Introduction

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, winner of the Booker Prize, was published in 1997. The novel tells the story of a Syrian-Christian family in Ayemenem, Kerala. The narrative shifts back and forth between 1969, when the twins Rahel and Estha are separated, and 1993, when the twins reunite. She explores the relationship between the colonizers and the colonised in her novel. She also tries to disrupt the oriental discourse of the Europeans.

Thus, in oriental discourse the Europeans were portrayed as ‘masculine’, ‘democrat’, ‘rational’, ‘moral’, ‘dynamic’, and ‘progressive’. Otherwise, since the writing was under the direct control of the Europeans the non-Europeans were described as ‘voiceless’, ‘sensual’, ‘female’, ‘despotic’, ‘irrational’, and ‘backward’ (Mohammadzadeh 1024).

Roy’s use of the concept of cultural hybridity and mimicry disrupts these binary notions of colonialism.

The novel is set in postcolonial India, where the country's society is still ruled by an outlawed caste system. The caste system is based on the separation of the lower class, known as the Untouchables, from the upper class, as well as other castes in between. The Untouchables, also known as the Paravan, and upper-class women are shown as marginalised groups by Roy. The untouchables are denied basic human rights enjoyed by the upper class and are treated with contempt. Similarly, women, even those from the higher class, are treated with disdain. The story depicts the Untouchables' struggles, distinctions, and inequities, as well as the difficulties women experience as a result of India's caste-based system.

““Marginality”, say Ashcroft, “is the condition constructed by the posited relation to a privileged centre”, and so the process of abrogating the “centre” characterizes the fabric of marginal experience.” (Prasad 157). 

Roy talks about colonial heritage, cultural complex, and the prevalent caste system in India. In The God of Small Things, multiple discourses of marginality such as Feminism, Caste Segregation, and Untouchability collide. Roy's ideological position on the social and religious constitutions of gender and castes is explored in this novel, which deals with subaltern groups and individuals, the conflict between power and the powerless, and Roy's ideological position on the social and religious constitutions of gender and castes. The novel also implies that people are severely punished for their transgressions.

“The ‘Small things’ –Ammu, the twins and Velutha, who get together for mutual love and warmth and not for any material gains are crudely acted upon and destroyed. They leave behind no memory of pain or concern in the minds of the survivors. Their every mark is completely wiped off” (Rajeev 6).

Roy’s Heart of Darkness and the History House

Arundhati Roy uses the metaphor of ‘heart of darkness’ to ridicule colonialism and Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Before talking about Conrad’s novella, we must first understand the European colonial discourse. The Europeans viewed the colonised as primitive, barbaric, irrational, etc. Thus, within the European colonial discourse on the colonised, the contrast between darkness and light also signified a moral opposition. And this is something very important that you need to understand. So, the colonised were dark because it was considered as barbaric, primitive, and childish, and they were unable to distinguish between what was morally good and what was evil. And Europe (colonizers) in contrast represented the forces of light, of knowledge, of civilisation, because it was perceived as progressive and as mature. And it was also considered as a force, as a power, which was dedicated to the mission of bringing enlightenment, the light of civilisation, to the colonised subjects.

Conrad uses the binary of light and dark in his novella. The continent of Africa was a sight of darkness while the Europeans who went on a civilizing mission in Africa were depicted as the source of light in Africa. Though, this idea is reversed in the end as Kurtz becomes the real source of darkness in the continent of Africa, but still Conrad’s portrayal of the Africans (colonised) is very problematic.

“Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place, where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die” (Conrad 29).

Conrad depicts the Africans not as humans but as stick figures. They are not given human attributes. He does not even refer to them as humans. In the above passage he calls them black shapes. Conrad’s portrayal of the Africans is of the colonial ‘other’.

Roy ridicules this idea of Colonists who think that the land of the colonised as a land of darkness. The character of Kari Saipu is a representation of this idea. “The Black Sahib. The Englishman who had “gone native.” Who spoke Malayalam and wore mundus… Ayemenem his private Heart of Darkness” (Roy 52). He is an Englishman who has ‘gone native’, he wears native clothes and speaks native language.

“The deep interaction with the native people and under the effects of climate of the colonies in hot areas, the colonizer degenerated both morally and physically, and slipped as Ashcroft claims, from European behaviour, to the participation in native ceremonies, or the adoption and even enjoyment of local customs in terms of dress, food, recreation and entertainment” (Mohammadzadeh 1025).

This is the colonial idea of going native. Roy is ridiculing this colonial idea in her novel. Roy also terms Kari Saipu as “Ayemenem’s own Kurtz” (Roy 52). Roy uses this literary metaphor of Kurtz to highlight the exploitation of the colonial powers. Throughout the novel, Roy addresses Kari Saipu as the heart of darkness. Roy reverses the metaphor of heart of darkness. The colonizers use this metaphor to denote the colonised land but in this novel Roy is using the metaphor to represent the coloniser’s land in their colony.

The History House is always referred to as the “house on the other side of the river” (Roy 52). Roy’s use of the term ‘other’ is also a reversal of a colonial idea. In European colonial discourse, the native people were viewed as the ‘other’ to the colonizers who were on the civilizing mission. Thus, in The God of Small Things Estha and Rahel (natives) are using the term ‘other’ to describe the house of Kari Saipu (European).

The History House has both a metaphorical and a literal meaning in the novel. The History House stands as a symbol of the history of India. As the History House belongs to an Englishman who is now dead, it symbolizes the colonial history of India and the independence which it has achieved. Chacko, while talking about the history of their own family tells Rahel and Estha “To understand history…we have to go inside and listen to what they’re saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells” (Roy 52). Chacko mentions that an outside view is not enough to understand the history that we must go inside the house. The colonial history of India was written by the British and they wrote about Indian history without having any knowledge about India itself. “The West writing the East was the legitimate right of the 'white countries', a sarcastic term coined by Chinua Achebe, to accelerate the hegemony over South Asia” (Sarkar 6). Further Chacko mentions that “We can’t go in…because we’ve been locked out. And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering” (Roy 53). The ‘we’ in Chacko’s utterance stands for the citizens of India who have had no control over the narrative of the history of their own country. The British have for a long time controlled the history of India and the citizens of India were not allowed to have a say in that history.

Chacko’s remark that we have to smell the smells of our history is also very important. After Baby Kochamma gets to know about the relationship between Ammu and Velutha, she remarks “how could she stand the smell? Haven’t you noticed, they have a particular smell, these Paravans?” (Roy 78). Thus, by asking the citizens of India to smell the smells, Roy is alluding to the caste system that exists in Indian society.

By the end of the novel, Kari Saipu’s place literary turns into the heart of darkness where Velutha is murdered. “That morning in the Heart of Darkness the posse of Touchable Policemen acted with economy, not frenzy. Efficiency, not anarchy. Responsibility, not hysteria. They didn’t tear out his hair or burn him alive. They didn’t hack off his genitals and stuff them in his mouth. They didn’t rape him. Or behead him” (Roy 309). By choosing the History House in the heart of darkness as the sight of murder, Roy is saying that throughout the history of India, the Dalits and the Untouchables have been oppressed. The History House becomes a marker of historical India. 

In an interview given to the Frontline magazine Arundhati Roy says, “in Ayemenem, in the heart of darkness, I talk not about the White man, but about the Darkness, about what the Darkness is about” (Rajeev 1).

 The darkness alluded to by Roy is the darkness of the caste system and the darkness of untouchability.

The Post-Colonial ‘Other’

Ranajit Guha in his essay On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India, states that the term elite was constituted not only of the European colonizers, but it also included dominant indigenous groups who had access to hegemony, either through their association with the colonial government, or through their western-style education, or in case of big landowners, for instance, or industrial and mercantile bourgeoisie, through their wealth.

In a broader sense, the term elite refers to all members of a society who have political and economic agency, as well as the right and power to act on their own self-interests and wants in political and economic arenas. In other words, the elites are those who have the ability to intervene in politics and economics and articulate their own self-interests. Guha also defines the subaltern, claiming that the subaltern is the polar opposite of the elite. As a result, Guha defines subaltern as all members of a society who do not fall into the elite category. Subaltern is not really defined as a special class, or caste, or race, but rather subaltern represents a negative space or a negative position. It is a position of disempowerment, opposition without social or political agency, opposition without identity.

Roy explores the idea of indigenous elites in her novel. Caste system has been a prevalent part of Indian society. It has been mainly associated with the Hindu religion but Roy shows how the caste system is prevalent in all Indian societies irrespective of the religion. The narrative presents a Syrian-Christian family but the family practices untouchability because they claim a lineage of caste Hindus. Velutha was a paravan (untouchable) so he was not allowed to enter the house.

“As a young boy Velutha would come with Vellya Paapen to the back entrance of the Ayemenem house to deliver the coconuts they had plucked from the trees in the compound. Pappachi would not allow paravans in to the house. Nobody would. They were not allowed to touch anything that touchables touched. Caste Hindus and caste Christians” (Roy 73).

This incident tells us about the idea of pollution that exists because of the prevalence of the caste system in the society. Velutha and his father Vellya Paapen would not enter the houses of caste Hindus or caste Christians because they would ‘pollute’ their house. This incident also points out the hypocrisy of the caste structure. While Velutha and Vellya Paapen are not supposed to touch anything that the touchables touch. The touchables could easily eat the food (coconut) which had been plucked by them. The word touchable is used in the narrative to draw a parallel and point out the absurd and the ridiculous concept of pollution and untouchability. This repeated use of the word while referring to persons and things also inverts the whole project of purity and pollution and invokes irony.

During colonial rule, the British had all the political and economic agency but after India got its independence, the dominant (hegemonic) class became the elites. The hegemonic class mainly consisted of upper caste people and they exerted control over the lower castes through the political and economic agency. This agency can be better understood by the story that Mammachi tells to Estha and Rahel about her childhood.

“Mammachi told Estha and Rahel that she could remember a time, in her girlhood, when paravans were expected to crawl backwards with a broom, sweeping away their footprints so that brahmins or Syrian Christians would not defile themselves by accident- ally stepping into a paravan's footprint” (Roy 73-74).

Mammachi uses the word expected to describe the crawling backwards of paravans with a broom. The hegemonic elites expected the paravans to do such actions. They did not force them into doing this. Here I would like to point towards Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony. Hegemony in simple terms, is a mode of exercising authority. So, according to Gramsci, within a society, the ruling class mostly asserts itself, mostly asserts its authority, by a non-coercive method. They do so by convincing the entire population that the interest of the ruling class is the interest of the entire population. This non-coercive assertion of political authority by a particular class over other groups of people is referred to by Gramsci as hegemony.

Mammachi’s description alludes to this idea that the hegemonic class might have made the paravans think that crawling backwards with brooms and sweeping away their footprints is for the betterment of the whole society. The sweeping away of their footprints by the paravans signifies that the paravans are made to erase their own existence from the annals of history. The novel also talks about how the hegemonic class exercised control over the lives of paravans.

“In Mammachi's time, paravans like other untouchables were not allowed to walk on public roads, not allowed to cover their upper bodies, not allowed to carry umbrellas. They have to put their hands over their mouths when they spoke, to divert their polluted breath away from those whom they addressed” (Roy 74).

The idea of pollution was another way in which the hegemonic class asserted their control. This again was a non-coercive assertion by the hegemonic class where they made the paravans believe that untouchability was a sin of their own making and they must not pollute the bodies of the upper caste by talking to them without covering their mouths.

The character of Vellya Paapen is another example of how the hegemonic class makes the lower caste submissive. Vellya Paapen felt extremely indebted to the family because they had bought him a glass one after he had lost his eye in an accident. This made him feel indebted towards Mammachi and her family and he always bent his back in front of them. Vellya Paapen was termed as an “Old World Paravan” (Roy 76). The backward crawling of the earlier times was still etched in his memory. These acts of humiliation (though Vellya Paapen himself might not have considered them as such) had made him very docile in nature.

When Vellya Paapen goes to Mammachi to tell her that Velutha and Ammu were lovers. Mammachi’s rage takes over her and she pushes Vellya Paapen, he was taken completely by surprise because he was not expecting to be touched by a touchable. “Part of the taboo of being an Untouchable was expecting not to be touched” (Roy 256). The shock of the touch was so immense that Vellya Paapen lay himself on the ground in the rain. Mammachi’s rage leads her to spit in the rain where we see “Vellya Paapen lying in the slush, wet, weeping, grovelling. Offering to kill his son. To tear him limb from limb” (Roy 256). Vellya Paapen was so scared of the traditional love laws that he was even offering to kill his own son.

Vellya Paapen’s docile and submissive nature can also be seen in his attitude towards Velutha. He feared for his young son. His fear arose from Velutha’s lack of hesitation, the way he walked, from the fact that Velutha held his head high. Velutha would offer suggestions even when he was asked. These made him fear for his son’s life. He believed that “while these were qualities that were perfectly acceptable perhaps even desirable in Touchables…that in a Paravan they could (and would, and indeed, should) be construed as insolence” (Roy 76). This points to the dichotomic idea of untouchable/touchable where one is supposed to behave according to their castes and the behaviour of each caste is again decided by the hegemonic elites.

The narrative also points towards the idea of good Untouchable and bad Untouchable. “Unlike Velutha, Kuttappen was a good, safe paravan. He could neither read nor write” (Roy 207). By drawing a comparison between the two brothers, the narrative is pointing towards an important notion about the untouchables. The hegemonic class deems the untouchable to be good as long as they remain simple, humble and naïve without any knowledge of the world. 

“The moment they become questioning and assertive and aware of their rights they become bad and even worse. The knowledge/power base of the hegemonic systems and discourses are subtly evoked in this remark” (Sekher 3447).

Concept of Mimicry

Homi K Bhabha’s theory of mimicry points out that the very idea of lesser culture mimicking the superior coloniser turns the act into a sort of mockery of the superior coloniser’s culture. The mimic men of the colonial periphery are therefore, from the perspective of the coloniser, ever to remain people who are “not quite, not white”. So, they are almost like the British but never really like the British.

“Mimicry leaves the colonial subject caught between cultural identities, as the native identity is considered forever less-than and assimilation into the colonial identity is always just partial” (Hybridity, Mimicry, and The God of Small Things).

Roy’s novel is the practice of this idea of mimicry. The novel is written in two languages: English and Malayalam. The names of two characters are bilingual. Baby Kochamma and Sophie Mol are a hybrid of both the languages and therefore the cultures.

Chacko had also told the twins that they were a family of Anglophiles. The family’s love for British culture makes them mimic the culture of the colonizers. The mimicry begins with Pappachi Ipe who used to wear a three-piece suit. “Until the day he died, even in the stifling Ayemenem heat, every single day Pappachi wore a well-pressed three-piece suit and his gold pocket watch” (Roy 49). Pappachi was an Imperial Entomologist, he was working for the British, so like his British bosses he would also wear suits. He tried to mimic the dressing of the British and therefore he wore suits even in the heat of Ayemenem. Also, he liked to show off the car (Plymouth) that he had bought from the Englishman to others.

There is one more instance where we can see Pappachi’s love for the British. Ammu’s husband had lost his job because of his alcoholism and so his boss Mr. Hollick asks him to ‘lend’ his wife for sexual needs in order to get his job back. Ammu divorced her husband and went back to live with her family but Pappachi would not believe Ammu’s story. “Pappachi would not believe her [Ammu’s] story – not because he thought well of her husband, but simply because he didn’t believe that an Englishman, any Englishman, would covet another man’s wife” (Roy 42). Here we see Pappachi’s morals and opinions have been so influenced by the colonizers that he even refuses to believe his daughter. Pappachi always tried to please his colonial rulers. “He was charming and urbane with visitors, and stopped just short of fawning on them if they happened to be white” (Roy 180). Roy attributing this trait to Pappachi implies his submissiveness to his colonizers.

Chacko inherits his father’s flawed mimicry of the British. He had studied in Oxford and he often read aloud. 

“When he was in this sort of mood Chacko used his reading Aloud voice. His room had a church-feeling. He didn’t care whether anyone was listening to him or not. And if they were, he didn’t care whether or not they had understood what he was saying. Ammu called them his Oxford mood” (Roy 54). 

Chacko’s ‘Oxford mood’ is a mimic of the attitudes of the colonizers. Though he did not care whether anyone was listening or not, by reading aloud he made sure that other people heard him. Chacko also had a habit of quoting from different texts. While going to pick up Sophie Mol from the airport, he starts quoting from Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. We also find Baby Kochamma quoting passages from The Tempest to Margaret. Baby Kochamma starts quoting passages in front of Margaret who is an English woman to show her knowledge. This is again an act of pleasing the coloniser and also to show that she has more knowledge than an average Indian.

Throughout the novel, we find special attention being given to the twins’ knowledge of the English language. The insistence of teaching the twins, Estha and Rahel, the coloniser’s language can be seen when Chacko makes them check every new English word, they come across in Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Roy introduces irony in this act when Chacko makes the twins look up the word Anglophile. The twins are also punished for speaking Malayalam instead of English. “That whole week Baby Kochamma eavesdropped relentlessly on the twins’ private conversations, and whenever she caught them speaking in Malayalam, she levied a small fine which was deducted at source. From their pocket money. She made them write lines– “impositions” she called them–I will always speak in English; I will always speak in English” (Roy 36). Baby Kochamma imposing English upon the twins is very similar to the British imposing English on Indians.

Baby Kochamma was also very fond of American television shows. “She watched The Bold and The Beautiful and Santa Barbara, where brittle blondes with lipstick and hairstyles rigid with spray seduced androids and defended their sexual empires. Baby Kochamma loved their shiny clothes and the smart, bitchy repartee” (Roy 27). The preference of western soaps over Indian soaps is an indication of her preference of western popular culture over Indian popular culture.

In the characters of Pappachi, Chacko and Baby Kochamma we see the attributes of Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. The postcolonial Indian elites behaved as their colonizers by watching English television shows, wearing western costumes, and driving English cars. They try very hard to adapt and imbibe the culture of their colonizers but they all fail to some extent. 

“Many scholars agree that the mimicry of a colonised people is never a simple reproduction of the colonizers’ traits. Rather, the colonised people act as a ‘blurred copy’ of the colonizers, which can be threatening because the result often resembles mockery rather than mimicry” (Grav 12). 

They all come out as foolish in mimicking the culture of the colonizers. Thus, Roy by making her characters mimic the colonizers is also mocking them.

Conclusion

The oppression of the other oppressed group, the 'Untouchables,' as well as the woman as a subaltern has been underlined in The God of Small Things. The untouchable is still a symbol of exclusion in this novel. Roy has attempted to raise awareness of the brutality of some of the society's traditions in this postcolonial setting. “Roy belongs…has put ears to the ground to listen to the whispering of the truly powerless like Velutha and Ammu, to depict unspectacular day-to-day injustices and engage with the texture of ordinary despair,” (Prasad 174). She has defied long-standing, self-satisfied yet demeaning social taboos, demonstrating how patriarchal ideology of an ancient civilization determines standards of conduct for both women and untouchables like Velutha. The violence perpetrated by the 'Touchables' against the 'Untouchables' is due to this ideology and moral system.

“The novel carries with it throughout its main, the disturbing motif of the “permanent distancing of ‘the other’ from the mainstream life and their ultimate transgression by the mainstream powerful class” (Rajeev 6).

Through her novel, she also highlights the plight of postcolonial citizens. In the novel, Chacko says “Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter” (Roy 53). These citizens are stranded between their own culture and the imposed (or mimicked) culture of their colonizers. Identity is a fact essential to prove one’s own existence. The characters are continuously in search of their own ideas. The God of Small Things is grounded on historical realities. The novel contains a mix of colonial tradition and local reality. 

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Works Cited:

• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New Delhi: Rupa Publications India, 2001. Print.
• Grav, Kennet. "British Gods in an Indian World? The portrayal of the legacy of British colonialism in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things." 2012. duo.uio.no. Web. 29 December 2021. <www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle>.
• Mohammadzadeh, Behbood. "A POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSE IN THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS BY ARUNDHATI ROY." January 2015. ayk.gov.tr. Web. 28 December 2021. <www.ayk.gov.tr>.
• Prasad, Murari. "Articulating the Marginal: Arundhati Roy's Writings." Arundhati Roy: Critical Perspectives. Ed. Murari Prasad. New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2006. 157-176. Print.
• Rajeev, G. "Arundati Rai’s The God of Small Things – A PostColonial Reading." The Indian Review of World Literature in English 7.2 (2011): 1-7. Web. <worldlitonline.net>.
• Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Gurgaon: Penguin Books, 2002. Print.
• Sarkar, Subodh. "We are Anglo-clones and yet Indians: A tale of two South Asias." Indian Literature 59.4 (2015): 6-10. Jstor. <www.jstor.org/stable/44479301>.
• Sekher, Ajay. "Older than the Church: Christianity and Caste in "The God of Small Things"." Economic and Political Weekly 38.33 (2003): 3445-3449. Jstor. <www.jstor.org/stable/4413900>.
• Seth. Hybridity, Mimicry, and The God of Small Things. 28 February 2016. Web. 29 December 2021. pocotheory.roopikarisam.com