
English cousin, who manages to capture Baby Kochamma and Chacko's attention
immediately with her
Western affectations. And when
Ammu's affair fails miserably, she expresses her sorrow by directing her rage
towards her own children, as did her husband and parents towards her. Like
dominoes, these circumstances and others stack up, then collapse, setting into
motion a tragic chain of events that cannot be controlled.
By the author's own admission,
she does not attempt to define what modern day India is or what it means to be
Indian. What she does do so aptly, is to weave a subtle tale of circumstances
that collectively, permanently shape and form the lives of her characters,
leaving an indelible mark that no doubt will be transferred, one generation to
the next. Remarks the narrator of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things,
Perhaps it's true that things can
change in a day. That a few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned
house the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture must be
resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Dupler is a
writer and has taught college English courses. In this essay, Dupler explores
the relationship between individuals and the cultural forces acting upon them
within the novel.
Arundhati Roy's novel The God of
Small Things reveals a complex relationship between individuals and the
historical and cultural forces that shape them and their society. In Roy's
novel, a so-called Big God presides over the large happenings of the world, the
"vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public
turmoil of a nation." In contrast, it is a Small God that resides over the
individual lives caught up in forces too powerful and large for these
individuals to understand and to change. This Small God is "cozy and
contained, private and limited," residing over people for whom "worse
things" are always happening. Individuals ruled by the symbolic Small God
adopt resignation and "inconsequence" in the face of mass movements,
while at the same time their oppression makes them "resilient and truly
indifferent."
The novel takes place in modern
India, in the state of Kerala, during a time of social change and upheaval and
as television is just beginning to broadcast "television-enforced
democracy" into an insular world. The characters in Roy's novel exist in a
culture of strict rules. There is a caste system and a class system that exert
much force upon the characters. Conflict is created for the individuals who
can't adhere to these systems of social organization and control. Indeed, the
greatest conflict in the story, a love affair between Ammu and Velutha, is the
result of individuals rebelling against the historical and cultural structures
of caste and class; this is an affair between a Touchable and an Untouchable. In
the beginning of the novel, the tragedy is foreshadowed and explained when the
narrative states, "They all broke the rules. . . . They all tampered with
the laws that lay down who should be loved and how." As an entire culture
strains against ancient laws and customs, Roy's novel brings this struggle down
to the level of individuals, in a "time when the unthinkable became
thinkable." That is, individuals have begun to question and act against
the laws that had rigidly remained for so long.
The novel ranges in scope from
the epic to the minute. The narrative gives lush detail of the everyday life in
India, and contains colors, textures, and many characters. At the same time,
the narrative also shifts to expose the larger forces that drive the
characters. For instance, the narrative gives broad details about the
trajectory of the lives of some of the characters, including Rahel, Ammu,
Chacko, Margaret, and others. The novel also gives details about some of the
political movements of the days, as when it describes the workings of Communism
within the state of Kerala. The novel weaves several layers of perspective of
the social order, including the simplicities of individuals in their everyday
lives; broad views of character's lives and how they arrived at their places in
the story; and larger events that provide glimpses of the historical and
cultural forces at play in the world. The relationship between these levels of
existence is complex and subtle, and the narrative states that this
relationship is tenuous and that "things can change in a day" for any
of the characters.
The narrative shows in several
instances how casual comments and decisions can have deep repercussions,
showing the power of choice that individuals have within their social lives.
For instance, when Ammu angrily scolds Rahel by telling her, "When you
hurt people they begin to love you less," this moment has far-reaching
effects in the lives of the characters. This off-hand remark is instrumental in
making Rahel run away from the family, an event that also brings about the
death of Sophie Mol and then Velutha. In another example, when Margaret
Kochamma decides to return to India after the death of her husband, this
decision leads to the death of her daughter Sophie and will haunt her "for
as long as she lived."
The narrative utilizes shifts in
time to illustrate how the world for the characters has changed. The present
moment of the novel occurs as Rahel returns to Ayemenem at the age of
thirty-one. The narrative uses broad flashbacks to show the world that Rahel
remembers as a young child, when the tragedy occurred that changed her life
forever. When Rahel meets Comrade Pillai as an adult, there is an underlying
tension in the meeting, because Pillai had played a role in the death of
Velutha. This history will not go away and pervades the moment. This is
recognized when the narrative states, "she and he knew that there are
things that can be forgotten. And things that cannot."
One of the historical forces that
shaped modern India is its colonial past under British rule. For the characters
in the novel, this past is still alive. Chacko, who received his education in
England, educates the twins Estha and Rahel on the ways of the world.
He tells them that their family
is "all Anglophiles. . . . Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside
their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints
had been swept away." This allusion to their footprints relates to the
caste system in India. The narrative mentions a time, within memory, when
Untouchables, or the lowest caste of people, were required to sweep away their
footprints in public for higher caste members. When the British ruled, yet
another form of class structure was imposed upon the society. This structure,
according to Chacko, "locked out" Indians from their world, because
of a war that made them "adore [their] conquerors and despise
[themselves]." From Chacko, the twins "learned how history negotiates
its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws." For Chacko,
Indians in relation to the English will always be "Prisoners of War."
Colonialism affects other
characters in the novel as well. Baby Kochamma, in her youth, had defied her
family's wishes and converted to a Roman Catholic, mainly due to her
infatuation with a priest named Father Mulligan. Throughout the story, Baby
Kochamma's bitterness and treachery plays a role in the tragedy, as though she
is unwittingly making other people suffer for her own unrequited longings and
heartache. There is also tension between Mammachi and Margaret Kochamma.
Margaret is a British woman who married and then divorced Chacko. Mammachi
"despised" her and refers to Margaret as the "shopkeeper's
daughter," an insult containing the ring of class snobbery. Another
telling collision of the two cultures occurs subtly during the scene in which
Estha is molested, when the family had gone to see the film The Sound of Music.
The narrative states that the
story being told, including the tragedy, began "thousands of years ago. .
. . Before the British . . . the Dutch . . . [and] Christianity." The
story actually "began in the days when the Love Laws were made."
Indeed, the story, and the tragedy therein, show that it is human passion that
cannot be controlled and contained by cultural rules. In their love affair,
Ammu and Velutha are well aware of the dangers and taboos of their
relationship, and yet they are powerless to stop their desire. Desire, or the
force of life, overpowers the cultural forces that would deny it; the narrative
declares that "biology designed the dance." One day, as Ammu is
watching Velutha play with Rahel, she begins to feel her desire for him. In
this scene, "centuries telescoped into one evanescent moment."
Likewise, when Velutha notices that "Rahel's mother was a woman," in
a brief moment he notices things that "had been out of bounds." In
their attraction, the "cost of living climbed to unaffordable
heights," and Velutha was about to "enter a tunnel" that would
lead to his "annihilation." In the end, cultural forces would have
their say over the individual's breaking the rules.
The relationship between Velutha
and Ammu is symbolic of the conflicts in the culture. Velutha is from the
Untouchable caste, but his many positive qualities cause Ammu to fall in love
with him, while the twins Rahel and Estha adore him and play with him often.
Velutha's excellence as a person illuminates the unfairness of the caste laws.
When Velutha is seen marching in a Communist parade, it illustrates the
changing structure of political power in the culture. Velutha's grandfather had
converted to Christianity, but even the new religion could not overcome the
entrenched caste laws of the society, and the churches became segregated for
the Untouchables.
Velutha is hardly an obsequious
slave. He is described as a handsome, kind, intelligent, and clever man. He has
an "unwarranted assurance" about him and he bothers people because of
the "way in which he disregarded suggestions without appearing to
rebel." Velutha's qualities, the narrative states, might be desirable in
Touchables, but in an Untouchable they could be "construed as
insolence." With Velutha, the cultural laws are seen as restricting
excellence. There is something about Velutha that represents escape for Ammu,
who is from a higher caste. When she sees him, he represents something other
that the "smug, ordered world that she so raged against."
The individual freedom
represented by the love between Velutha and Ammu is short-lived, and other
characters in the story act their parts in continuing the cultural constraint
of such displays of rule-breaking. Baby Kochamma lies and betrays Velutha, as
does the Communist Pillai, which leads to the murder, by official forces, of
Velutha. Indeed, it is betrayal by individuals that sends Velutha on his
"blind date with history," in which he is murdered unjustly for
breaking the Love Laws. Estha gets caught up in the situation as well, when he
is manipulated by Baby Kochamma into lying against Velutha. For Estha, this
event has long-reaching effects in his life, as he loses his voice and lives
numbly thereafter.
In the end, the novel shifts and
the cultural forces begin to exert their power over the individuals. Baby
Kochamma performs her machinations "not for Ammu," but to
"contain the scandal" that has occurred when the Love Laws were
broken. When the narrative notes that the characters are living in "an era
imprinting itself on those who lived in it," it shows that the God of Big
Things is again residing over the God of Small Things. When the cultural powers
decide that Velutha must be held responsible for breaking the rules, the story
provides a glimpse of the men in power, Comrade Pillai and Inspector Mathew.
These men are "without curiosity" and are "terrifyingly
adult" in the way they operate. So controlled are they by the rules of
their culture, they have become "mechanics who serviced different parts of
the same machine." When the police beat Velutha to death, it is an
impersonal event, as the caste laws had severed "any connection between
themselves and him . . . long ago." Later, many years after the incident,
the culture protects the men who uphold its prejudices and injustices. When
Rahel meets Comrade Pillai, she notices that he "didn't hold himself in
any way personally responsible for what had happened. He dismissed the whole
business as the Inevitable Consequence of Necessary Politics."
Source: Douglas Dupler, Critical
Essay on The God of Small Things, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.
Quotes
"Little events, ordinary
things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they
become the bleached bones of a story." Page 32
"Some things come with their
own punishment." Page 109
"Anything's possible in
Human Nature ...Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy." Page 112
"It is curious how sometimes
the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life
that it purloined."
"The air was full of
Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these only the Small Things are
ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside." Page 136
"Must we behave like some
damn godforsaken tribe that's just been discovered?" Page 171
"He left no footprints in
the sand, no ripples in the water, no image in the mirrors." Page 206
"If you're happy in a dream,
does that count?" Page 208 "Change is one thing. Acceptance is
another." Page 265
"Men's subliminal urge to
destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify." Page 292 "What came
for them? ... Not Death. Just the end of living." Page 304 "They had
nothing. No future. So they stuck to small things."
Roy has published a great deal of
political writing, has worked as an activist, and has been imprisoned for her
political beliefs. Research her political views and activities, and read some
of her political writings. How would you characterize Roy's position on issues
such as globalization and terrorism? What have been the results of her activism
in India and around the world?
As an Indian novel written in
English, The God of Small Things is part of a genre of literature stretching
back to the days of the British Raj. Research the ways in which Roy's novel
relates to this tradition, which includes authors such as R. K. Narayan and
Salman Rushdie. In what ways does Roy's novel fit into this tradition, and in
what ways does it belong outside of it? What innovations does Roy bring to
Indian literature in English, and why are they important? How does Roy's novel
relate to Indian politics, and how is this similar or different to the ways in
which the novels of her predecessors have related to Indian politics?
Some readers and critics have
found elements of The God of Small Things offensive or controversial. Research
the nature of the outcry against the novel, particularly in India and in
Britain. Which aspects of the work were controversial, and why? What were the
results of the controversy? Describe your reaction to moments of the novel such
as when Estha is forced to masturbate the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man, when Ammu
and Velutha make love, and when Rahel and Estha make love. Discuss how elements
of the forbidden and the taboo relate to the central themes of the novel.
Communism has been a uniquely
prominent force in the state of Kerala, India. Research the activities of the
various factions of the Communist Party in Kerala. How did communism develop
and spread in the region? What are the key ways in which communist thought has
affected Kerala's history? How does the history of the communist parties in
Kerala relate to the history of communism throughout South Asia? Discuss the
state of communism in Kerala today.
Compare and Contrast
1969: E. M. S. Namboodiripad's
communist government of Kerala falls for the second time, and the Indian
National Congress Party dissolves into two groups.
1990s: Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi is assassinated in 1991 and is succeeded by P. V. Narasimha Rao. A
series of leadership struggles begins in 1996, when Rao is forced out of power.
Today: Manmohan Singh is
appointed prime minister of India in May of 2004, after the Congress Party
unexpectedly wins the election and its leader Sonia Gandhi, widow of Rajiv
Gandhi, declines the post in order to appease Hindu nationalists. Communism
remains a powerful force in Kerala politics.
1969: Kerala is a lush and warm
region of southern India with a uniquely high literacy rate. Public welfare
systems have become much more substantial since independence, but the
agricultural economy remains similar to the economy in the days of the British
Raj.
1990s: Kerala's economy is still
based on rubber, coconut, and spice production, but economic reforms are
placing much more emphasis on large private corporations, and India is opening
up to foreign investment.
Today: India has one of the
largest and fastest-growing economies in the world, and the trend towards
privatization continues. Kerala has a literacy rate near ninety percent, which
is the highest of any state in India.
1969: Post-colonial Indian
literature written in English is becoming a popular genre of its own, developed
by writers such as R. K. Narayan.
1990s: Salman Rushdie has been a
dominant force in the Indo-British literary scene since he published Midnight's
Children in 1981.
Today: Indian writing in English
is a wide and diverse genre of literature, and Roy is one of its most
successful stars, even though she has published only one novel.
What Do I Read Next?
The Guide (1958) is R. K.
Narayan's popular tale of Raju, a former convict who is mistaken for a holy man
upon his arrival in Narayan's fictional universe of Malgudi.
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's
Children (1981) is a multifaceted and ambitious work about India's history
since its independence from Britain. Focusing on the story of Saleem Sinai, who
was born at the stroke of midnight marking Independence, it includes elements
of magic and fantasy, and it is highly allusive to classic texts including the
Bible and Arabian Nights.
Roy's nonfiction, War Talk
(2003), is composed of fluent and engaging arguments about the negative impacts
of globalization, the danger of nuclear proliferation, and the devastating
impact of the Bush administration's foreign policy on the Third World.
E. M. Forster's A Passage to
India (1924) is the classic modernist text about the clash of British and
Indian cultures during the British Raj. The plot centers around the Indian Dr.
Aziz, who is accused of raping an English woman.
Key Questions
The two main situations that
provide the backdrop for this story are the former colonization of India by
England and the caste system that works within Indian society.
As an Indian writer writing in
English for a primarily English-speaking audience, Roy must negotiate her place
within Indian society while making her commentary about it. Her fiction is not
anti-English, but could be thought of as commenting upon the quick dismissal of
Indian tradition by those who might be best served by a readjustment of
attitudes towards their own people as well as those who they think of as
superior.
1. Find information on the caste system in India, and
information about the culture in general of the Southwestern area of India where
this story takes place. Did Roy do a good job representing the ideas and
cultural concepts of this time and place?
2. Look up information on the communist movement in India. What
is its significance in this story in particular?
3. Look at A. A. Milne's original story of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Although this seems an extremely unusual comparison, the use of capital letters
to add significance to words within a sentence is common to both. What is the
effect of this technique? Are the effects similar in both stories? How are they
similar or different?
4. Can you think of ways in which "Englishness" plays
a role in this story?
5. Is the way that Roy tells this story effective? Why would
she choose a nonsequential narrative? How would that affect the way that the
story is perceived?
6. How would the story have been different if Sophie Mol hadn't
died? Would there still be a story to tell? How would it have ended
differently?
Literary Precedents
Salman Rushdie's book Midnight's
Children is especially relevant to Roy's chosen subject matter, as his novel
centers on a family during the Indian fight for independence. Similarly, Amitav
Ghosh's novel Shadow Lines follows two families, one Indian, one English, over
three generations from 1939 to the present day. Each of these novels
investigates the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized and what
happens as they separate. Bharati Mukherjee, in her novel The Tiger's Daughter,
looks at the collision of Western culture and India in the present time, as she
follows Indian born, American-educated Tara's return to India.
From the English side of things,
covering an earlier time period, E. M. Forester's A Passage to India is one of
the best-known works by an English writer that also takes on the theme of
England's colonization of India.
Although Roy's fiction takes
place at a later time than Forster's or Rushdie's, the themes are similar, as
the effects of colonization are still present today as Indians negotiate the
intrusion of the English in their past and into their traditions.
For Further Reading
Dodiya, Jaydipsinh, and Joya
Chakravarty, The Critical Studies of Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small
Things," Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 1999.
This collection, published in New
Delhi, is the earliest book-length volume of criticism on Roy's novel.
Eder, Richard, "As the World
Turns," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, June 1, 1997, p. 2.
Eder provides a mixed review of
Roy's novel, praising her evocative depiction of the story and characters but
arguing that she loses control over the narrative.
Thornmann, Janet, "The
Ethical Subject of The God of Small Things," in Journal for the
Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, Vol. 8, No. 2, Fall 2003, pp. 299--307.
Thornmann's psychoanalytical
interpretation of Roy's novel includes an argument about the applicability of
the Oedipal complex to the work.
Truax, Alice, "A Silver
Thimble in Her Fist," in the New York Times Book Review, May 25, 1997, p.
5.
Truax's descriptive review of The
God of Small Things is an example of the very positive response to Roy's work
in the United States.
Bibliography
Menon, Ritu, "The Age of
Innocence,” in Women's Review of Books, Vol. 14, No. 12, September 1997, pp.
1--3.
National University of Singapore,
Postcolonial and Post Imperial Literature online, www.postcolonialweb.org,
March 29, 2005.
Review of The God of Small
Things, in Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1997, p. 412.
Roy, Arundhati, The God of Small
Things, Random House, 1997.
Works Cited
"The God of Small Things Overview." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.
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