A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of B.

English in Literature, Muhtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Campus Dadu

University of Sindh Jamshoro.

Thesis Title:
Reclaiming Voices on the Margin in The God of Small
Things

Submitted by:
Sanam Panhwar
Roll No:2k12/ENG/32

Supervisor:
Sir Mohammad Ashraf Kaloe

Date of Submission: 14-december- 2015

 Dedication

i would like devote this little work to my mother , who not only gave me birth also she

provides me a every delicious environment in every corner of my life . secondly with virtue of

my heart, i would like dedicate this to my dearest father M.chhuttal. his bless full hands are

upon me . and he always provides me a dynasty circumstance around me where hymns of

love and peace in showering . and other person Naveed ali , he wishes to enrich my

confidence.
 Abstract

The aim of this essay is to critically consider Arundhati Roys novel The God of Small Things

from a postcolonial feminist perspective, with a special focus on how she models different

representations of women, taking as a background the discussions within postcolonial feminism

about subalternity and the representations of women from the so-called Third World in theory

and literature, as well as the concept of agency from Cultural Studies. This purpose is reached by

studying and comparing three main female characters in the novel: Mammachi, Baby Kochamma

and Ammu, centering on their different ways of relating to the male hero of the novel, Velutha,

an Untouchable in the lingering caste system of India. The essay argues that Roy has contributed

with diverse representations of subaltern women in the Third World whodespite their

oppressed and marginalized statusdisplay agency and are portrayed as responsible for their

own actions.
 Acknowledgement

I would like to say thanks to Sir, Mohammad Ashraf Kaloe Sahib who is my research supervisor

and being a supervisor he helped me during the process of dissertation. Whenever I felt any kind

trouble regarding my research perspective he helped me in better understanding of research. Not

only in the process of research he helped me but in the whole career of my B.S English, he

supported me with his good hand of knowledge and encouraged me always.

I would also like to say thanks to Sir, Asadullah Lashari Sahib. He has also helped me in the

process of writing my research and he has also developed my intellectual in the whole process of

my learning at MBBS Campus Dadu.

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Madam Ume Kalsoom Rind, who is head of department

of English. Being a head of department with lots of official responsibilities she take out time for

me during the process of research writing and she helped me a lot for better understanding of my

research.

I also would like to say thanks to Nadeem nabi, who also helped me during the process of

research writing and further I would like to say thanks to all of my friends who supported me

during my this journey of research.

 Table of Contents
Chapter one .................................................................................................................................................. 7
1.1Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter two .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Literature Review ......................................................................................................................................... 8
2.1 About The Novel................................................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Theory ............................................................................................................................................... 10
2.3 Third World Women......................................................................................................................... 10
2.4 A Postcolonial Feminist Perspective ................................................................................................ 11
2.5 Third World Women and Feminism................................................................................................. 12
2.6 Subalternity ...................................................................................................................................... 13
2.7 Strategic Essentialism....................................................................................................................... 15
2.8 Voice and Role Models..................................................................................................................... 16
2.9 Agency .............................................................................................................................................. 19
Chapter Three ............................................................................................................................................. 20
Research Methodology .............................................................................................................................. 20
3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 20
3.2 Tools and Frameworks for Data extracting ..................................................................................... 21
3.3 Data collection method .................................................................................................................... 21
3.3.1 Qualitative Research ................................................................................................................. 22
3.3.2 Textual Analysis ......................................................................................................................... 22
3.3.3 Ground theory ........................................................................................................................... 23
Chapter four ............................................................................................................................................... 24
4.1 Analysis of reclaiming voices on the margin in the God of small things by Arundhti Roy ............ 24
4.2 Marginalization ................................................................................................................................ 26
4.3 Mammachi ........................................................................................................................................ 29
4.4 Baby Kochamma ............................................................................................................................... 30
4.5 Ammu ............................................................................................................................................... 33
4.5 Double Standards ............................................................................................................................. 35
4.7 Female Agency ................................................................................................................................. 37
4.8 Responsibility ................................................................................................................................... 39
4.9 The Novels Theme ........................................................................................................................... 43
4.10 Subaltern Speech............................................................................................................................ 44
Chapter five ................................................................................................................................................ 46
5.1 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 46
References .................................................................................................................................................. 47
 Chapter one
1.1Introduction

Arundhati Roys novel The God of Small Things received mixed reactions after being published

in 1997. Due to the authors Indian nationality, some critics hailed her as a female Rushdie,

establishing . . . the cultural striking back of the once-peripheral (Boehmer 165) and many

critics praised Roys linguistic originality and inventiveness with the English language.

Meanwhile, in some parts of India there were violent public riots due to its caste transgressive

content, and some left-wing critics chastised Roys (negative) portrayal of the communist party

in the novel (Mullaney 71). Apart from raising controversies as well as acclaim, Roys novel has

also been analyzed by scholars from various theoretical angles: feminism, post colonialism, post-

structuralism, Marxism, new historicism and so on (see for example Boehmer 2005; Mullaney

2002; Pathak 2001). The aim of this essay is to critically consider Roys novel from a

postcolonial feminist perspective, with a special focus on how she models different

representations of women, taking as a background the discussions about subalternity and the

representations of women from the so called Third World in theory and literature, as well as the

concept of agency from Cultural Studies. The term subaltern, although somewhat disputed, is

commonly used in a general sense to represent subordinated classes and peoples in short

marginalized groups and the lower classes, especially in formerly colonized, Third World

countries (Young 6). The purpose of exploring how Roy fictionally constructs marginalized

female voices will be reached by studying and comparing three main female characters in The

God of Small ThingsMammachi, Baby Kochamma and Ammucentering on their different

ways of relating to Velutha, the male hero of the novel. These three women relate to and respond

in different ways to Velutha, who is a Paravan, the lowest caste among the Untouchables.
Depending on how they relate to him, different aspects of their characters are revealed. The

characters are chosen because they are adults when the main events in the story take place, which

makes it easier to discuss their actions in terms of agency and responsibility.

Chapter two
Literature Review
2.1 About The Novel
Before proceeding with the theoretic base of this essay, a few words about the plot, style and

form of the novel should be mentioned. The main events in The God of Small Things take place

during some December weeks in 1969 and the setting is Ayemenem, a town in the equatorial

south Indian state of Kerala. Seen for the most part through the eyes of Rahel, Ammus daughter,

the narrative moves between two points in time, 1969 and 1993, and the perspective
subsequently switches between Rahel seeing things as a seven year old girl and as an adult

woman. 1993 is the year when Rahel returns to Ayemenem to meet her brother Estha after being

separated for 31 years. Haunted by memories from the past, the novel is something of an

excavation of a trauma; Rahel looks back at her life to examine it. Postmodern in its handling of

time, the plot circles between the present and the past, digging deeper and deeper into the tragic

secrets of Rahels life with an effect similar to that of a detective story, keeping the reader

anxious and curious about how things really happened to the very end. More and more details are

added, more and more perspectives are offered as the narrator flashes restlessly forwards and

backwards. Out of the many qualities about her novel one is that the reader has the privilege to

see a course of events from several very different vantage points, and this is also reflected in the

novels epigraph: Never again will a single story be told as though its the only one (John

Berger). Roy weaves her plot, thread by thread, into a colorful, multifaceted story; added to the

narrative are different cultural references to Shakespeare, The Sound of Music, Kathakali

(traditional drama-dance) and the music of The Rolling Stones which create a patchwork of

associations and connotations. But the novel is not just a beautiful and intricate postmodern saga;

it is definitely an intervention into (especially Indian) culture with its close, almost overdone

description of caste transgressive intimacy, and its critical account of the local communist leader

and Kerala communism in general. And to this we may add that it is a novel written by and seen

through the eyes of a Third World woman and almost all of the central characters are Third

World women. While bearing this political dimension in mind, we now turn to some relevant

theories that inform the analyses in this essay.

2.2 Theory
The theoretical framework applied in this essay commences with a discussion about the concept

Third World women, accompanied by a brief presentation of the postcolonial feminist approach

in the analysis. Thereafter a survey of the discussions within postcolonial feminism about

western feminists relationship with and representations of Third World women will follow.

Proceeding from there the essay further explores the notion of subalternity and strategic

essentialism succeeded by a discussion about voice, representations and role models within the

specific Indian context. The theory section is finally closed with a paragraph introducing and

defining the concept of agency. The chosen theoretical framework has been assessed as

productive in the close reading, analysis and discussion of the characters in the novel.

2.3 Third World Women

The term Third World is somewhat outdated, originally meaning countries that did not belong to

the First World (the Western, capitalist countries) or the Second World (Soviet Union with

communist allies). As stressed by Robert Young, the term Third World was intended as a

positive, empowering label for a different perspective on political, economic, and cultural

global priorities than the predominant polarized world order with capitalism on the one side and

Soviet communism on the other (Young 17). However, that third way was never properly

defined, and over time the term instead became associated with the problems of the Third World

rather than unique solutions, and it gradually became a pejorative. Another weakness with the

concept is that it conceals the many social and cultural differences that exist within the Third

World; there is simply no such uniform group of countries. An alternative term would perhaps be

women in developing countries but since that concept is equally vague and since Third World
women is a concept that has remained widely in use in many disciplines, it will be a conceptual

and strategic point of departure in this paper, as we reach for a more nuanced understanding. It is

important to remember though that these concepts are, as McLeod puts it: provisional categories

of convenience rather than factual denotations of fixed and stable groups (174). Regardless of

which concept we use, the fact remains that an average Third World woman does not exist,

which is why any common label would conceal a number of historical and cultural differences.

2.4 A Postcolonial Feminist Perspective

The feminist perspective in this essay is extracted from McLeod, who is informed by ideas

expressed by Catherine Belseys and Jane Moores introduction in The Feminist Reader: Essays

in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism (1989). When reading a text from a feminist

point of view (regardless of what branch of feminism you belong to) they suggest that we should

look at how [it] represents women, what it says about gender relations, how it defines sexual

difference (Belsey and Moore 1). As already mentioned the focus of this essay is how the

women in Roys novel are represented but also, as will be demonstrated later on, how the

expectations towards women are very much different from those on men. However, a common

goal in both post colonialism and feminism is challenging forms of oppression whatever they

look like, and each context has its own, unique structures of oppression (McLeod 174). In Roys

description of Kerala in the novel, there are several layers of oppression stemming from

colonialism, patriarchy, religion and caste. These structures are often intertwined and serve as a

complex oppressive system that is sometimes difficult to dissect. For instance, caste was often

adapted within the Christian churches so that there were different churches for Touchable and
Untouchables respectively, reproducing the caste system within the religious realm. Roy also

allows her narrator to give a quite unflattering version of why Marxism grew particularly strong

in Kerala: the real secret was that communism crept into Kerala insidiously. A reformist

movement that never overtly questioned the traditional values of a caste-ridden, it is extremely

traditional community (64). Thus, according to the narrator in this novel, the communist party

in Kerala did very little to challenge the caste system in itself, despite their high-pitched slogans

that Caste is Class, comrades (266). Another thing that is interesting to bear in mind while

reading this novel is the relatively high status of women in Kerala (compared to the rest of India)

possibly due to earlier matrilineal kinship systems (Encyclopedia Britannica). This higher status

might perhaps serve as part of an explanation to the strength of agency that some of the female

characters display.

2.5 Third World Women and Feminism

Within the postcolonial literary discipline there has been an ongoing discussion about First

World feminism in relation to Third World women (McLeod 174). However well-meant,

universal claims of a global womanhood always run the risk of marginalizing someone and of

leaving culturally specific patterns of power and oppression unseen. Chandra Talpade Mohanty

criticizes western feminists in her essay Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and

Colonial Discourses and accuses many of them for unconsciously reproducing the unequal

power relations that already is at work politically and financially, within their analysis (Mohanty

17-42). Mohanty shows how Third World women are often described in sweeping terms as

religious, family-oriented, illiterate and domestic, placing them in a position as the other in

contrast to the allegedly more progressive and modern women in the First World. Furthermore,

Mohanty reacts against how western feminists tend to refer to a monolithic, global patriarchy
that apparently oppresses most if not all the women (19) in Third World countries and they

tend to describe women as powerless exploited objects and victims as opposed to the assumed

powerful male exploiters. She concludes: Sisterhood cannot be assumed on the basis of gender;

it must be forged in concrete historical and political practice and analysis (24). Mohanty also

notes that the relationships between women are often ignored, as well as different kinds of

relationships between women and men. This is why Roys novel is particularly interesting

because it focuses on how women relate to other women but also to different kinds of men.

There is no standard male-female dichotomy in the novel but rather a plurality of relationships.

Hopefully it is by now clear to the reader how far-fetched it is to assume that all women share

the same cultural or political interests only because of their similar bodies. Women as a group

are more likely to be deeply divided by boundaries like class, ethnicity, and nationality.

2.6 Subalternity

This line of thought can also be found in the works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who

criticizes how western feminists have attempted to apply their theories to a Third World context

under the good intention that they work on behalf of their oppressed sisters who cannot speak for

themselves (French Feminism in an International Frame in Other Worlds 184-211). The fact

that all women share similar biological features does not mean that they also share the same

culture, values, beliefs and experiencesand therefore the First World feminist must learn to

stop feeling privileged as a woman (187). Instead, she should ask herself what she can learn

from them and speak to them instead of always trying to speak for them (186). However,

Spivak is not ethnocentric in the sense that she would believe that only Indian women can speak

for other Indian women (McLeod 186). Quite the contrary; McLeod established that Spivak

has consistently advocated that critics must always look to the specifics of their own positions
and recognize the political, cultural and institutional contexts in which they work (186).

Considering this, it becomes of course very difficult to speak for anyone else with different

experiences from yours. In her ground-breaking essay can the Subaltern Speak? Spivak

addresses these issues in depth and scrutinizes the Subaltern Studies Groups attempts to revise

the history writing of colonial India by revisiting historical colonial archives, where reports of

subaltern insurgency has been filed, in an attempt to retrieve subaltern perspectives.1 Spivak

warns these scholars from falling into the trap of trying to recreate a kind of subaltern

consciousness, something she dooms as utterly hopeless. Spivak (in a deconstructive manner)

perceives human consciousness as something that is being continuously constructed from the

discourses surrounding us rather than created by an autonomous agency, as if we were sovereign

subjects. The same applies to subaltern women, and the subaltern as female is even more deeply

in shadow than subaltern men, because of the male dominance in these archives concerning

subaltern insurgency (Can the Subaltern Speak 41). In an interview from 1993, Spivak clarifies

that her use of the term subaltern was and is very specific; the pure subaltern cannot, by

definition, move upwards in the social hierarchy or make his or her voice heard. To speak, in

Spivaks sense, is when there has been a transaction between the speaker and the listener and

to her there is something of a not- speakingness in the very notion of subalternity (The Spivak

Reader 289).2 However, Spivak adds, this does not mean that she has some kind of dubious

interest in preserving subalternity. There is for us no feeling of romantic attachment to pure

subalternity as such (289). Clearly, Spivak wishes to delimit the term subaltern to hinder it from

becoming watered down. She explains that if, for example, a subaltern person is given the right

to vote (in a free, democratic election) she has thereby spoken, and by doing so the subaltern has

been inserted into the long road to hegemony and can therefore no longer be classified as
subaltern (Can the Subaltern Speak? 65). If we apply this narrow definition of subalternity, there

is in fact no such character in The God of Small Things. Not even Velutha, who is a Paravan

with a future, with skills and brains which should allow him to move upwards in society, had he

not fallen in love with a Touchable woman. If there is such a character in the novel (pure

subaltern, according to Spivak), perhaps Veluthas brother, Kuttappen, would be the best

example. He lies inside their hut paralyzed from his chest downwards after falling off a

coconut tree, unable to move, a good, safe Paravan who could neither read nor write (197).

He is, so to speak, the ultimate symbol for non-agency; he does not have the possibility to make

significant choices of any kind. In a short passage, the narrator lets us know some of his

thoughts: On bad days the orange walls held hands and bent over him, inspecting him like

malevolent doctors, slowly, deliberately, squeezing the breath out of him and making him

scream. Sometimes they receded of their own accord, and the room he lay in grew impossibly

large, terrorizing him with the specter of his own insignificance. That too made him cries out

(197). This scream becomes a symbol for his inability to speak; his voice becomes a scream that

echoes unheard. Otherwise Kuttappen is almost absent in the novel, he lies silently in his hut and

he will most likely not be able to move upwards in society but will remain very dependent on

others: a truly and sadly pure subaltern. The three female characters that will be discussed later

in this paper may all experience oppression in various extents, but at the same time they are also

able to speak on different occasions and they do exercise agency to a quite substantial degree.

2.7 Strategic Essentialism

What Spivak calls for, however, is far from a retreat into passive acceptance of the way things

are. In her essay Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography she explains how one could
apply a kind of strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest

(The Spivak Reader 214). However, one could easily agree with McLeod in that Spivak open[s]

herself to the charge of having things both ways by dismissing on theoretical grounds the

subaltern subject while supporting elsewhere those projects which still subscribe to notions of

essential subjectivity (195). Bart Moore-Gilbert criticizes Spivak for being contradictory and

incoherent in her critical writings, especially in her effort to bring Marxism and deconstruction in

critical alignment. He also accuses Spivak of committing the same fault that she blames the

Subaltern Studies Group for by constructing the subalterns identity in essentialist terms in her

attempt to define subalternity. To qualify to the dubious title of subalternity, as Moore-Gilbert

reads Spivak, the individual has to be virtually outside the global economy, marginalized to the

extent just short of a caveman, so to speak. Furthermore, she also errs by claiming that the

subaltern cannot speak because when stating this she obviously speaks for those she claims that

others should not try to speak for. Moore-Gilbert also foresees the effect of Spivaks writings as

the more the subaltern is seen as a theoretical fiction . . . the more the suffering and

exploitation of the subaltern becomes a theoretical fiction, too (102). Thus, Spivaks work runs

the risk of leaving the non-subaltern critic with a hopeless feeling that nothing really can be done

on behalf of the subaltern. Due to Spivaks extremely exclusive use of the term subaltern, the

more general definition suggested by Robert Young will be employed in this essay, defining

subalternity as including marginalized, subordinated classes and groups of peoples (Young 6).

2.8 Voice and Role Models

Roys novel actually addresses the problems connected with representing subjects/individuals at

one point in the story, through the voice of the local communist leader K.N.M. Pillai. When

Chacko (a factory owner) reveals his intentions to organize the factory workers into a union to
Comrade Pillai, Pillais answer is: comrade, you cannot stage the revolution for them. You can

only create awareness. Educate them. They must launch their own struggle. They should

overcome their fears(265). Hence, Roy seems to be aware of the problems connected with

representing individuals from diverse socio-economic habitats. Spivak would perhaps argue that

Roy is erring when she, as a middle-class, educated woman and author, seeks to give voice to the

oppressed. However, Spivak might nevertheless approve of Roys intervention due to that the

author is most likely acting out of a scrupulously visible political interest which Spivak feels

sympathetic to and welcomes as a kind of strategic essentialism. There are other critics who

definitely acknowledge Roys potential to represent the hitherto silent. Anita Singh sees the

novel as a discourse of the marginalized and subordinated as it crystallizes the issues of

atrocities against . . . all those dispossessed of an identity or a speaking voice. The writing

subject itself [Roy] belongs to the rank of the hitherto silent. The act of authorship is an act of

retrieval as well as an act of liberation(133). By this Singh points to the fact that Roy has

relevant personal experiences that she uses for her story; she has grown up as a woman in a small

Indian village as the daughter of a Syrian Christian mother and a Hindu father, and her parents

divorced when Roy was young (Mullaney 7). Singh concludes: The book becomes the voice of

all those who are relegated to the margins of society (133). It could be worth noting here that

womens voices have indeed been marginalized in postcolonial India. Ketu H. Katrak has

pointed out that even though Indias national leader Mahatma Gandhi did much to mobilize

women in the nationalist movement through passive resistance, which feminized the usually

masculine struggle against the colonizer, he never intended to confuse mens and womens

roles and challenge patriarchal traditions that oppressed women within the home (Katrak 395-

96). Thus after independence, the women who had struggled for freedom alongside with the
men, found themselves back in their traditional roles as primarily mothers and wives.

Furthermore, Gandhi often used symbols from Hindu mythology, intended to serve as role

models for women. Katrak continues: The notion of female suffering in the Hindu tradition is

dangerously glorified through such use of mythological models. The subconscious hold of

socialization patterns inculcated in girls through the popular mythological stories of the ever-

suffering Sita as virtuous wife, or the all-sacrificing Savitri who rescues her husband from death

are all part of the preparation for suffering in their roles of wives and mothers (398). By using

such myths as representations and role models for girls and women, Katrak argues that Gandhi

extended an ideology where female sexuality was legitimately embodied only in marriage,

wifehood, motherhood, domesticityall forms of controlling womens bodies (396). All these

feminized role models are alive and well in present day India, and as every other postcolonial

female writer, Roy has to address the expectations imposed upon women, as they are part of the

overarching structures that influences everyday life. Susheila Nasta describes the mission like

this: the post-colonial woman writer is not only involved in making herself heard, in changing

the architecture of male-centered ideologies and languages, or in discovering new forms and

language to express her experience, she has also to subvert and demythologize indigenous male

writings and traditions which seek to label her (xv). As will be shown later, Roy has pinpointed

this very issue in The God of Small Things. The character Ammu (as well as her daughter Rahel)

is not apt to conform to these female role models; in fact they often act contrary to the

expectations imposed on them, despite the social cost of transgressing the conventions.
2.9 Agency

Returning now to the previous discussion of Third World women, Julie Mullaney sees Roys

novel clearly as a critique, in the spirit of Spivak, against the production of a homogenous

model of third world womanhood that, however well-intentioned, only serves to hide the

substantial differences between women worldwide (11). She further describes how Roy

carefully delineates not their false homogeneity as representations of oppressed third world

woman but the range of options and choices, whether complicit, resistantor bothto the

dominant order (11). It is in these characterizations, similar to strategic essentialism; that Roy

offers us a scope of detailed, varied and subtle representations of what a marginalized Third

World woman might be. The options and choices, Mullaney speaks of are similar to the idea of

agency in cultural theory. This concept will be used in the character analysis later and is

defined by Chris Barker as the socially constructed capacity to act , meaning that all humans

are subjects that in some way or other are determined, caused and produced by social forces that

lie outside of themselves as individuals (236, 235). This will also be the perspective on agency

employed in this essay; even if an individual could never be described as wholly undetermined

from the outside world, she does have opportunities to choose, or as Barker puts it: We clearly

have the existential experience of facing and making choices (236). Jonathan Culler adds to this

that the question of agency is the question of how far we can be subjects responsible for our

own actions and how far our apparent choices are constrained by forces we do not control (45).

These other forces (the structure) in this context could be for instance the caste-system,

patriarchy, colonialism, religion and politics. The structures of power and oppression are often

referred to and discussed by Roy in The God of Small Things but the individual perspective is

never being neglected. One interpretation of Roys novel is that it is an exploration of subaltern
agency on the margin because it focuses on men and women and children who struggle for their

right to possess a voice of their own. I believe that Roy intended to make a difference with her

novel, to create representations of people on the margin that are seldom heard in depth.

Chapter Three
Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction
 This chapter elucidates the procedure which is used in this analysis. It provides

knowledge regarding the research design and framework for collecting data. In this chapter it is

shown that in this research textual analysis and qualitative method have been shown. It also uses

the ground theory method of data collection.

3.2 Tools and Frameworks for Data extracting

Miles and Huberman (1994)explains it as that it is written or visual presentation which

explains either graphically, or in narrative form, in this, main things should be studied and its key

factors, concepts or variables and the presumed relationship among them.

This study assigns with discernment of reclaiming voices on the margin in the God of small

things. It shows that reclaiming voices on the margin in the God of small things. it is theoretical

instrument as to set up framework of the research. It uses document analysis as to interpret and to

compare the written data of the text or the books.

3.3 Data collection method

This study explores the methods of Qualitative data. In this research the qualitative

method has been used as to get awareness regarding the complex situation. The primary resource

is text of Arundhati Roys God of small things.

3.3.1 Qualitative Research
Denzin and Lincoln define Qualitative research as, multi- method in focus, involving an

interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. It shows that the qualitative research

studies the things in their real settings as subject matter is written. It involves case study,

personal experience, introspective, life story interview, observational, historical, interactional

and visual texts which describes routine and problematic moments and meaning in individuals

life (qtd in joniak, Lisa. PH.D the research paradigms PDF). Qualitative research includes a set

of interpretive, material practices that makes the world visible. Qualitative research is a situated

activity that locates the observer in the world. These practices change the world. They transform

the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations,

photographs, recordings, and memos to the self. So, the analyzing of textbooks can be done

through using of different methods. In this analysis qualitative research purposes to analyze the

matter of the given textbooks, as to discover reclaiming voices on the margin in the God of small

things of Arundhati Roy.

3.3.2 Textual Analysis

Textual analysis is a one of source for researchers as to get information about others

that how other human beings make sense of the world. It is process by which data is gathered.

It is way for researchers to comprehend the ways in which members of various cultures and

subcultures make sense of who they are and in which range of the world they can be fit into be

lived. Frey, L., Botan, C., & Kreps, G. (1999) explains as Textual analysis is the way of

communication by which researchers use to describe and interpret the characteristics of a

recorded or visual message. The purpose of textual analysis is to describe the content, structure,
and functions of the messages contained in texts. The important considerations in textual analysis

include selecting the types of texts to be studied, acquiring appropriate texts, and determining

which particular approach is suitable to employ in analyzing them. Therefore Textual

Analysis is way to look deeply into the text for getting information. It comes in the category of

Qualitative research.

3.3.3 Ground theory

Glaser & Strauss were first who introduced this Ground Theory Approach in the book

the discovery of the Grounded Theory in 1967.Strauss & Corbin (1994) have explained it

asGrounded Theory is an approach for developing theory that is "grounded in data

systematically gathered and analyzed." The purpose of grounded theory is to develop theory

regarding phenomena of interest. They are talking about that it is not just abstract theorizing.

Instead the theory needs to be grounded or rooted in observation.Charmaz defines it as it is a

way of conductive Qualitative research which focuses on creating conceptual frameworks of

theories through building inductive analysis from the data. Therefore, in the data analytic

categories are directly grounded. This method prefers analysis over description, fresh

categories over preconceived ideas and extant theories and it focuses systematically on

sequentially data collection over large initial samples. The vigilant choiceness between data

collection and analysis phases of traditional research is intentionally obfuscated in Grounded

Theory studies.
 Chapter four
4.1 Analysis of reclaiming voices on the margin in the God of small things by Arundhti
Roy

We shall now examine more closely the chosen characters in the novel. Character Analysis the

first and eldest of these three characters is called Mammachi, meaning simply grandmother (her

full name is Soshamma Ipe); she is from a Syrian-Christian family and wife to the late Pappachi

(meaning grandfather, his full name is Benaan John Ipe), who hit Mammachi regularly with a

brass-vase, leaving crescent shaped scars on her skull. She has one daughter, Ammu (the black

sheep of the family), and a son, Chacko (a Rhodes-scholar, educated in Oxford). Mammachi

starts a small business in making pickles and jams in her kitchen, a business her son Chacko soon

takes charge of and develops into a factory when he moves back home after his divorce.

Mammachi thinks highly of her family as well as of herself and has an almost obsessive habit of

ranking every person she ever meets, which normally ends up with them being situated

somewhere down below her in the hierarchy of her mind. Towards her husband, she displays the

mentioned idealized suffering wife attitude, submits herself to him, accepts her fate and

projects her repressed anger at other people, for example at Ammu, her rebellious daughter. The

second character, Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe), is Mammachis short but voluminous sister-

in-law and Ammus aunt, much feared and loathed by Ammus children. She embodies a mixture

of willfulness and adaption towards her familys customs and traditions, but most of all she is a

significantly shrewd lady and a master in the skill of manipulation and conspiracy. Sadly in love

for her whole life with an unattainable Irish monk, she ends up an old maid living in her fathers

house, where she, among other things, is in charge of the formal education of Ammus twins.
Ammu is the unruly daughter of the house, who manages to escape her abusive father and

suppressed, wretched mother by hurriedly accepting a marriage proposal from a Bengali Hindu

man during a visit to a distant relative in Calcutta. Her future husband works as a tea estate

assistant manager up in Assam and seems like an acceptable match in Ammus eyes but

unfortunately he turns out to have severe alcoholic problems. After a couple of years in an

increasingly dreadful marriage she divorces him and moves back to Ayemenem with their two

children, Estha and Rahel (two-egg twins), to everything that she had fled from a few years ago.

Except that now she had two young children. And no more dreams (42). Ammu is most

unwelcome when she gets back to the house in Ayemenem and her father dos not even believe

her when she tells him about how her former husband wanted to sell her like a prostitute to save

his own skin. Mammachi, who has put up with years and years of beating and humiliation, is also

quite discontent with her rebellious, and now also divorced daughter, and Baby Kochamma

despises her more than anyone else because she feels that Ammu is quarreling with a fate that

she, Baby Kochamma herself, felt she had graciously accepted. The fate of the wretched Man-

less woman(44-5). During these circumstances Ammu falls in love with Velutha, who works as

a carpenter in the pickle factory, and their love story is at the center of this novel. Velutha is a

Paravan, the lowest kind of the Untouchable outcastes. He lives with his father and brother in a

small laterite hut nearby the Ayemenem house where his father has been working for many

years. Velutha is extremely gifted with his hands. As a boy he makes intricate little boxes and

other minute toys out of dried palm reeds that he brings to Ammu on his palm . . . so she

wouldnt have to touch him to take them (72). Mammachi persuades Veluthas father to send

Velutha to the Untouchables school to learn how to read and write. Velutha also manages to

obtain some training in carpentry through a workshop in nearby Kottayam held at the Christian
Mission Society by a visiting German carpenter. He finishes school at age sixteen and is by then

also a trained carpenter, despite his caste. Velutha works as a carpenter and mechanic in the

pickle factory and around the Ayemenem house, maintaining and mending everything from

clocks and water pumps to the bottle machines in the factory. Mammachi (with impenetrable

Touchable logic) often said that if only he hadnt been a Paravan, he might have become an

engineer(72). Chacko says that Velutha practically runs the factory (264). These quotes reveal

that Velutha has achieved an extraordinary position after all, despite being a Paravan.

4.2 Marginalization
To start with we might ask in what ways these characters are on the margin? In the case of

Velutha it is obvious to see that he is marginalized and subordinated; being a Paravan and an

Untouchable the society he lives in still regards his kind as inferior and unclean. Roy gives us a

somewhat euphemistic picture of his status when the narrator shows us how Velutha appears in

Ammus dream: He left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors (206).

This is a reflection of the subaltern position of the Untouchables in the old days that Mammachi

tells her grandchildren about, the days when [p] aravans were expected to crawl backwards with

a broom, sweeping away their footprints so that Brahmins or Syrian Christians would not defile

themselves by accidentally stepping into a Paravans footprint (71). Velutha is encouraged to go

to school though not together with Touchables but to a special school for Untouchables only. But

as time goes by, Velutha crosses several lines; apart from learning how to read and write, he

becomes a trained carpenter, when traditionally a Paravan should stick to simpler activities like

toddy tapping, picking coconuts and so on. He secretly becomes a member of the communist

party and participates in a political march (organized by the Marxist labor Union). Eventually he
crosses the most forbidden line of all, that of having a relationship with a Touchable, upper-caste

woman. So being born a Paravan, Velutha transgresses many of the lines that society expects

him to stay behind. All the same, in many ways Velutha is the most oppressed and downtrodden

of the main characters in the noveldespite being a man. Ammus marginalization is also quite

obvious; she is a divorced woman with two children to take care of. They live on sufferance in

her parents house where she is disregarded by her relatives, especially Baby Kochamma who is

eager to make Ammu and her twins understand that they really have no right to be [there] (44).

As a teenager, Ammu does not conform to the expectations on her that she should wait

obediently in her parents house for a suitable husband. Instead she more or less escapes her

parents and marries the first man who proposes to her, outside her parents religion and without

their consent, and after a couple of years she decides to divorce him as well. Ammus brother,

Chacko, reminds her children that their mother has no locus standi, no legal rights to inherit the

factory or the house for instance (56). Intentionally or not, he pronounces the word Locust Stand

I, making it sound like Locust, a grasshopper, perhaps implying that their mother is more or less

a kind of parasite in the Ayemenem household. In the end, she is in fact literally kicked out of

her parents house by this very same brother. If Ammu is on the margin, her children are even

more so. They are Half-Hindu Hybrids whom no self-respecting Syrian Christian would even

marry in the eyes of Baby Kochamma (44). Their vulnerable position makes Ammu very

protective towards them and even if she is quick to reprimand them she is even quicker to

take offense on their behalf(42). Even though Ammu is disregarded and perhaps even despised

by her family, she is also sometimes feared by them because they can sense an unsafe edge in

her, being a woman that they had already damned, [who] now had little left to lose, and could

therefore be dangerous (44). This fear makes them show her the respect of keeping a distance to
her, especially on the days that the radio played Ammus songs (44). Rahel ponders over this

unsafe edge and this air of unpredictability that surrounds Ammu: It was what she had

battling inside her. An unmixable mix, The infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless

rage of a suicide bomber (44). This quote illustrates the opposing forces that Ammu carries

inside her; as a mother she strives to love and protect her children at all cost but as an individual

she is desperate to break free from and rebel against the smug, ordered world that surrounds

her. Ammu is, like Velutha, a transgressor of boundaries, a person unwilling to submit to the role

models presented to her. Mammachi and Baby Kochamma are both Syrian Christians, a proud

minority group in Kerala of around twenty percent (a large number of Christians for an Indian

state), who believe themselves to be descendants of the one hundred Brahmins whom St.

Thomas the Apostle converted to Christianity when he traveled east after the Resurrection (64).

In the social hierarchy of Kerala, they are upper-caste Syrian Christians, separating them from

the lowlier Rice-Christians who (like Veluthas grandfather) joined the British colonialists

Anglican Church encouraged by a little food and money. However, the minority position of the

Syrian Christians does not mean that they are degraded or downtrodden by the Hindu majority;

far from it. They are by and large, the wealthy, estate-owning (pickle-factory-running), feudal

lords (64). In fact, they are so to speak remnants of the old colonial elite and descendants of

those Indians who were part of the steel frame of British in India, the Indian Civil Service

(Mullaney 33). Chacko also explains this to the twins, that though he hated to admit it, they

were all Anglophiles. They were a family of Anglophiles(51). And as such, the Ipe family is

somewhat on the edge in postcolonial, communist Kerala. This position becomes particularly

clear in the case of Baby Kochamma, who develops a strong fear of the communists and a fear of

being dispossessed, as will be explained later. The question of identity permeates The God of
Small Things since the whole Ipe family has this problem of classification, symbolized in the

novel by Mammachis banana jam. The banana jam was banned illegal by the Food Products

Organization because it according to their specifications . . . was neither jam nor jelly. Too thin

for jelly and too thick for jam. An ambiguous, unclassifiable consistency . (30-1). Perhaps this

anxious feeling of not belonging anywhere, of having a vulnerable social and financial standing

(the factory was not profitable) contributes to Mammachis and Baby Kochammas extreme

reactions to Ammus and Veluthas social transgressions. The Syrian brand of Christianity was

in fact like the banana jam, an ambiguous mix of Christianity and casteism (stemming from

Hinduism) and perhaps this explains why Mammachi initially pretends to be liberal and modern

by encouraging Velutha to go to school, whilst in the end of the story she overtly acts in

accordance to the caste system and calls him a pariah dog (269). Having examined briefly the

marginalization of the characters we now turn to a closer look at the three women respectively.

4.3 Mammachi

Mammachi is submissive towards people whom she considers to be superior to her, like her

husband, and oppressive to people she regards as inferiors, like Ammu and her children. Being

children to a divorced mother is, according to Mammachi, a fate far worse than Inbreeding

(59). She tries to cover her oppressive tendencies and be liberal and a good Christian towards

Untouchables for instance, but this is merely on the surface. In fact, she regards Untouchables as

being deeply inferior and she is firmly rooted in the hierarchical caste system of her culture. This

becomes very clear in her treatment of Velutha when he crosses the forbidden line in having a

relationship with her own Touchable daughter. When Veluthas father comes to the kitchen door,

drunk and wretched, to inform her about the love affair, Mammachi starts to scream hysterically,
pushes him off the steps into the mud and spits at him, yelling [d]runken Paravan liar (243).

When Velutha finally comes home the same evening, Mammachi loses her senses completely.

She spewed her blind venom, her crass, insufferable insults (268) at him and used such an

incredibly foul language that no one had ever heard her use before. Mammachi seems to be

perfectly fine with Untouchables educating themselves and working together with other

Touchables of lower status than herself. A stricter limit however surrounds her own house and

especially her family; Velutha is not welcome into the house, except when she needed

something mended or installed (74), and definitely not allowed (unthinkable) to have a

relationship with her daughter. When Mammachi is confronted with the facts about his

relationship with Ammu, the image of coupling dogs comes to her mind: Like animals, [she]

thought and nearly vomited. Like a dog with a bitch on heat (244). The last thing Mammachi

says to Velutha before he leaves is: If I find you on my property tomorrow Ill have you

castrated like the pariah dog that you are! Ill have you killed! (269). These utterances show

how strong the ideology of caste and difference is to Mammachi, overriding by far her religious

beliefs.

4.4 Baby Kochamma

Baby Kochamma is in her youth quite rebellious in the sense that she both opposes the tradition

of arranged marriages by independently choosing a man, and then even converting to

Catholicism against her fathers will. Later in life she apparently becomes more conservative,

and accepts her bad fate as a Man-less woman while condemning others who break the rules

like she once did. Obviously she pities herself and is jealous of other people, for instance Ammu,

who as a divorced daughter from a intercommunity love marriage in Babys opinion did not
have the right to live in her parents house. Baby Kochamma does not spare any chances to make

Ammu and her twins understand this, but in her own, insinuating manner. She begrudges the

twins every small moment of happiness and especially the comfort they drew from each other

when they really ought to be generally unhappy and sad (45). This jealousy is probably a major

motive behind Baby Kochammas idea to return one of them (Estha) to their father after Ammu

is kicked out of the house by Chacko. She is perhaps also jealous of their relationship with

Velutha, who has become something of a father figure to them and reproaches Rahel for being

over-familiar with Velutha (175). Another feature that is particularly marked in Baby

Kochammas character, as mentioned before, is that she carries this fear of being dispossessed,

a political fear (shared with the elites and landowners worldwide) that grows stronger every year.

This fear, in her relation to Velutha, becomes mixed up with the age-old, more regional contempt

towards Untouchables, creating strong feelings of antagonism that make her do almost anything

to get rid of him. On one occasion in the narrative, when the familys car is stuck in the middle

of a Marxist demonstration, Baby Kochamma is humiliated by a mob of men who make a joke

out of her by forcing her to wave a red flag while shouting Marxist slogans. After this, she

focused all her fury at her public humiliation on Velutha (78). In her mind he grew to

represent the march and all that had been done to her, all the men who had laughed at her

(78). It should be mentioned that Baby Kochammas fear of the communists was not without

cause. We are told by the narrator (and these are also historical facts) that a new militant

communist movement called the Naxalites spread rapidly across India and struck terror in every

bourgeois heart (66) by organizing peasants into fighting cadres, expelling landowners and

seizing their land. They even set up Peoples Courts to bring Class Enemies to trial (66). In

Kerala, a landlord had not long ago been brutally lynched and killed. Even if the Ipe family is on
its downfall financially and status-wise, they bear the characteristics that easily would make

them class-enemies in the eyes of the Naxalites. This political fear grows so strong in Baby

Kochamma that she, in her declining years, locks all the doors and windows of the house, and

even the fridge so that no one can steal her cream-buns. Why does Velutha represent this fear

within Baby Kochamma? Evidently he is an unsafe Paravan, very much unlike his father,

Vellya Paapen, who is an Old-World Paravan who has seen the Crawling Backwards Days

(73). Vellya Paapen is content with his present situation and humbly accepts all the benevolence

showed in many ways towards him and his family by the Ipe family. But Vellya Paapen feared

for his son. He couldnt say what it was that frightened him. It was nothing that he had said. Or

done. It was not what he said, but the way he said it. Not what he did, but the way he did it (73).

Through this we learn that Velutha carries a sense of self-respect that makes him appear a little

dangerous, since as a Paravan he should be lowly, humble and grateful in his attitude. Perhaps it

was just a lack of hesitation. An unwarranted assurance. In the way he walked. The way, he held

his head. The quiet way he offered suggestions without being asked. Or the quiet way in which

he disregarded suggestions without appearing to rebel (73) Veluthas self-assurance is strange

and unfamiliar to his father, whos gratitude towards the Ipe familys charitable deeds has

widened his smile and bent his back (73). Baby Kochamma also notices these traits and tries to

explain this to the others in the family by vague insinuations that she has noticed some signs,

some rudeness, some ingratitude (78). In short, Baby Kochamma embodies the Syrian

Christians incorporation of the caste system within their religious practices, with all its

prejudices and double standards. To her Velutha represents a person with the potential to

transgress the boundaries of class and caste; an Untouchable with the looks and talents and
brains to have a future and without the common fears that regularly keep people in place in the

hierarchy of society. She also regards Velutha as a personal threat to her and to the whole family.

4.5 Ammu

If Velutha has an enemy in Baby Kochamma, he definitely has an ally in her niece, Ammu.

Ammu carries the feeling that her life has been lived and that she really has not much to lose.

She has developed a lofty sense of injustice and straightforwardness (Chacko calls it cynicism)

that makes her see things a bit differently than her mother and aunt do. For instance, suddenly

Ammu sees Velutha as a man, in a moment when history was wrong-footed, caught off guard

with its marks, its scars, its wounds from old wars and the walking-backwards days all fell

away (167). (Before that moment, Ammu regarded Velutha only as a sweet, three years younger

cheerful boy who had the funny habit of calling her Ammukuttylittle Ammueven though

she was older than he was). Furthermore, she discovers a potential companion in him who ought

to be as angry as she is, and she wishes that under his careful cloak of cheerfulness he housed a

living, breathing anger against the smug, ordered world that she so raged against (167). But she

does not generally pity people at the bottom of societywhich is revealed in the passage when the

family is stuck in the Plymouth at a level crossing and a leper with soiled bandages comes to

beg at their window. Ammus reflection on his inordinately bright blood is: That looks like

Mercurochrome to me (59). Her comment pleases Chacko to the degree that he shakes hands

with his sister, whom he normally mostly wrangles with. Ammu also shows some signs of

snobbery when she reproaches the twins for blowing spit bubbles and shivering with their legs,

claiming that only clerks behaved like that, not aristocrats (80). But these are rather weak traits

in her character. What is much stronger is her dislike of lies and insincerity, and she never misses
an opportunity to sarcastically scorn other people when guilty of those charges. One example of

this is during the Marxist march, when Chacko gratefully rolls down his car window to say

thanks to a man who with his balled fist slammed down the bonnet of the Plymouth (someone

else had banged it open), Ammu says with irony in her voice: Dont be so ingratiating,

Comrade. It was an accident. He didnt really mean to help. How could he possibly know that in

this old car there beats a truly Marxist heart? (68). Ammu enjoys mocking her brother for his

quasi-Marxist tendencies. She calls him an Oxford avatar of the old zamindar [landlord]

mentality that is to say a landlord forcing his attentions on women who depended on him for

their livelihood (63). Ammu is in fact the only person in the family who reacts openly to

Chackos flirtatious ways and illicit relationships with the female factory workers, a lifestyle that

is accepted by for instance Mammachi as we shall see later. Ammus attitude towards the late

Pappachi during the same scene is definitely one of disregard; she refers to her deceased father

(in front of Chacko, Baby Kochamma and her children) as an incurable British CCP, the

acronym spelled out is a Hindu expression meaning shit-wiper. By this title Ammu intends to

show her condemnation of Pappachis exaggerated admiration towards everyone and everything

from England. Apart from her bluntness there is also another important streak in Ammus

character that has to be mentioned: her sense of not-belonging anywhere. Her unwelcomed

presence in the house together with her different mindset from the rest of the family leaves her

with a feeling of distance and detachment from the place where she lives. Perhaps this is why she

is attracted to Veluthas affinity with the material world around him. Right before their first

night-time meeting he comes up from a swim in the river and the narrator lets us know about her

impression of him: As he rose from the dark river and walked up the stone steps, she saw that

the world they stood in was his. That he belonged to it. That it belonged to him. The water. The
mud. The trees. The fish. The stars. He moved so easily through it(316). There is a kind of

admiration, perhaps even jealousy, within Ammu about Veluthas easiness with the world around

him. She is longing to belong somewhere and feels safe with Velutha. The narrator ponders:

Ammu smiled to herself in the dark, thinking how much she loved his armsthe shape and

strength of them, how safe she felt resting in them when actually it was the most dangerous place

she could be (319). Ammus yearning for love and intimate kinship with another adult human

being is thus much stronger than possible fears about what might happen if her relationship with

an Untouchable should be revealed.

4.5 Double Standards

When Ammus and Veluthas relationship is finally exposed, the different expectations upon

men and women become as clear as day and this is perhaps best displayed in Mammachi.

Without any sense of shame she openly demonstrates her double standards in condemning her

daughter harshly for her affair while at the same time vindicating her son for his illicit

relationships. Mammachi never even confronts Chacko about his female visitors, she simply

adjusts to it. She sees to it that a separate entrance to Chackos room is built so that his female

visitors will not have to pass through the house. She even gives the ladies money secretly, an act

that allows her to think of them as whores instead of as lovers. When Baby Kochamma

complains to Mammachi about the female visitors, Mammachi defends Chacko by saying that

he cannot help having a Mans Needs (160). Mammachis liberal, forgiving attitude towards

her son does not apply to her daughter and her extramarital relationship. The knowledge that

Ammu has defiled generations of breeding (244) by having a relationship with a Paravan is

unbearable to Mammachi. Ammu has denigrated the family name forever, while Chacko

couldnt help having a Mans Needs which goes to show that they are definitely not measured
by the same standards due to their gender. After learning about the affair from Vellya Paapen,

Mammachi and Baby Kochamma jointly decide to make Velutha leave Ayemenem before

Chacko returns as they could neither trust nor predict what Chackos attitude would be (244).

What the old ladies fear is perhaps Chackos sense of justice; that since he himself has affairs

with ladies from the factory, he might feel that he has no right to be angry with Ammu for having

an affair with the factory carpenter. They may also fear that Chacko values Veluthas services

too much to make him go, since he in fact practically runs the factory(264). If that should be

the case, it would probably be very difficult for them to argue in favor of sending Velutha away.

Particularly striking in this passage is also the force by which Mammachi condemns Ammus

deed. It seems as if all the years of beatings from her husband has shaped in her a dark, hidden,

monstrous feeling of self-loathe which she now allows to erupt with all its might over her

misbehaving daughter.Her tolerance of Mens Needs, as far as her son was concerned, became

the fuel for her unmanageable fury at her daughter(244). To Mammachi, this is perfectly

acceptable because she subscribes to her cultures different expectations of men and women

respectively. As a man, Chacko has considerably more freedom than Ammu. That he is a

divorce does not bother Mammachi much because she ranks his former wife far below herself,

as a shopkeepers daughter (160). Mammachi often says that Chacko is easily one of the

cleverest men in India, a claim that Ammu dismisses by saying that all Indian mothers are

obsessed with their sons and are therefore poor judges of their abilities (54). Mammachis love

for her son may also of course be due the fact that Chacko actually one day told Pappachi to

never beat his mother again. And [f]rom then onwards he became the repository of all her

womanly feelings. Her Man. Her only Love(160). Her traditional, conservative worldview fits

perfectly well together with these more personal feelings towards Chacko. All in all these factors
together make the relationship between Mammachi and Chacko quite harmonious: a mother and

a divorced son living together and this son being the master of the house (especially after the

death of Pappachi). All the same, in the situation mentioned above when Veluthas and Ammus

love has been exposed, Mammachi acts independently from Chacko to prevent Ammus and

Veluthas relationship from developing any further. The narrator in the novel presents to us two

very potent ladies full of (socially constructed) agency, not at all willing to await the will of the

master of the house (Chacko). Clearly, Roy wishes to exhibit to us an example of female

agency, and in this way propose that the caste system is upheld not only by men but by women

as well. In her novel, women may be victims to a patriarchal, conservative society with rigid

norms and conventions but if they do not oppose it they are complicit upholders of the system

and thereby become perpetrators too. The following section more closely examines the agency

these female characters exercise.

4.7 Female Agency

Mammachi may at first seem like a very traditional and submissive woman, but in fact she, in

her own way, emancipates herself from her husband in some areas although she never overtly

opposes him. First and foremost she starts her pickle business in the kitchen, despite her husband

Pappachis disapproval. She is quite successful in the business which can only be regarded as a

form of agencythat she carries out her idea despite her husbands and the local societys

opinions. Furthermore, after Chackos intervention against Pappachis beatings, she is never hit

again and never again bothered by her husband. In a way, Pappachiand Mammachi live like

divorces after that incident, only in the same house, but this kind of relationship seems to suit

Mammachi perfectly. Mammachis emancipation is of course of another kind than that of her

daughter, more subtle and more indirect but all the same very significant. Baby Kochamma has
also more indirect modes of operating. She has the dubious advantage of not having a man to

submit to; her only love, the absent father Mullaney, does not put her under any marital pressure

other than the mental strain of being continually brokenhearted. Therefore, Baby Kochamma is

quite free to act according to her own mind, no matter how socially constructed this mind may be

due to the mores and values of her community. She exercises agency again and again to

influence her surrounding in accordance to her own beliefs. Saving the honor of the family

becomes a number one priority to Baby Kochamma and she never once hesitates to lie or

manipulate others to reach her goals. In fact, she has an incredible capacity to justify her actions

by some higher aim, like when she consciously misrepresented the relationship between Ammu

and Velutha [by assuming rape], not for Ammus sake, but to contain the scandal and salvage the

family reputation in Inspector Thomas Mathews eyes (245). Lying seems to be a special talent

for Baby Kochamma so there are many examples like the one above in the story. Another great

talent of hers is that of manipulation and one example of this is when Mammachi pours her fury

over Velutha. Baby Kochamma stands by her sister-in-law and says nothing but used her hands

to modulate Mammachis fury, to stoke it anew. An encouraging pat on her back. A reassuring

arm around the shoulders. Mammachi was completely unaware of the manipulation(268). By

using other peoples passions and feelings, she manages to realize her dubious wishes without

taking the blame for it. Ammu is the most frankly rebellious character of the three; her

experience from growing up with Pappachis abusive and false ways (striving to be regarded by

society as a good and generous man while terrorizing his family at home) made her develop a

watchful attitude that made her question peoples motives and actions. It also made her

pugnacious; the narrator lets us know that she did exactly nothing to avoid quarrels and

confrontations. . . . perhaps even enjoyed them (173). These experiences motivate her to move
against the tide and make choices over and over again that transgress all possible norms and

mores imposed on her. It is quite interesting that Roy depicts Ammu as being essentially

herself when she bursts out at someone whom she believes to act for example haughty or false.

She had not had the kind of education, nor read the sorts of books, nor met the sorts of people

that might have influenced her to think the way she did. She was just that sort of animal(171).

In this quote, Roy seems to imply that Ammu acts according to her essence, undetermined by

society. However, we are also told about how Ammus experiences during her adolescence

influence and shape her, for instance about the mulish, reckless streak that develops in Someone

Small who has been bullied all their lives by Someone Big (173). Ammus parents show her the

ugly face of patriarchy and the outcome of unconditional female submission at its worst, making

her intuitively choose to reject and resist it.

4.8 Responsibility

As quoted from Mullaney earlier, Roy displays in her novel women with a range of options and

choices, whether complicit, resistantor bothto the dominant order, and she does not idealize

the women but rather exposes them as human beings with complex characters with the

possibility of agency and responsiblity towards their own actions. Ammu, for instance, could

easily have been depicted as the genuinely good, suffering heroine having a cruel father and later

a drunken husband, a lover who gets killed and so on. Luckily, Roy does not offer stereotypes

and Ammu is not always brave and honest. One example of this is when she quarrels with her

husband during their divorce about who should take responsibility for their children. Ammu

wants her husband to take care of Estha, the boy, but he refuses. When Estha reminds Ammu

about this later, how she and his father had pushed him and his sister between them like billiard

balls, Ammu denies it, hugs him and says that he mustnt imagine things. This memory is
painful to herthat she actually had tried to leave her son alone with an alcoholic, abusive

father and she does not wish to confront it, even if it means that she has to lie to her son.

Another painful memory for Ammu, something she regrets for the rest of her life, is connected to

when Mammachi and Baby Kochamma lock her into her room incoherent with rage and

disbelief at what was happening to her at being locked away like the family lunatic in a

medieval household (239). In this situation she screams the most terrible things to her children

as they come to her door to ask why she has been locked in: Because of you! . . . If it wasnt

for you I wouldnt be here! . . . I would have been free! I should have dumped you in an

orphanage the day you were born! Youre the millstones round my neck! . . . Why cant you just

go away and leave me alone?! (239-40). After hearing this, the twins decide to run away from

home, a decision that later tragically leads to the death of their visiting cousin and eventually to

Ammu being banned from her parents house and separated from her children. Surely, those

words were echoe in Ammus mind for the rest of her life, even if they were uttered in a state of

utmost desperation and despair. Apart from the outburst towards her children, Ammu also feels

guilty about Veluthas death. Hes dead . . . Ive killed him she whispers to the unknowing

conductor on the bus back to Ayemenem, after having tried to settle things at the police office

but having failed immensely. Why is Ammu feeling guilty about this? In what way did she kill

Velutha? Perhaps she regrets her affair with him all along. There is, after all, a social distance

between them, a difference in class and position in society that proves to be fatal to Velutha.

Even though Ammu also has to pay for their relationship in the end, Velutha is far more

vulnerable and exposed. During their first night together, Velutha suddenly hesitates and

becomes scared: He tried to be rational. Whats the worst thing that can happen? I could lose

everything. My job. My family. My livelihood. Everything (316). The stakes in entering a

relationship with an upper-caste woman are huge for him. Ammu does not seem aware of these

risks with their relationship, only that it has to be kept secret and that they cannot expectanything

else from each other than spending a few hours together under the cover of night. In Ammus

dream the cheerful man with one arm sees long shadows flicker around them, but he has no

other arm to fight those shadows. Shadows that only he could see(205). The risks that Ammu

cannot see at that point seem to become clear to her later, when she has all the cards and facts in

hand. If she had never ventured to enter into the relationship he would still be alive and now she

perceives herself as the cause of his death. To the reader, Ammus words Ive killed him seem

to contain an insight of responsibility that dawns upon Ammu when it is too late. Mammachis

responsibility is quite clear in the story; she acts openly according to her beliefs when she is told

about the affair. Even if she is described as submissive in relation to her husband and suffers a

great deal from being so, she is all the same not portrayed as a victim who is unaware of her

values and beliefs. She is able to run a small business and towards the end of her marriage she is

freed from Pappachis violent company and may relax more. Mammachis agency is of course

heavily socially constructed and her identity is a unique mix of casteism, religion and culture, but

she is nevertheless depicted as fully responsible for her actions. Baby Kochamma is probably the

character depicted as most energetic, cunning and vicious not in the least similar to that of a

martyr or victim, even though she likes to think of herself as an innocent sufferer. In her mind

she kept an organized, careful account of Things Shed Done For People, and Things People

Hadnt Done For Her (93). This quote illustrates her self-righteous and self-pitying mindset,

which serves as a protection from admitting her own partaking and responsibility in different

situations. For example, she is the one who persuades Estha to betray Velutha (in order to save

his mother Ammu from jail) at the police station. Inspector Thomas Mathew makes Baby
Kochamma understand that a testimony from the twins against Velutha is the only thing that can

save her from being charged with giving a false first information report (where she implied that

Velutha had abducted the children). The case of Veluthas death closes with the false charge of

kidnapping hanging over him. Baby Kochamma fears that her conspiracy with Inspector Thomas

Mathew could be revealed by Ammu if an investigation is opened later about the case, and this

fear makes her conspire once again to make Ammu leave Ayemenem since she knows the whole

truth. This time Baby Kochamma uses Chackos grief over his dead daughter, who drowned

accidentally during the nighttime expedition with the twins, and she succeeds in portraying

Ammu as responsible for this. This insinuation gives Chacko an accessible target for his insane

anger and he breaks down Ammus door and tells her to pack her bags and leave (305). Baby

Kochamma never reveals any feelings of regret about her role in to what has happened but she

definitely feels uncomfortable with having both of the twins in the house again as grown-ups.

They had begun to make her uneasy, both of them (283) the now eighty three year old Baby

Kochamma ponders. What and how much did they remember? When would they leave? (283).

The twins are the last persons alive whom were present at the police station in 1969, and their

presence in the Ayemenem household awakens Baby Kochammas feelings of guilt or at least

uneasiness about the family tragedy. Now, even if Roy also describes the structures of

oppression in the context vividly, she nevertheless allows her characters to remain subjects as far

as is possible, and responsible towards their deeds and actions. She does not deny her characters

their agency and their choice to comply or to resist. They may not always admit their

responsibility, like Comrade Pillai, who denied Velutha protection when he tried to find refuge in

Comrade Pillais house the night he was sent away by Mammachi. The narrator tells us that

[t]hough his part in the whole thing had by no means been a small one, Comrade Pillai didnt
hold himself in any way personally responsible for what had happened (15). But the narrator

lets the reader understand that the responsibility is shared by many hands, each of them stained

with a fleck of blood, more or less complying with the system.

4.9 The Novels Theme

The symbiosis of structure versus agency is reflected in one of the main themes of this novel that

a bit reductively can be described as the tension between big things and small things. The

conceptual structures of religion, caste, nation and colonialism are big things, difficult to attack

and slow to change, whereas peoples, insects and flowers are small things that may be enjoyed

today even if they are gone tomorrow. Big things, for instance a possible, joint future for Ammu

and Velutha, remain unspoken of, and during their nights together they [s]tick to Smallness

(321). They enjoy themselves by studying a tiny spider that lives on the verandah of the deserted

house where they meet and night by night they nervously check on him to see if he has survived

the day (321). The spider also becomes a symbol for their own fragile relationship and how

things can change in a day, another recurrent theme in the novel. Tiny and frail as a spider may

seem, it all the same lived a long and happy spider life, and became father to future

generations of spiders (321), unlike Velutha who was killed a couple of days after. Similarly,

big things, like nations or casteism, may be overthrown one day, whilst spiders, dogs and the

whisper and scurry of small lives (4) go on living as they always have. One interpretation of the

novels meaning is that one should not be too sure about anything, or too secure about ones

position, no matter how highly we might think of ourselves. We should not think of present

conditions as something stable and impervious to change. Seeing the novel from this perspective,

there is a ray of light in it which offers a counterweight to the fatal outcome of Ammus and

Veluthas love affair.

4.10 Subaltern Speech

Is Ammu and Veluthas sad love story a representation of subaltern speech or subaltern

muteness? According to the newspapers, Velutha dies in custody, charged with kidnapping and

murder. Comrade K.N.M. Pillai is interviewed in the same newspaper, claiming that the

[m]anagement had implicated the Paravan in a false police case because he [Velutha] was an

active member of the Communist party and therefore they wished to eliminate him (286).

Neither of these two explanations of what had taken place were true. Thus in a way Veluthas

speech actthat is his attempt to have a relationship with an upper-caste womanfailed and

was never officially recognized. Spivak gives a similar example in Can The Subaltern Speak? of

a young woman, Bhubaneswari Bhaduri, who committed suicide in 1926. She was secretly part

of a militant liberation group and had been charged with the task of a political assassination,

which she felt unable to perform. She decided to commit suicide but it bothered her to know that

her family would interpret her action as the result of an illegitimate pregnancy. To prevent this

dishonorable reputation Bhubaneswari waited until she had her menstruation before she hung

herself and she also wrote a letter to an elder sister about her reasons. However, during Spivaks

research about the story, it became clear to her that not even Bhubaneswaris nieces had

understood the real reasons for her suicide. They only thought it was case of illicit love (63),

an assumption that made Spivak write in despair that the subaltern cannot speak, since

Bhubaneswari did not get her message through, however hard she tried. The similarity with the

death of Velutha in Roys novel is of course that the speech act failed in the sense that the

official version is totally different from what really happened, which in itself is sad. The good

news, however, is that the truth behind Veluthas (as a representative for thousands of victims of
violence against Untouchables who dare to transgress the love laws) death is made known by

Roys novel in the same manner that Bhubanesweris story is made known through Spivaks

work. Spivak and Roy speak for them, and their story is being told, the truth about their actions

is made known and recognized and in that respect their speech act succeeded after all. And in the

case of Ammu and Velutha, there is a strange beauty in the fact that they actually dared to admit

their love to each other in Roys own version of Romeo and Juliet.
 Chapter five
5.1 Conclusion
Roy presents several different female characters in her novel The God of Small Things, all in

different ways trapped in a system of oppression but also with a substantial degree of agency. In

the spirit of strategic essentialism she has ventured to give voice to some of those who are

seldom referred to in the official history writing of India. From a postcolonial feminist

perspective Roy has contributed to make the representation of the Third World subaltern woman

more diverse, through giving us various portraits of women that, despite their oppressed and

marginalized status, are not depicted without agency or responsibility. The woman who most

clearly rejects the intricate system of oppression in the story, Ammu, is punished severely by her

mother and aunt. But as one of the main characters in Roys novel, Ammu represents people who

actually dare to do the unthinkable, to transgress the very line that upholds the system of

difference that casteism inherently maintains. She represents all those who have suffered due to

transgressions against the Love Laws and gender-specific expectations imposed upon them,

sometimes even by paying with their own lives. The novel itself has given the fictional Ammu

and Velutha, as representations of thousands of cross-caste relationships in the real India, a voice

that resonates all over the world.

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