The God of Small Things can be defined to have featured numerous themes and styles that allow authors to communicate with audiences effectively. It entails a story of a family that loves in Ayemenem, a town in Kerala India. This paper seeks to offer a detailed analysis of the above story in term of themes, styles, characters, and other elements that are featured by the authors. Some of the significant characters that are featured in the story include Sophie, Rahel, Ammu, and Cochin among other individuals (Arundhati, 15).
The opening of the story begins with the return of Rahel to Ayemenem. Other significant scenes include the burial of Sophie and the case where the family members are reluctant to acknowledge Ammu and the twins. It is worth to note that during the time burial, Rahel had the view that Sophie was alive. Nonetheless, the events that unfold throughout the story can be defined as being based on the need to explain some themes. One of the themes relates to the position of the family. The author uses different concepts to develop Ammu at the beginning, in the middle, as well as at the end of the story. Some of the relationships that were explored by the author include the connections between brother and sister, grandparent and grandchild, and mother and child among other groups.
In the story “The God of Small Things," the term family can be defined as persons that an individual cares about. The obligations of the family members appear to be influenced by the bold ties. Despite the disputes among some family members, the blood ties obligate them to express care and love towards one another. Just like in real life situations, the novel explains that family relations can be frustrating, complicated, and confusing. In most cases, it is apparent that most individuals are forced by the family ties to stick together. The failure to express care towards one another is seen as one of the factors that prompt families to fall apart.
Another theme that is developed by the author relates to class and society. It is worth noting that the theme is painted as having significant impacts on family members. The characters in the article “The God of Small Things” are in most cases seen to come against the forces of
Family, a foundation to build an empire of a story from yet the easiest to tear down from guilt or the portrayal of guilt.The story depicts two very different siblings, one brother Manchester who is rich, successful, brawny, and has a knack for snacks. Widely different from Manchester is Skidmore due to the fact he is a sad, and creepy individual. Also he does not have a knack for snacks or sweets. Two divergent individuals, yet one unable to function without the help of the other. Now the story would not be complete without one brother becoming completely jealous and despising the other. Commonly this leads to several things such as arguing, fighting, or to better put it, leads to betrayal. Betrayal, a common theme among siblings, say one
The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched
Family is one of the most important institutions in society. Family influences different aspects of a person’s life, such as their religion, values, morals and behavior. Unfortunately, problems may arise when an individual’s belief system or behavior does not coincide with that of family standards. Consequently, individuals may be forced to repress their emotions or avoid acting in ways that that are not acceptable to the family. In the novel The Rain God, written by Arturo Islas, we are presented with a story about a matriarchal family that deals with various conflicts. One major internal conflict is repression. Throughout the novel the characters act in strange ways and many of the family members have internal “monsters” that represent
Dad and son, mom and daughter, and grandmother with her grandson. They lived together and no matter how rich or poor, beauty or ugliness, young or old. Their relation will never broke, and all those kinds of relationship connected together closely, make the family. In the two essays, “Putting Daddy On” and “ The Way to Rainy Mountain”. Both authors are talking about family relationship and both narrators are having a hard time dealing the family relations.
Arundhati Roy begins her novel The God of Small Things with a quote from English author John Berger: “Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one.” The novel takes this quote to heart, consisting not of a single story but a fragmentary plotline weaving in and out of the lives of all of its characters, traversing the twenty-four year span between 1969 and 1993. The stories center in the town of Ayemenem in Kerala, India, and follow members of the wealthy Christian Ipe family. The thread of the deep past, woven in between snatches of the present, follows the life of Imperial Entomologist Shri Benaan John Ipe, known throughout the novel as Pappachi, who he
A parent-child relationship specifically that of a mother and child is one of the most important relationships a person can have. It is the tie that keeps a family together. In Things Fall Apart and A Doll’s House, the whole concept of parent-child relationships is different. This essay will discuss the contrast as well as the comparisons of this relationship in both the story and the play.
In Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things the characters must try to understand the explicit and implicit boundaries surrounding their lives. The protagonists Estha and Rahel, a set of fraternal twins struggle with the boundary between their lives and the past. Through almost a century of westernization, India’s past and culture had become flooded with the ideologies of the West. As the twins try to understand their past, they end up seeing history finally catch up with Velutha an Untouchable that worked for their family. He then must endure the consequences of breaking the Love Laws. Despite the characters attempt to escape the boundaries that the past has created over time, in the end they must eventually accept that history has a mind of
In the novel The God of Small Things by Arudhati Roy a relationship between a family is shown and the painful past comes through several memories and the presence of the caste system in India is used to juxtapose right vs. wrong. A very powerful closeness is observed between the two main characters and through their relationship one of the main themes of love through obscurity is showcased by the symbolism and diction used by Roy. Several other themes are shown in the novel and highlight the journey the human soul goes through in such trauma and desperation. The bond that the twins share and the manner in which they relate to others directly portray how humans can communicate on a deeper level. The lack of
“The God of Small things” is the polyphonic novel, where characters are demarcated on the basis of their certain elements of language, which enhance their importance and employ meaningful existence in the story. Readers and critics elicit meanings through gestures, actions, voices and silences of the characters. Language acts as a synecdoche, thus voice, its intonation and accents has also significance in creation of characters. Voice and silence work paradoxically as metonymy. Both are mandatory in the world of literature, themes of plays, novels and poetry become significant with these two devices of language; where voice leaves its words, silence shows meaning.
As Estha departs by train, he fears Ammu will never have him “re-returned”, and that he will never see her again; a truth which he does not know yet. In moving Estha, Ammu hopes to make a better life for herself, with half of the financial and
The God of Small Things (TGOST) by Arundhati Roy and Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson are two novels set in societies where females are significantly of lesser value and oppressed by male figures. TGOST is an Indian novel following the Ipe family and their interactions during adverse situations. Tiny Sunbirds Far Away shows the struggles that Blessing and her family endure when moving from their wealthy apartment in Lagos to a complex in countryside Nigeria. Through their respective novels, Roy and Watson explore the detrimental effects the dominance males have over women both in family and society have on a female’s identity. Such effects are revealed through spousal issues between the older generation, the dependency that women have on men and the unequal treatment of children in a family.
Moreover, they suffer from a feeling of guilt towards the children, in the present novel The God of small Things, Ammu, the protagonist of the novel losses everything (children, husband, family respect in the society, even her life) by her self-centered personality, desires and woman’s sexuality.
The development feminism in India has prompted the scrutinizing of the conspicuous old patriarchal control. The ladies of today decline to be manikins in the hands of men. Henceforth the picture of ladies has experienced an intense change. The Indian female authors have made a move from the conventional depictions of persevering generous ladies to delineation of their inward life and inconspicuous relational connections. The clashing enthusiasm of man and lady in the general public thus of self-stating ladies, who are engaged in intense scan for their personality, is the lobby characteristic of present day depiction of female characters. Arundhati
The story of the novel The God of Small Things is set in Ayemenem, now part of Kottayam district in Kerala, India. The temporal setting shifts back and forth between 1969, – when fraternal twins Rahel and Esthappen are seven years old, – and 1993, when the twins are reunited at the age of 31. Malayalam words are liberally used in conjunction with English. Facets of Kerala life captured by the novel are Communism, the caste system, and the Keralite Syrian Christian way of life. Roy ends her postcolonial novel by suggesting how much theoretical, social, cultural, political and historical knowledge is involved in her portrayal of the characters Ammu, Estha and Rahel and their learning to experience in Kerala. Their changing relationship with Velutha is based on an understanding of the brutality of caste, the love laws,
It's the smallest things in life which are most often overlooked and sometimes completely ignored. In the novel “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy presents minute details about each character and how their lives are changed based on the societal norms in India. Not only does Roy address the importance of “small things”, but she also gives the title “The God of Small Things” to Velutha, an untouchable who is amongst the lowest social class of India according to the caste system. Although Velutha’s social status is practically worthless, him being given the title, “God of small things” represents all the small things within the story that are overlooked. In a society where big things such as information about social caste system, wealth, religion, political standings, and marriage are important, Roy repeatedly emphasizes the small things having the most impact on the characters within the story. Take Baby Kochamma, Comrade Pillai, and Velutha for example, the society they live in are mostly concerned on social status and politics as opposed to important minute details that shape the way they think. By making Velutha the god of small things, someone who’s at the bottom class structure in India, Roy shows that it is wrong to live accordingly to the ideas confined by society.