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
She was born in post independence India when the oppressive societal rules had become weak. She is like her mother Ammu. She lives a life of Rebel her whole life. She rejects society and is rejected by the society. Rahel’s sufferings is not only because she is the daughter of Ammu but also because of her rash nature. She acts without thinking of its consequences. Rahel loves Ammu very much. She is a silent watcher of Ammu’s sufferings. Rahel yearns for love and attention but she couldn’t get. Both the twins, Rahel and Estha were unwelcomed in the family because their mother did intercommunity love marriage divorced and came to her parent’s home to live as a burden. Nobody cared for the childrens. Baby Kochamma was after the childrens making them feel inferior. Arrival of Sophie Mol added more pains to the twins. Both Sophie Mol and Rahel are the products of intercommunity marriage but they are not treated the same. Sophie is seen as angel where as Rahel as demon. Kochu Maria, the cook compared Rahel with Sophie Mol as
Arundhati Roy seems to ask who is responsible for the oppression and miserable condition of women. The God of Small Things is a story of the sufferings of Mammachi, Baby Kochamma , Ammu and Rahel. All these women belong to high upper middle class family, well educated, financially strong but are victim of gender inequality and patriarchal oppression. All of them revolted against oppressive laws in their own way. They wanted freedom and identity of their own. In patriarchal society as we have in India, the condition of women becomes worse when few womens get authoritative role in family, conspire with male members and become an instrument of oppression. The strange thing is that they themselves are victims of patriarchy at some point of time but later they become a part of this oppressive system. This proves the saying that women is the biggest enemy of women. Mammachi and Baby Kochamma got authoritative role in the family after the death of Pappachi. Both were victims of patriarchy but played significant role in bringing misery and death of Ammu. They couldn’t understand Ammu’s loneliness, her anxiety for childrens and her painful unsuccessful marriage. They become her enemy and increased her mental sufferings. They favoured caste system and become hostile towards Ammu for having an affair with low caste Velutha. For them family honour and status was more important than Ammu’s life.
At home in Nepal, Ama was Lakshmi’s role model, and even though she wasn’t able to provide Lakshmi with the luxuries that their neighbors had, “her slender back, which bears all troubles- and all hope- was still the most beautiful” to Lakshmi (McCormick 7). Even though she was not dynamic, I fell in love with how she inspired Lakshmi through her trials and her representation of the strong, hard-working women in Nepali culture. There were also a few other static characters, most of which I did not like at all. Her stepfather, Auntie Bimla, Uncle Husband and Auntie Mumtaz were the figures of authority that Lakshmi associated with her tortured existence in India, but in the midst of the hardship, there were characters that provided just as much light to Lakshmi’s life as there was darkness. For example, the young tea vendor lifted Lakshmi’s spirits with his polite gestures of free tea when she couldn’t afford it, as well as keeping her on the right path when Lakshmi was tempted to buy alcohol to soothe her misery (McCormick 224). Along with Lakshmi’s friend Shahanna, he too was taken away and I was convinced of Lakshmi’s impending doom even more than she herself probably was. All seemed dark until the second American came with his “digital magic”. By using his camera to show her pictures of rescued girls, this brave man was able to convince Lakshmi
Gender roles have been a predominant factor in our world since the early emergence of human societies whether they are positive or negative. They are based on expectations that societies have over the people in them. The Epic of Sunjata, shows us how men and women are treated almost equally in different forms. Women are praised for their ability to birth leaders, which is similar to the early Greek Society. In most societies, women are treated less equal than men. This was prevalent in the early Indian society. No matter the gender role, it has been shown that any society cannot survive without both men and women.
The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, brings to light the human right's issue of Women’s Rights and this is a problem in the US and in India.
Reflective of her post-colonial and post-feminist context, Rachel Perkins utilises her filmic medium in ‘One Night The Moon’ (2001) in order to create distinctive voices for the purposes such as the space between men and women, black and white and the different ways of knowing and seeing. Echoing Perkins interest in interrogating the spaces between men and women, Indira Gandhi, the first and only women prime minister of India, uses her 1966 ‘True Liberation of Women’ speech platform to give voice to an emerging feminist movement, as well as to raise awareness of the discrimination, including stereotyping, suffered by many women in order to promote the resilience and skills of Indian women. Hence, it is through distinctive voices that both Perkins and Gandhi uniquely position their audiences to reflect upon the factors
...such that individuals disregard the desires of others, even those who are supposedly close to them, in order to advance their own goals. The combination of subthemes allows her to easily juxtapose Velutha with those who aim to ruin his life. Roy also emphasizes the importance of caste and maintaining social status through her depiction of Velutha’s father’s reaction to his son’s affair with a woman of a higher social class. Roy’s political beliefs can be seen interspersed throughout the story and she repeatedly comments on the post-colonial situation in India through the actions of her characters. The amalgamation of Roy’s views on the moral quality of human beings and the political character of 20th century India come together to support her assertion that those who are overly selfless and spend no time trying to get ahead in life ultimately lose in the long-term.
Transgression of 'Love Laws' in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things: National and Personal Histories Caught in Transition
The novel is told from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old girl, Lakshmi, taking place in an isolated village in Nepal and red-light district in India. While the author balances some despair
Before going into the theatre “to see The Sound of Music for the third time” (35), Estha “[completes] his first adult assignment” (93). He goes to the bathroom on his own, while Ammu, Baby and Rahel accompany each other to the ladies room. This little detail about going to use the restroom foreshadows another instance where Estha will be forced from being a child into manhood.
Prachi, a militant Hindu living in the rural side of India believes that the Hindu life is for her. In a Hindu camp she preaches resistance to Islam, Christianity and western culture. Prachi feels strongly about defending her beliefs and would not hesitate to use violence. In this camp, Prachi and the girls are taught to use firearms and to fight. This training has made Prachi believe that she is capable of killing, and ready to put her life at risk in defense of Hinduism. Her dedication to Hinduism has made Prachi question God’s desire for her. She states, “I'm different from girls, I'm different from boys. My life is not to get married, to produce children. I have the feeling I’ve not been made by God for these things” (Prachi). With this declaration, Prachi reveals a lack of sexual continuum and this leads us to consider that her sexual identity had an impact in her choosing to live her life this way. Being surrounded by so much violence has made Prachi tough and the treatment she receives from her father has made her strong. Her father doesn’t allow her to cry, he believes it shows weakness. He ...
... She argues that while some situations may appear quite similar, they should not be treated as identical, as they have been, because they have very different, historically specifically explanations (64). It creates a false sense of commonality through oppression and overlooks that “beyond sisterhood there is still racism colonialism and imperialism” (64). Mohanty is not arguing that people of different identities and different backgrounds cannot join together to organize against a particular injustice; for example, she uses Indian women uniting against police brutality (65). However, she is arguing, “the analysis of these group identities cannot be based on universalistic, ahistorical categories” (65). So, while these women of different background can unite, it is always important that remember analyze the differences and not attempt to lump the women into “Women.”
The measured dialogue between Reader and Editor serves as the framework through which Gandhi seeks to discredit accepted terms of civilization and denounce the English. These principle characters amply assist in the development o...
Historical fiction explains complex global issues by illustrating them through the lives of characters, who reveal the impacts of larger issues through their stories and conflicts. In political activist and author Arundhati Roy’s semi-autobiographical novel, The God of Small Things, seven year old twins Estha and Rahel grow up in Ayemenem, India in the wake of the abolition of the caste system, which still lurks behind many aspects of society. The twins are so close they often think of themselves as a single entity, and yet they are stark opposites in many ways, as Rahel is more spirited and unpredictable, while Estha is thoughtful and quiet. The arrival in India and subsequent death of their European cousin, Sophie Mol, throws the twins into
Mahasweta Devi, always writes for deprived section of people. She is a loving daughter, a clerk, a lecturer, a journalist, an editor, a novelist, a dramatist and above all an ardent social activist. Her stories bring to the surface not only the misery of the completely ignored tribal people, but also articulate the oppression of w...
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy tells the story of the communist state of Kerala and the forbidden love between two castes, which changes the lives of everyone. In the novel an ‘Untouchable’, Velutha is a carpenter and works at Paradise Pickles and Preserves for much less than he deserves because of his status as an Untouchable in the caste system. Velutha falls into a forbidden love with a divorced woman, Ammu who is associated with an upper caste Syrian Christian Ipe family. Marriage was the only way that Ammu could have escaped this life, but she lost the chance when marrying the wrong man, as he was an alcoholic and this resulted in them getting a divorce. Ammu breaks the laws that state ‘who should be loved, and how and how much’, as their affair threatens the ‘caste system’ in India, which is a hierarchal structure and social practice in India in which your position in society is determined and can’t be changed. Arhundati Roy portrays the theme of forbidden love within the caste systems and shows how they are t...
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.