The God Of Small Things-
Arundhati Roy.
Plot Overview.-
The God Of Small Things tells
the story of one family in the town of Ayemenem in Kerala, India. Its epigraph
is a quotation from contemporary writer John Berger: "Never again will a
single story be told as though it's the only one." She uses this idea to
establish her nonlinear, multi-perspective way of storytelling, which gives value
to points of view as "Big" as a human being's and as
"Small" as a cabbage-green butterfly's. In Roy's world, there is no
definitive story, only many different stories that fuse to form a kaleidoscopic
impression of events.
The novel opens with Rahel's
return to Ayemenem after hearing that her twin brother, Estha, has come home. We
switch to the funeral of Sophie Mol,
when the twins are seven years old. Rahel believes that Sophie is awake during
her funeral and buried alive. The rest of the family refuses to acknowledge the
twins and Ammu.
On the train ride back to Ayemenem, Ammu cannot speak except to say "He's
dead ... I've killed him." Rahel and Estha have not seen each other since
Estha was sent away as a child to live with Babu in
Assam. Both twins have traveled somewhat aimlessly until returning to their
childhood home. Rahel looks out on the family's former factory, Paradise
Pickles & Preserves, and contemplates how all the strangeness in her family
resolves around the incident of Sophie Mol's death.
Next, we find the family traveling to Cochin to greet Sophie Mol
and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, upon their arrival from England. On their
way, they see their servant, Velutha,
marching with a group of Communists. Back in the present, Rahel watches Estha
undress in the moonlight, neither of them saying a word.
The narrative returns to Cochin, where the family goes to see The
Sound of Music in the
cinema. Inside the theater, Estha cannot stop singing, so he is sent out into
the lobby, where the Orangedrink man, Lemondrink man molests
him. After he becomes nauseated, the family leaves the movie early. Rahel
senses that the Orangedrink ,Lemondrink man has wronged Estha and talks back to
Ammu when she praises the man. Ammu tells her that she loves Rahel a little
less, a statement that haunts Rahel for a long time.
Back in the present, Rahel runs into Comrade Pillai, and he shows her a
photograph of the twins and Sophie, taken shortly before Sophie died. In a
flashback to Sophie's arrival at the Cochin airport, Rahel cannot handle the
nervousness surrounding her cousin's arrival, and she is scolded for hiding in
the window curtain. Everyone tries to impress Sophie and Margaret Kochamma with
new clothing, English sayings, and forced upbeat attitudes.
The narrative turns to
Ammu's death at the age of thirty-one. After being banished from the Ayemenem
House, she dies while out of town on a job interview. Estha watches her body
being pushed into the cremation oven. No one writes to Estha to inform him of
Ammu's death. Roy introduces the refrain, "Things can change in a
day." Back at Sophie Mol's welcome ceremony, a crowd gathers to sing and
eat cake. Rahel retreats to play with Velutha. As Ammu watches her daughter and
handyman together, she is attracted to Velutha for the first time.
Rahel joins Estha, who is
alone in the pickle factory. They plan to visit the History House, where the
Paravans live. They push an old, decrepit boat into the river and row to
Velutha's side of the river. There, he promises to fix the boat for them.
Velutha is trying to suppress his growing love for Ammu despite his constant
association with her children. (Ammu dreams of a one-armed man making love to
her.) Back in the present, Rahel watches fondly as Estha bathes in the
moonlight. The twins meet by coincidence at a temple, where they watch kathkali
dancers act out a violent story of retribution all night.
We turn to the story of Chako's
and Magaret Kochamma's marriage. It began happily but soon crumbled because of
a sense of disconnection. Margaret left Chacko for Joe, who later died in
an accident. After that, she took Sophie to Ayemenem as a distraction; she can
never forgive herself for leaving Sophie alone in Ayemenem the day she died.
We finally hear the story of Sophie Mol's death and the events
surrounding it. Vellya Paapen comes to Mammachi's
door and offers to kill Velutha with his bare hands for having an affair with
Ammu. Baby Kochamma makes
sure that Ammu is locked in her room and that the police think he raped Ammu. Mammachi
summons Velutha to her house and fires him, banishing him from the property on
pain of death. He goes to Comrade Pillai for help but to no avail. Roy begins
to call Velutha "The God of Loss" and "The God of Small
Things." The telling of Sophie's actual death is short. She joins the
twins as they run away after Ammu insults them terribly.
After their boat capsizes
in the river, she drowns. The twins fall asleep on the veranda of the History
House, unaware that Velutha is sleeping there. The next morning, the police
come across the river to arrest Velutha. They beat him nearly to death and take
the twins to the station with them. There, Baby Kochamma pressures Estha into
saying Velutha is guilty of kidnapping him and Rahel. She tells him that doing
so is the only way to save Ammu and avoid a life in jail. Estha complies, thus
saving Baby Kochamma from being arrested for filing a false report about
Velutha. After that, Baby Kochamma coerces Chacko into evicting Ammu from the
house and forcing Estha to go live with Babu. As Estha leaves on the train,
Rahel cries as though a part of her is being ripped out of her body.
Back in the present, Estha
and Rahel finally share a fond moment in Ammu's former bedroom. They make love
out of "hideous grief" for the deaths of Ammu, Velutha, and Sophie
Mol. The final chapter describes the first night of Ammu's and Velutha's
affair. They are both drawn to the riverbank, where they meet and make love for
the first time. After that, they continue to meet in secret and share their
admiration of "Small Things" such as the creatures of the riverbank.
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