Arundhati Roy’s novel, titled The God of Small Things, can be deemed as what Roy would describe as a “great story,” one in which does not “deceive you with thrills and trick endings,” where “you know how they end, yet you listen as though they don’t”(Roy 218). Though this definition of a “great story” is true, it fails to include that every “great story” should feature a learning opportunity for the reader. In The God of Small Things, the trauma of Sophie Mol’s death is hinted at throughout the novel, and finally introduced at the end. It can be seen, by examining Elizabeth Outka’s article titled Trauma and Temporal Hybridity in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Sarah Winter’s article titled Disembodied Liberalism, Embodied Human Rights, that Roy structures her novel in a way that educates the audience on the effects of trauma by recreating the memories that Estha and Rahel possess and placing them into the book. By describing the memories in the way that the twins remember the event, Roy invites the reader to experience the trauma of Sophie Mol’s death as though they were living through the trauma. …show more content…
Outka’s belief of temporal hybridity combined with Winter’s idea of embodied perception supports Roy’s decision to structure her novel as if the reader were suffering from the effects of Sophie Mol’s death along with Estha and Rahel, which leads to the assembling of a “great
Ida Fink’s work, “The Table”, is an example of how old or disturbing memories may not contain the factual details required for legal documentation. The purpose of her writing is to show us that people remember traumatic events not through images, sounds, and details, but through feelings and emotions. To break that down into two parts, Fink uses vague characters to speak aloud about their experiences to prove their inconsistencies, while using their actions and manners to show their emotions as they dig through their memories in search of answers in order to show that though their spoken stories may differ, they each feel the same pain and fear.
In Louise Erdrich’s The Round House and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, events from the past are used to develop the characters and plot lines in the novels. In The Round House, Mooshum’s stories of the windigoo that he tells in his dreams, the subplot involving Linda and Linden Lark, and the apparent negativity towards Catholicism shown on the reservation show the pervasive influence of the past on the present. In The God of Small Things, the inclusion of Pappachi’s moth throughout the novel, the constant referencing to the Love Laws, and continuing problems involving race relations show how much of an influence the past has on the present for the characters and the plot.
These two novels spoke about real powerful momentous events that occur in the authors’ lives. The authors emerged from the shadows and transformed their mishaps into motivation of overcoming life’s hardships. These two stories exemplify ways of overcoming Life’s hardships and finding sense of oneself. These authors break their vows of silence to prove the beauty of a broken person. They both converse on racial discrimination, relationships with God, & coming into themselves.
Misery, trauma, and isolation all have connections to the war time settings in “The Thing in the Forest.” In the short story, A.S. Byatt depicts elements captured from both fairy tale and horror genres in war times. During World War II, the two young girls Penny and Primrose endure the 1940s Blitz together but in different psychological ways. In their childhood, they learn how to use gas masks and carry their belongings in oversized suitcases. Both Penny and Primrose suffer psychologically effects by being isolated from their families’ before and after the war. Byatt depicts haunting effects in her short story by placing graphic details on the girls’ childhood experiences. Maria Margaronis, an author of a critical essay entitled “Where the Wild Things Are,” states that “Byatt’s tales of the supernatural depend on an almost hallucinatory precision for their haunting effects.” The hallucinatory details Byatt displays in her story have an almost unbelievable psychological reality for the girls. Penny and Primrose endure the psychological consequences and horrifying times during the Blitz along with the magical ideas they encounter as children. As adults they must return to the forest of their childhood and as individuals and take separate paths to confront the Thing, acknowledge its significance in their childhoods, and release themselves from the grip of the psychological trauma of war.
In Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the audience is led through a very emotional story of a Holocaust survivor’s life and the present day consequences that the event has placed on his relationship with the author, who is his son, and his wife. Throughout this novel, the audience constantly is reminded of how horrific the Holocaust was to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, the novel finds very effective ways to insert forms of humor in the inner story and outer story of Maus. Although the Holocaust has a heart wrenching effect on the novel as a whole, the effective use of humor allows for the story to become slightly less severe and a more tolerable read.
Although the book has many stories to tell, all with something in common but yet with a different feature, the point of the book was to not only educate the world about these situations but to also give us real scenarios that we all can relate to in some sort of fashion. This book is about the human mind and the abstractness of our visions and memories. Everything affects us physically and mentally. We all share a common feature; we are all simply human with simple human minds.
Throughout history the concept of innocence in literature has been a topic in which author’s have held an obsession with. According to Harold Bloom, the loss of innocence has played a large role in western literature since the Enlightenment when man was said to be initially good and then corrupted only by his institutions. (Bloom 6) The institution in which Bloom speaks of is nothing more then society. Society is what is believed to be the cause for the loss of innocence in children. Bloom has stated that a return to the childhood mindset would eliminate the social problems in which people suffer. This is unerringly why the cause of many physiological problems can be traced back to a problem or unsettlement in one’s childhood. (Bloom 7) The history of innocence continues further back in history as it is said that the first encounter of loss of innocence or “original sin” was from Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. (Bloom 7) These historical events and ideas are what influence the works of authors from the 19th century to modern day.
Loss of innocence is a time-worn theme in the literature of every culture. It traditionally takes the form of some type of epiphany visited upon an unsophisticated character as she grows up and encounters the larger world. The focus of this theme is normally personal, in the point of view of an individual, or the omnipotent third person account of the reaction of an individual. While this aspect can be found in the novel, it additionally explores the loss of innocence of a family, people or race, called estirpe in the original edition.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
My thesis statement is that children’s innocence enables them to cope in difficult situations. Children generally have a tendency to lighten the mood in sad situations because of their innocent nature. They turn even the saddest situations to mild, innocent situations. This is evident when Marjane says “these stories had given me new ideas for games”, (Satrapi, 55). By saying this she refers to her uncle’s stories of how he and other prisoners were tortured in prison. Stories of torture have never been easy to hear even for adults but Marjane so innocentl...
“When God Was a Rabbit”, by Sarah Winman, is a beautifully written novel that follows the life of Eleanor Maud, or “Elly”. Elly is the narrator of this novel, and she chronicles her life as she transitions from childhood to adulthood. Divided into two halves, the novel revolves around Elly, her friends and family, and the tragedies they face. When I started reading the novel, I had thought that it would be a light read because of the rather funny title. As I read this novel, I discovered that violence is the novel’s main backdrop; the novel has many dark, disturbing themes such as sexual abuse, domestic violence and terrorism. However, against the violent settings, the love of a family stood out very distinctly to me as an idea that permeates through the whole novel.
Carla Arnell’s main focus in her review of Till we have Faces, is how she concludes that Orual is justice, not only in her life, but also in the lives of the citizens of Glome. She see’s Orual as seeking to make things right and begins the work of trying to organize and distribute the justice more fairly throughout her city. It is not until towards the end of Orual’s life that she discovers that her quest for justice is only an illusion, based on her ill placed sense of faith and trust in the things of this world. As she is divinely made aware of the truth of her endeavor, she is changed forever and finally able to take comfort in her finally understanding of the transcendent God and a vision of justice rooted in the transcendence.
By witnessing the events of through the eyes of the young girl, the reader can better understand her pain and
Throughout most of society today the concept of innocence is either greatly present or just lost and there is no in between. But the idea of innocence and children holding is dependent on the social status of the child and that family, since the more exposed the child is to the world and technology the quicker they will lose innocence. As opposed to a child living in a society such as a Puritan society where things were not as developed and opportunities for children were limited. Hawthorne illustrates the timeless theme of innocence through the development of Pearl’s in The Scarlet Letter, and thus allows the reader to draw parallels between Syrian refugee children as they battle to keep hold of their innocence.
Maturity is a state of mind that suddenly shatters the past state of mind of innocence, and leaves it destroyed. It becomes irretrievable. Maturity is then forced upon the person’s mind until it is accepted as a normality. In The God of Small Things, written by Arundhati Roy, children named Estha and Rahel recall the biggest tragedy of their lives. Rahel feels responsible for the death of her cousin, Sophie Mol, and must come to terms with the horrible trauma she experienced. This event transforms the book into a tragedy with a grim tone. The tragedy and aftermath are caused by their reckless behavior.They both are forced to mature when they experience that tragedy and the aftermath of it.