Transgression of 'Love Laws' in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things: National and Personal Histories Caught in Transition In attempting to define the history and modern identity of postcolonial nations, Partha Chatterjee calls to attention the many paradoxes inherent in the cultural fabric of India. It is a country, he notes, with a modern culture based on native tradition that has been influenced by its colonial period. This modern culture contains conflicts and contradictions that create the ambiguity in India’s national identity. U. R. Anantha Murthy’s understands Indian culture as a mosaic pattern of tradition and modernity. He writes of a heterodox reality where the intellectual self is in conflict with the emotional, the rational individual experiences the sad nostalgia of the exile from his traditional roots and in fluctuating between belief and non-belief he works out his dilemmas. This paper attempts a reading of the transgression of “Love Laws” in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things as not only the representation of this heterodox modernity in the personal domain as a reflection of the larger national conflict but also a postcolonial writer’s dilemmas in search for an identity and their troubles in expressing it. Roy’s The God of Small Things illustrates history as “a dominating, oppressive force that saturates virtually all social and cultural spaces, including the familial, intimate, and affective relationships.” (Needham 372). The small personal conflicts that play out in the Ipe Family are symbolic of the larger historic struggles of the entire nation. The story can then be read as a ‘national allegory’, a term that Frederic Jameson uses in context of third world texts and explains that, “Third-world texts, e... ... middle of paper ... ...ly plays out the dilemma of the postcolonial writer that Anantha Murthy had discussed. Her writings and concerns are clearly subversive of the traditional bastions of power and keep out of the trappings of regressive social forces. On the other hand through her creative use of language, Roy engages in a dialogue with the West, challenging dominant narratives of India’s history. She does not confine herself to redressing the ‘insults’ of a colonial past, but is also keenly aware of the shadow of an older pre-colonial history. In her narrative of Transgressions, Roy offers a view of a Nation caught in transition and proves herself to be a product of its postcolonial culture. She makes no clear choices between tradition and modernity in any exclusive way, instead striving to arrive at a heterodox reality that does not belie the complexities of the Indian Consciousness.
She has criticized the caste system, the Indian government, and now, the United States, which threatens to become the newest world hegemon. Though her opinions are not indicative of those held by the greater Indian population, she serves the useful function of pushing rhetoric to the left, and, in doing so, raises many of the crucial issues that India must address in today’s world. “Not again” is an article criticizing the leaders of America and their foreign policy, which she sees as full of reductionist dichotomies and a thinly veiled attempt to propagate corporate capitalism. As she says in “Not again,” “Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons” (3). Though Roy is clearly denouncing the United States government in her article, the hidden message is the implication that this rhetoric—and action—by the United States can have for developing countries, among them
Literature has the ability to help readers discover and understand different cultures and traditions, and it can often alter a reader’s perspective of the world and their place in it. Throughout Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Dương Thu Hương’s Paradise of the Blind, the characters often find themselves restrained by their social class, which impacts negatively on their childhoods and results in many injustices. Both novels delve deep into the effects of being in a low social class and the injustice it can cause. In The God of Small
Utilising reconstructions established on historical events, historical fiction provides significant value for the process of historical inquiry. India Dark, by the Australian author, Kirsty Murray, provides deep insight into the history of South India and Australia and twentieth-century social ethics. Due to Murray’s ability to incorporate factual events with authenticity and reflect the values and spirit of the times, its value as an integral and well-researched composition of historical fiction is assured. Murray smoothly blends authentic events of history into her construction of historical fiction, engaging readers in a well-written story that utilises various perspectives. Seamless integration of factual detail describing authentic aspects
Arundhati Roy writes a provocative story of growing up in India in his book entitled, The God of Small Things. The novel is placed in two different time periods about 23 years apart and moves smoothly from one time period to another. Roy’s predominate story is of Estha and Rahel who are “two-egg twins…born from separate but simultaneously fertilized eggs” (Roy 4), but along with their story are several other stories that spotlight members of immediate Ipe family members and persons living nearby. Woven into Roy’s novel are his views of life in India. Also examined here is Seamus Heaney’s book of selected poems, Opened Ground. The poet laureate of Ireland portrays in his writings his views Ireland, from his life as a child to the troubles Northern Ireland has faced because of England in the last century. These two countries are different in cultures and traditions and are located at opposite ends of the global yardstick. But common to both are problems of unrest; in India those associated with English influence and domination; in Northern Ireland problems concerning English sympathizers and those opposed to English rule. These similarities and differences will be examined here.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things portrays many types of oppression based mainly on the caste system in late 20th century India. The caste has many effects as characters’ qualities of life are compromised, people are turned on each other, and some are treated unjustly. Roy uses the caste system and power roles to portray how people consent to social norms regardless of their morals, because they are more eager to please society and maintain their images than act ethically.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a story of a family stricken with taboos and scandal. The novel is a series of events told in third person often out of chronological order. The God of Small Things is not merely just a series of events or a story solely about Esta and Rachel’s relationship. Rather it is a focus on the taboo love oppressed by the class system in India. All of the culturally taboo relationships play a key role in Roy’s social commentary; Ammu and Velutha, and Estha and Rahel, and even Baby Kochamma and Father Mulligan. With focus on these relationships, Roy can comment on the sexual oppression in India due to the class system.
In the book “The God of Small Things” shows connections with the “love laws”. At the beginning of the paragraph the author gives the idea of where does Rahel comes from. When it says, “That something happened when personal turmoil dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast (immense, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation.” Is focusing on describing the life journey she has gone through because of her cultural roots. Larry as an a stranger of her country, was not aware of how some beliefs were more important than others and that in certain way affects family’s reputation. Some main problems that Rahel’s family faces in the novel is trying to create the “perfect family” portrait. The “perfect
Arundhati Roy wrote the novel “The God of Small Things” in 1997. The book captures a great part of her experiences as a child in Aymanam. Roy explores the values, social stratification and family customs that the imperialism has left and remain in India until nowadays, because of the British colonial regime. In this essay I will study how Roy criticises the position of women, besides criticising other aspects of the Indian society, from a postcolonial feminist perspective. The novel has important female characters, three of them are Ammu, Mammachi and Baby Kochamma and I will explain how their lives are a way that Roy uses to criticise and portray women’s position.
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, published in 1980, was perhaps the seminal text in conceiving opinions as to interplay of post-modern and post-colonial theory. The title of the novel refers to the birth of Saleem Sinai, the novel’s principal narrator, who is born at midnight August 15th 1947, the precise date of Indian independence. From this remarkable coincidence we are immediately drawn to the conclusion that the novel’s concerns are of the new India, and how someone born into this new state of the ‘Midnight’s child’, if you will, interacts with this post-colonial state. To characterise the novel as one merely concerned with post-colonial India, and its various machinations, is however a reductive practice. While the novel does at various times deal with what it is to be Indian, both pre and post 1947, it is a much more layered and interesting piece of work. Midnight’s Children’s popularity is such that it was to be voted 25th in a poll conducted by the Guardian, listing the 100 best books of the last century, and was also to receive the Booker Prize in 1981 and the coveted ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993. http://www.bookerprize.co.uk/
Gairola, Rahul. “Burning with Shame: Desire and South Asian Patriarchy, from Gayatri Spivak’s ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ to Deepa Mehta’s Fire.” Comparative Literature 54:4 (Fall 2002). 307-324. EBSCOhost.
Sen, Amartya. The Argumentative Indian: writings on Indian Culture, History and Identity. London: Penguin Books. 2005. 210.
Arundhati Roy, the acclaimed post colonial novelist and activist, won the Man Booker Prizes for her first novel The God of Small Things in 1997. She is deeply involved with India’s social problems, particularly those concerning the socially marginalized and dispossesed people, ie., dalits women etc. She has also written about injustices in her works of nonfiction. According to Roy, “there is an intricate web of morality, rigor, and responsibility that art, that writing itself, imposes on a writer”.1 In these lines from Power Politics, Roy avidly defends the writers freedom of expression and his /her obligation to point out issues of social injustice. The God of Small Things is about several things but one of the chief issues it brings into
This essay focuses on the theme of forbidden love, The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy. This novel explores love and how love can’t be ignored when confronted with social boundaries. The novel examines how conventional society seeks to destroy true love as this novel is constantly connected to loss, death and sadness. This essay will explore the theme of forbidden love, by discussing and analysing Ammu and Velutha's love that is forbidden because of the ‘Love Laws’ in relation to the caste system which results in Velutha’s death. It is evident that forbidden love negatively impacts and influences other characters, such as Estha and Rahel, which results in Estha and Rahel’s incestuous encounter.
The God of Small Things is a novel that focuses on the events after the partitioning of India-Pakistan. The characters of Estha and Rahel are such that they symbolize this partition; they symbolize the two countries. The aftermath of the partitions affect both countries tremendously. Similarly, when Estha and Rahel were separated after Sophie Mol’s funeral, they felt a part of their identity was missing. “The emptiness in one twin was only a version of the quietness of the other… The two things fitted together. Like stacked spoons. Like familiar lovers’ bodies” (21). Once they were again reunited after 23 years, they felt the need for a closure in their relationship. Thus, Estha and Rahel have sex. This is something that must be hidden away, if not by the river like Ammu 's and Velutha 's affair, then in the silence behind closed doors. “They were strangers who had met in a chance encounter. They has known each other before Life began.” (pg.
Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.