Theme Of Feminism In The God Of Small Things

Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel, The Palace of Illusions is the epitome of feminism. It retells the story of Mahabharata from the view point of Draupadi, the daughter of King Drupad. The delicate threads of her life have beautifully been interwoven to bring forth a grasping story. Chitra Banerjee has herself written “I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men’s exploits. Better still I would have her one of her tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it.”(XV).

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961, her mother a Christian woman a native of Kerala and her father was Hindu from Bengal. Because of the divorce of her parents, Arundhati spent her early years in Aymanam with her mom. The influence of her childhood years are revealed her writings structurally and thematically.

Shashi Deshpande ranks high in the list of top Indian authors. She is the most popular Indian Woman writer in English. It is a fact that woman is mistreated and vanquished by the male community everywhere. She has been the subordinate monopolization and has to conform to male standards. In most of her novels, Shashi Deshpande has focused on the suppression of women in Indian society. She draws our attention to women’s exploitation, discrimination and commodification.She fairly rejects the system where there is no revolt of the women against the society and its norms which underrate women. Shashi Deshpande has dealt with 'women-issues', of how they are being treated and what the women actually want.

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.

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. Roy articulates 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.

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.

Therefore, Sabri focuses on the point that a woman’s destiny lies in man’s hands as even her social function is defined from a male viewpoint. Likewise, in the Persian carpet, Hanan Al-Shaykh says, “Her family had forced her into marrying my father” (1). In this passage, Al-Shaykh shows that women’s life are dependent on men as the family considers satisfying the man’s need more than the woman’s happiness. Hence, Al-Shaykh’s and Sabri’s points support the ideas expressed by Aswany about women and their social status.

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”

Arundhati Roy made headlines around the world when she became the first Indian woman to win a Booker prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things in 1997.Completed in 1996, the book took four years to write. It is Roy’s first book, and as of 2010. It is her only novel. In the decade following that momentous achievement, Roy has become an ardent advocate of social and economic justice for the country’s oppressed minorities. She has published a number of essays on subjects varying from India’s rapid industrialization to the continuing problem of Kashmir.

Unlike other writers such as Mulk Raj Anand, Arundhati Roy presents politics as a very complex force. It is operative at different levels. This politics begins with home. This is manipulated by different people for different ends. The novel portrays the forces of power working in alliance in the novel.

The relationship between language and resistance in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, is a site of continuous contest and struggle. Roy assumes a position within Western discourse to communicate her ideas, all the while challenging and rejecting the very structure she inhabits. Through her writing, rather than seeking to enter the canon of postcolonial literature, Roy strives to redefine it. Throughout the narrative, she subverts the rules and boundaries of language, internally pursuing a desire to resist both her colonial inheritance and the systematic oppression of Indian society. She fashions a language of energy and oppositionality to the colonial legacy through a construction and critique of the text’s cultural and imperial inheritance. Through language, Roy finds ways to resist any dichotomy that posits a correct way of being by writing to both counter her native culture and also to honour it. This essay will discuss how Roy manipulates the colonial language into a tool of resistance from the colonial language through her acceptance, subversion and subjugation of India’s imperial inheritance.

Arundhati Roy’s fantastically crafted novel The God of Small Things focuses on the daily grievances suffered by people living in the South Indian society through the eyes of a young girl (Rahel) and her family, living in Kerala. The story pattern is non-linear and revolves around basic everyday issues such as the prevalence of a rigid caste system, gender discrimination, child abuse, death and forbidden love. The author executes her work with great panache and succeeds in sending a subtle, yet strong message to all her readers through every line she writes. Her genius lies in her application of humour even while describing grave issues that perturb the society. The tone of the entire novel is melancholy, infused with a sense

Although desire presents itself in many charged forms in The God of Small Things, we can view the plot of the narrative as a series of disrupted yet connected events that are propelled by, or a product of, individual resistance fuelled by a Desire to Transgress. This plot of individual resistance is represented through the female protagonist Ammu and her daughter Rahel, as a foil of her mother, and is most explicit in the ending of the novel, when they both commit sexual acts that violate the conditions imposed upon them by the power of their patriarchal society. Although developed somewhat subliminally, through language and symbolism, the fragmented conventions of this plot of desire to transgress (not to be confused with a plot of