The God of Small Things

Well, first of all in chapter 5, the river is a big symbol. It is so filthy that even insects are cautious. “Bronze-winged lily-trotters walked across it. Splay-footed, cautious.” (118) The River was more than just a river because “it had the power to evoke fear. To change lives.” (119) People bathed in river, washed their clothes and utensils there. That shows how people are so dependent on the nature especially water. Another thing that the river shows is Estha’s loss of innocence in chapter 4. The river is now really ugly and green because of the people around it and Estha also lost his innocence to the people around him. The big example that stands out is that man who sold cold drinks.

Chacko continues to boast around when Sophie and Margaret Kochamma arrive. He doesn’t realize that it’s really awkward for his ex-wife and ex-daughter. He carried around roses fatly and fondly. Since Sophie Mol’s arrival Rahel notices that her mother is not paying any attention to her, so Rahel thinks that she loves Sophie more. “Rahel watched hawk-eyed to try and gauge how much Ammy loved Sophie, but couldn’t.” (137) She is immediately intimidated by it, so she hinds behind the curtain.

Another thing I wanted to talk about was Ammu’s treatment of her kids when Baby Kochamma makes snide remarks. Around page 138-39, Ammu gets mad at her kids because they are not willing to say hello. But then Baby Kochamma snaps at them and then Ammu explains to them calmly that they should behave properly. She does that because she realizes that others (Baby Kochamma) are giving them enough trouble as it is. For example, “ More than Double, so remember what I told you. People’s feelings are precious. And when you disobey me in Public, everybody gets the wrong impression.”(142)

The thing I am finding greatly significant about this book so far is the usage of all the small things to signify greater things, such as mood or inner conflict is signified by Estha’s poof or Rahel’s moth. I really like how well the title fits in with the book. Because the book mentions two gods, the Big God who worried about the ‘great’ things in life while the Small God was concerned only about the small things in life. The Small God is regarded as being indifferent, as if nothing mattered much.
But as the book progresses, it is obvious to see that it is all the small things that happen in their lives that totally change them. It was all the small things that added up.
“Things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes” (32) Something as trivial as a few hours can change a whole lifetime, I really like the concept of how nothing is permanent in this novel because that makes this novel feel real.

Another thing I want to mention is the concept of them living backwards, and the logic behind it. In the beginning, Chacko and Ammu teach them lessons that seem way beyond their maturity levels. And not only that, Estha and Rahel genuinely took those lessons to heart and applied them. Since they were always burdened with such lessons during their childhood, it was as if their childhood was stolen right from them. So because they were denied the right to just simply…be, they seemed to be very childish when they became adults.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gujuprinz

The passage in the novel about Pappachi's moth on pg 48-49 shows that when Pappachi discovered the new kind of species in his chai, he felt as if it was one of the greatest discovery because it was so new to him. Because of his excitement about his new findings, he took this the biologist, who told him that this kind of species were not new and had already been discovered. Because of this, Pappachi was all sad now because he figured out it was not his discovery. Later on, the biologists declared it as a new species, and it was named after the Acting Director of the Department of Entomology, whom Pappachi disliked. This relates to the theme of corruption because of the type of people in the area of India where Kerala was located, people get jealous of the findings of others, and they usually make the other person feel like nothing is new. Then later on, the same person person would report the findings and get the credit.

This occurring made Pappachi really mad because this new discovery might have been the best thing he might have accomplished in his whole life. His life was shattered and he started to beat his wife, and he later died. Also, this shows the personality of Pappachi because of how he coped with his loss. All of this occurrence led to the death of Pappachi.

---

I think another great importance about the moth is that it represents pain and sorrow, and how it is emphasized that it will haunt his children and his children's children. It shows through Ammu when she snaps at Rahel (69) and it settles upon Rahel's heart when her mother claimed to love her less, showing how the moth will always haunt.

"Years later, when Rahel returned to the river, it greeted her with a ghastly skull's smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed. Both things had happened. It had shrunk. And she had grown" (118).

• There is a connection between Rahel and the river. Like Rahel who is stripped of her life by her harsh family and lack of a childhood, the river is also stripped of its life by man, "More rice, for the price of a river" (118).

"They knew, those clever Hotel People, that smelliness, like other peoples' poverty, was merely a matter of getting used to. A question of discipline. Of Rigor and Air-conditioning. Nothing more" (120).

• This passage reflects Social Darwinism, which applied "survival of the fittest" to society: only certain groups of people (mainly Whites) were considered to be "fit" and destined to succeed. Those who stayed at "God's Own Country" were socially fit, while those outside the hotel walls in the slums were socially inferior.

"Something lay buried in the ground. Under grass. Under twenty-three years of June rain. A small forgotten thing. Nothing that the world would miss. A child's plastic wristwatch with the time painted on it. Ten to two, it said" (121).

• This passage symbolies Rahel's childhood that she never had. This also relates back to the Poisonwood Bible when one of the Price daughters says that the Africans have no childhood because they immediately have to either help the family and/or get married and start a new family. Due to the trauma and guilt that Rahel faces in her life, she is robbed of her childhood as well.

"Ambassador Rahel wouldn't come out of the curtain because she couldn't She couldn't because she couldn't. Because Everything was wrong. And soon there would be a LayTer for both her and Estha. Full of furred moths and icy butterflies. And deep-sounding bells. And moss. And a Nowl. The dirty airport curtain was a great comfort and a darkness and a shield" (140).

• Like Adah from the Poisonwood Bible, Rahel completely withdraws herself from life to shield herself from the harsh reality. This is also shown when Rahel gets a distant look in her eyes when her ex-husband and she are being intimate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IBREAL

I think that its important to note all the similairities that we are seeing in the characters of this book. One being the beatings. Mamamachi, Ammu, Sophie Mol, Esta, and Rahel. This is one thing that I have noticed. This family seems to have a problem picking spouses who are not prone to domestic violence; its very sad. Another things I noticed from what we talked about in class today was love. I think that the characters are all struggling because they are lacking love. I think they would all be better people if they loved got more love and showed each other more love. I thing love is the most imporatnt thing in the world. I also think that not being loved can be the most helpless feeling in the world.

I think the dreams vs God of Small things is shown by Rahel. Rahel shows how she wants to be in control of time by her little watch. This is very interesting because she wants to control something so small as a watch. I think that Rahel is also trying to control something as smalll as her watch because she is so small and she probably wouldn't be able to control something that is very big.

---

Rahel sees everything in her life slowly going out of her control. She is desperate for even a little bit of affection and love from any person around her. Especially Ammu. It seems like her only care in life is to have her mother Ammu, love her. She always attempts to please her and get the feeling that she is loved. When this does not happen, Rahel becomes very upset, and takes Ammu's discontent in a much worse way than it is meant to be. A big part of Rahel's character is her realization that she is a very small thing in the big world around her: "Rahel looked around her and saw that she was in a Play. But she had only a small part" (164). She longs to control things in her life, in the world where she is only a small thing. Her watch is an example of this. She achieves her want to control some aspect of her life by drawing on her watch. She feels accomplished when she is able to master control over something, even as little as time (supposedly).

"In her younger years, with prescience and good management, Mammachi had collected all her falling hair in a small embroidered purse that she kept on her dressing table. When there was enough of it, she made it into a netted bun which she kept hidden in a locker with her jewelry" (158).

• Mammachi's bun symbolizes an important theme throughout the book: denying the passage of time. Not only does Mammachi want to still feel young, but she is also hiding her scars from her abusive marriage. Another example of this theme is during Rahel's last conversation with Ammu when Ammu keeps talking and doesn't give Rahel a chance to speak because she's afraid of the grown-up things Rahel might say. Ammu thinks that if she remembers the twins as seven -year- olds, they will stay seven-year-olds until she gets her life back together. In addition, this on-going theme shows how nobody in the family is please with their life. Everyone is either trying to hide something and relive their past.

"Behind her slanted sunglasses her useless eyes were closed, but she could see the music as it left her violin and lifted into the afternoon like smoke. Inside her head, it was like a room with dark drapes drawn across a bright day" (159).

• For Mammachi, playing her violin and wearing her sunglasses are ways for her to escape reality. "Mammachi put her dark glasses on again. And drew the drapes across the hot day" (174). Rahel also uses her sunglasses to escape from the "angry-colored" reality.

"Rahel looked around her and saw that she was in a Play. But she had only a small part. She was just the landscape. A flower perhaps. Or a tree. A face in the crowd. A Townspeople" (164).

• Rahel notices that ever since Sophie Mol came, their life is a like a play with Sophie Mol as the star, "The Play went with her. Walked when she walked, stopped when she stopped. Fond smiles followed her" (177). Everything is rehearsed, so nobody's actions are genuine because everyone's trying to impress Sophie. This passage also relates back to the Earth Woman idea when Chacko tells the twins that individual people and their pursuit of happiness are all a mere blink of the Earth Woman's eyes.

In chapter 7 ( Wisdom Exercise Notebooks), Rahel notices that Ammu won’t stop talking. It seems like it was her way of venting herself, without letting Rahel know that she was sick. Ammu was scared of something, maybe herself. “[Ammu] asked Rahel questions, but never let her answer them. If Rahel tried to say something, Ammu would interrupt with a new thought or query. She was terrified of what adult thing her daughter might say and thaw Frozen Time. Fear made her garrulous.” (153) Also in Chapter 7, Rahel tries to write to Estha. She wants to tell him that Ammu died, but hopes that he will sense it himself. I think that Estha feels bad that Rahel didn’t tell him. That could be the only thing that might ever come between the twins.

I think it’s significant how Roy specifically showed how Ammu died and then the next chapter was about how she came alive when she was attracted to Velutha. This whole book reflects the fact that life is unpredictable. The end of Chapter 7 and Chapter 9 is, “Things can change in a day.” Nothing builds up to anything, and that also reflects Estha’s two thoughts in ch. 10. In this novel, there are many things that are unpredictable. Anything can happen in a blink of an eye and only bad things happen to this family.

[QUOTE=Geekzilla93;971202]The thing I am finding greatly significant about this book so far is the usage of all the small things to signify greater things, such as mood or inner conflict is signified by Estha’s poof or Rahel’s moth. I really like how well the title fits in with the book. Because the book mentions two gods, the Big God who worried about the ‘great’ things in life while the Small God was concerned only about the small things in life. The Small God is regarded as being indifferent, as if nothing mattered much.

The thing is that Roy has capitalized many random things in the book to give it a poetic feel. But at the same time, I think she has a pattern developed. She will only capitalized several things. For example, she always has "Two Thoughts, Time Being and Wisdome Notebooks." I think she does that to show how the Small Things signify Big Things (what Geekzilla93 said). The small things are always capitalized to emphasize that they are what lead the big things. The small things make up the big things, in the end everything depends on the small things.

In Chapter 12, I saw some similarities between Karna and Ammu. Like Karna, Ammu is "dangerous. (Her) despair complete. This story is the safety net above which (she) swoops and dives like a brilliant clown in a corrup circus. It's all (she) has to keep (her) from crashing through the world like a falling stone" (220). Ammu ruined her life by marrying an abusive husband out of "love" and then decided to divorce him. The twins are the constant reminder of her past, like Pearl in The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne's living Scarlet A on her chest. Ammu is desperate and has nothing to live for besides her kids, which leads her to take the risk of making Velutha her lover. "Ironically, (Karna's) struggle is the reverse of actor's struggle - he strives not to enter a part but to escape it" (220). Ammu just wants to escape her life and past, so she can be free and not have to worry about the consequences.

Also in Chapter 12, I think that the scene in the play on pages 223-224 where Bhima beat Dushasana could maybe foreshadow the future seperation of Estha and Rahel, since each twin symbolically represents half a person and only when they're together are they a whole person. "It was no performance. Esthappen and Rahel recognized it. They had seen its work before. Another morning. Another stage. Another kind of frenzy (with millipedes on the soles of its shoes)" (224). Maybe Estha and Rahel know that they will eventually be separated or something bad is about to happen to them that is beyond their control. "They sat there, Quietness and Emptiness...Trapped in the bog of a story that was and wasn't theirs. That had set out with the semblance of structure and order, then bolted like a frightened horse into anarchy" (224).

"A glass-paned cupboard was crammed with damaged balsa airplanes. Broken butterflies with imploring eyes. A wicked king's wooden wives languishing under an evil wooden spell. Trapped. Only one, her mother, Maragaret, had escaped to England" (227). This quote shows how out of everyone in the family, Margaret Kochamma is the only person who can actually leave. Everyone else is a broken airplane with unfulfilled dreams, guilt, and/or no way to escape their unsatisfactory lives.

In Chapter 13, there are also similarities between Ammu and Margaret Kochamma. Roy introduces how Margaret and Chacko met and their resulting marriage. Both Ammu and Margaret marry men they "love" while going against their parents wishes, and both marriages end in failure. Part of this problem is that both women "drifted" into marriage. "(Margaret) was perhaps to young to realize that what she assumed was her love for Chacko was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself" (233). Ammu and Margaret left their husbands for the benefit and safety of their children. These failed marriages reflect the overall bitterness and feelings of hatred in the women in this book. :rage:

This post has been removed by the user

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rachmaninoff

In Chapter 13, there are also similarities between Ammu and Margaret Kochamma. Roy introduces how Margaret and Chacko met and their resulting marriage. Both Ammu and Margaret marry men they "love" while going against their parents wishes, and both marriages end in failure. Part of this problem is that both women "drifted" into marriage. "(Margaret) was perhaps to young to realize that what she assumed was her love for Chacko was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself" (233). Ammu and Margaret left their husbands for the benefit and safety of their children. These failed marriages reflect the overall bitterness and feelings of hatred in the women in this book. :rage:

---

I agree with "rachmaninoff" about how these failed marriages reflected the overall bitterness and feelings of hatred in the women in this book. This is because usually when woman get divorced in India or their husband dies, the women usually tend to get angry or they do not overcome the deaths because their husbands worked and supported the family when the women took care of the family. When the husband dies or leaves them, the women get poor, and they are looked down upon. This makes the women mad because they start to think that my husband left me in this state, and he must be getting heaven peace while i suffer and i am looked down upon. The same situation is seen in the novel because Ammu and Margaret leave their husbands, and they have to support their children with all they have, even if they are looked down upon.

In chapters 12-15, an important passage i would like to point out is on page 218 where it says, "June is a low season for kathakali. But there are some temples that a troupe will not pass by without performing in." This shows that for the dancers to survive normal life, they would have to dance and make money. The significant thing is the time period in which they would do these dances. June is right before the monsoon season, meaning that it is the month they would have to make all the money they can to survive throughout the monsoon season because money would be needed to buy food. In the monsoon season, very little is available because the rains are very heavy, and all the farmers are waiting for the rain to grow their crops.

Another passage that I thought that was important was on page 238 where it says, "Margaret Kochamma never forgave herself for taking Sophie Mol to Ayemenem. For leaving her there alone over the weekend while she and Chacko went to Cochin to confirm their return tickets." This passage is significant because it shows how Margaret Kochamma felt guilty and thought that Sophie Mol's death was her fault, when the real fault was of Veluttha because he was the murderer who had drowned Sophie Mol. This is significant because it shows how Margaret Kochamma thought that if she had not taken Sophie Mol to Estha and Rahel, Sophie Mol would have been alive. I disagree with Margaret Kochamma because even if she had not bought Sophie Mol with her, Veluttha would have hurt someone else in their family because he had been after their family, and he would have harmed anyone of them because all he seeked was revenge. The guilt could have also been normal human instinct because when a mother's child dies, they tend to blame themselves because they think that the death could have been their fault. They think that they could have stopped all this from happening, when its only destiny. So I also kind of see where Margaret Kochamma is going because she is a normal mother, and she goes through this normal human instinct.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gujuprinz

Another passage that I thought that was important was on page 238 where it says, "Margaret Kochamma never forgave herself for taking Sophie Mol to Ayemenem. For leaving her there alone over the weekend while she and Chacko went to Cochin to confirm their return tickets." This passage is significant because it shows how Margaret Kochamma felt guilty and thought that Sophie Mol's death was her fault, when the real fault was of Veluttha because he was the murderer who had drowned Sophie Mol. This is significant because it shows how Margaret Kochamma thought that if she had not taken Sophie Mol to Estha and Rahel, Sophie Mol would have been alive. I disagree with Margaret Kochamma because even if she had not bought Sophie Mol with her, Veluttha would have hurt someone else in their family because he had been after their family, and he would have harmed anyone of them because all he seeked was revenge.

---

Velutha did not kill Sophie Mol. Baby Kochamma and Mammachi painted him out to be the murderer of Sophie Mol, but in reality, most of the blame falls on Estha, "who had broken the rules and rowed Sophie Mol and Rahel across the river in the afternoons in a little boat, [...] and finally, on that dreadful night, Estha who decided that though it was dark and raining, the Time Had Come for them to run away" (250).
And how was Velutha seeking revenge? He loved Ammu and the twins indefinitely, and when everything bad happened, "there were several perpetrators, [...] but only one victim. And he had blood red nails and a brown leaf on his back that made the monsoons come on time" (182). If anything, Velutha was the one that was mostly wronged.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frenchchick825

Baby Kochamma and Mammachi painted him out to be the murderer of Sophie Mol, but in reality, most of the blame falls on Estha

---

You're hard on Estha, a mere child, understandably scared and damaged. And where's the adult supervision when Sophie drowns?

As for Velutha, he's as innocent as a lamb.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gujuprinz

So I also kind of see where Margaret Kochamma is going because she is a normal mother, and she goes through this normal human instinct.

---

Margaret Kochamma, as the mother responsible for Sophie's supervision, is the immature adult blaming a guileless Estha: another woman's child.