Exploring Boundaries in The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

In The God of Small Things, Roy explores the idea of breaking boundaries by personifying the setting, focusing on everyday events, and manipulating the characters within society. The most predominant boundary in the novel remains the rigid social classes known as the caste system in Indian society. Roy gives each character a specific role to bring out the importance of the Love Laws, which set behavioral margins within the society.

In chapter 1, Roy personifies the setting as the blurring of boundaries where “boundaries blue as tapioca fences take root and bloom (p. 1).” Roy describes, "the countryside turned an immodest green (p. 1)" which connects Ayemenem's natural world with the people who live there. It suggests that sexuality pervades Ayemenem in a sneaky way just as it does the natural world. From the very beginning of the novel, Roy gives the readers a sense of rebellious sexual energy in Ayemenem's society. It shows that even nature can break the boundaries despite the strict Indian caste system.

As well as personifying the setting, Roy also focuses on the everyday events such as selling banana jam. As Rahel looks out on her grandmother's old pickle factory, Paradise Pickles & Preserves, she remembers the government banned their banana jam since they could not classify it as either jam or jelly. According to the Food Products Organization, it was “too thin for jelly and too thick for jam (p. 30).” Rahel considers how this event encapsulates her family's way of life, which involves crossing different types of boundaries, not limited to the small things like selling banana jam. The laws set upon society kept certainty and order without any “ambiguous or unclassifiable (p. 31)” events. These laws “make grandmothers grandmo...

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Although the characters receive punishment for crossing social boundaries, it does not mean they actually deserve it. Roy illustrates how the real world works. Since social norms remain so deep-rooted in people’s minds, they tend not to explore the boundaries between dichotomies such as individual and society, truth and lie, good and bad, and fantasy and reality. But if they do, in the process, the characters will find blurred boundaries or ambiguous margins where the private meets the public, or the inside meets the outside. By creating the different roles for the characters, Roy demonstrates how humans have a responsibility of pushing other people to explore the parameters set on the society. Therefore, Roy explores the idea of breaking boundaries by personifying the setting, focusing on everyday events, and manipulating the characters within society.