How does one capture the tragedy of caste, love, and loss in a way that is both deeply personal and politically resonant? The God of Small Things solves this by weaving memory, trauma, and forbidden love into a hauntingly lyrical narrative.
At its heart, the novel shows how “the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how, and how much” (Roy, p. 31) destroy lives when love dares to defy them.
Evidence snapshot: The Booker Prize–winning novel (1997) not only sold over 8 million copies worldwide but is also widely studied in postcolonial, feminist, and cultural studies as a case study in how literature exposes caste oppression and political corruption .
Best for / Not for: Best for readers who love lyrical, layered fiction and socio-political critique; not for those looking for fast-paced or purely escapist storytelling.
Table of Contents
1. Background
Published in 1997, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things immediately became a literary sensation, winning the Booker Prize the same year. It is often described as a postcolonial Indian novel, yet it transcends mere geographical categorisation, blending political history with personal tragedy.
Roy herself was born in Shillong, Meghalaya (1961), and raised in Kerala—an environment that deeply shapes the novel’s backdrop. She has long been a critic of social injustice, militarism, and neoliberal policies. This book, however, represents her most intimate and searing commentary, set against the Syrian Christian community in Kerala.
Why considered propaganda by some:
Some critics accused the book of being “propaganda” because of its unapologetic critique of Indian social structures—especially caste, communism, and patriarchy.
It was banned in parts of India temporarily after its release due to its portrayal of the Love Laws (inter-caste and inter-religious intimacy) and the Naxalite movement. Critics from conservative groups claimed Roy was “airing India’s dirty laundry” to a Western audience hungry for exoticism, while admirers argued she was telling the painful truths often silenced at home .
2. Plot Summary of The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is not a linear novel but a mosaic of memories, tragedies, and fractured timelines. To understand its sweep, one must walk through its layered narrative—sometimes circling back, sometimes moving forward, always entangled in the fates of a family in Kerala.
Opening – The Return to Ayemenem
The novel begins in Ayemenem, a small town in Kerala, in the 1990s. The story reopens when Rahel, one of the fraternal twins, returns home after many years to reunite with her silent brother Estha.
The air is heavy, the old house damp with monsoon memories. Arundhati Roy writes with sensuous detail: “May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes”.
The house, once alive, now carries the residue of loss—its furniture aging, its gardens wild. Rahel finds Baby Kochamma, their grandaunt, still alive, glued to her television and bitterness. But the real weight of her visit is Estha, who has grown into near silence. His muteness is not sudden but has been spreading like moss over years, until he stopped speaking altogether: “As though he had simply run out of conversation and had nothing left to say”.
The reunion of the twins triggers memories, and thus the narrative rewinds to their childhood.
Childhood and the World of Ammu
The twins, Estha and Rahel, were born to Ammu Ipe, a young Syrian Christian woman from Kerala. Ammu had married hastily in Assam to escape her oppressive father, Pappachi, but the marriage collapsed under her husband’s alcoholism and abuse. She returned to her parental home in Ayemenem with her children, where she was viewed as a disgraced, divorced daughter.
Living in the family house are:
- Mammachi (the grandmother, nearly blind but strong-willed),
- Chacko (Ammu’s Oxford-educated but self-indulgent brother, obsessed with Marxism and women),
- Baby Kochamma (Ammu’s unmarried grandaunt, filled with jealousy and resentment),
- and the children themselves.
The family also owns Paradise Pickles & Preserves, a pickle factory that provides both livelihood and metaphor—“preserving” not just fruit but grievances, traditions, and scandals.
Ammu is fiercely protective of her children, yet she is trapped in a society that deems her and them illegitimate. Her fiery nature often collides with the oppressive walls of Ayemenem’s traditions.
The Arrival of Sophie Mol
The defining tragedy of the story arrives with the visit of Sophie Mol, the half-English daughter of Chacko and his ex-wife, Margaret Kochamma. Sophie and Margaret travel from England to spend Christmas with the Ipe family after the death of Margaret’s second husband.
In the lead-up to their arrival, Baby Kochamma drills the children to behave “properly” in English, punishing them for speaking Malayalam. They rehearse songs and postures for Sophie’s welcome, while Ammu seethes quietly at the hierarchy that elevates the half-English cousin above her own twins.
When Sophie Mol arrives, she is celebrated as a little star. Estha and Rahel, though fascinated by her, also sense their own displacement. As Roy writes, it was the week of “What Will Sophie Mol Think”—the family measured everything against her presence.
The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man
One of the most disturbing episodes occurs during a trip to the cinema to watch The Sound of Music. Estha, in his innocence, goes to buy a drink during the intermission and is molested by the vendor—the “Orangedrink Lemondrink Man.”
Roy’s narration captures the trauma with heartbreaking restraint, filtering it through a child’s confused memory. Estha does not tell anyone, but the violation festers silently within him, contributing to his lifelong withdrawal into silence.
This scene foreshadows the novel’s larger theme: innocence crushed by the weight of adult cruelties.
Velutha – The God of Small Things
Amid this familial swirl stands Velutha, a lower-caste Paravan carpenter who works in the pickle factory. Skilled, kind, and quietly rebellious, Velutha is adored by Estha and Rahel. He becomes their companion, building toys and sharing secrets.
Roy describes him as “The God of Small Things”—the one who pays attention to details, who gives love in fragments, who makes the broken whole.
But Velutha is also dangerous in the eyes of society, for he is an Untouchable daring to move too close to the upper-caste household.
Ammu and Velutha – Forbidden Love
Against all rules, Ammu and Velutha fall into a secret, passionate love. Their union is tender yet explosive, defying the “Love Laws” that structure Kerala’s caste and gender hierarchies. Roy’s words resonate: “The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much”.
Their affair, discovered by Baby Kochamma and the family, sets in motion the novel’s central tragedy.
The Night of Escape
One night, after a family quarrel, Estha, Rahel, and Sophie Mol attempt to run away from home. They decide to cross the river in a small boat, planning to find refuge with Velutha. The river, however, swallows Sophie Mol—she drowns, while the twins survive.
The drowning is accidental, but in the eyes of the family and society, blame must be assigned. And Velutha, already despised for his caste and his affair with Ammu, becomes the scapegoat.
Velutha’s Arrest and Death
Baby Kochamma manipulates events, convincing the twins to implicate Velutha. She pressures Estha, in particular, into giving a false statement to the police. In one of the most devastating passages, Estha says “Yes” when asked if Velutha was responsible—a single word that seals his fate.
Velutha is brutally beaten in police custody. The novel describes the assault with visceral detail, leaving readers haunted. His death represents not only the destruction of a man but also the crushing of defiance against caste hierarchies.
Aftermath – Ammu’s Decline and Separation of the Twins
Following Velutha’s death, Ammu is shattered. She confronts the police but is humiliated—“The Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children”. Her grief isolates her further from her family, and soon she is forced to send Estha away to his father, separating the twins.
Ammu herself dies young, at thirty-one, of illness and despair. Her death marks the erasure of a rebellious woman from the family’s narrative, though her spirit lingers in her children’s fragmented memories.
Rahel’s Drift and Estha’s Silence
After Ammu’s death, Rahel drifts from school to school, always the misfit, later studying architecture in Delhi but never finishing. She marries an American, Larry McCaslin, and lives abroad before her eventual divorce.
Estha, on the other hand, grows increasingly silent. Sent to live with his father, he retreats into himself, walking endlessly, performing household chores, and living as though half-invisible. His silence becomes his way of surviving trauma.
The Reunion – Twenty-Three Years Later
The present-day thread of the novel returns to the twins’ reunion after twenty-three years apart. Rahel finds Estha living like a ghost in Ayemenem, his silence intact, his body still walking through old routines. Their shared trauma has bound them more deeply than any ordinary sibling bond.
In the final, controversial twist, the twins seek solace in each other. Their physical intimacy at the end of the novel is not portrayed as sensational but as an expression of grief, comfort, and the impossibility of healing in conventional ways.
Roy suggests that in a world where all boundaries have failed them, even taboo becomes a form of survival.
Closing – The Memory of Love
The novel ends not with the twins in the present but with a flashback to Ammu and Velutha’s last night together. Roy writes with aching lyricism: “They lay like that for a long time. Awake in the dark. Quietness and Emptiness. Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age”.
By ending with love rather than violence, Roy reframes the narrative—not as the story of Velutha’s death or Sophie Mol’s drowning, but as the story of love’s brief, luminous defiance against overwhelming odds.
2.1 Setting
The novel is set primarily in Ayemenem, a small town in Kerala, South India. This is not just a backdrop but a living force in the story. Arundhati Roy describes Kerala’s lushness with painterly detail: “May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month… the river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees”. Nature pulses with vitality, but it is also indifferent to human tragedy.
The two most important places in Ayemenem are:
- The Ayemenem House: The crumbling ancestral home of the Ipe family. Its mossy walls and heavy silence embody decay and the weight of tradition. After Ammu’s death, Baby Kochamma presides over it like a bitter relic, clinging to television soaps while history rots around her.
- The Meenachal River: Flowing near the house, the river is both playground and grave. It is where the children play with Velutha, but also where Sophie Mol drowns. Its shifting currents reflect the novel’s themes of impermanence and fate.
Beyond Ayemenem, the novel moves briefly to Assam (where Ammu married and divorced), Calcutta (where Estha is sent to live with his father), and Delhi/Boston (where Rahel studies and marries). Yet all roads lead back to Kerala, to the haunting riverbanks and pickle factory of their childhood.
3. Analysis
3.1 Characters
Arundhati Roy’s characters are vivid, layered, and morally complex.
- Rahel: A twin who grows up restless, expelled from multiple schools for her oddness (decorating cow dung with flowers, setting fire to wigs). Her adult life drifts until she returns to Ayemenem. Rahel’s fractured memories are the lens through which the story unfolds.
- Estha (Esthappen): Sensitive and quiet, Estha is deeply scarred by the molestation at the cinema and by being forced to falsely identify Velutha. His eventual muteness becomes symbolic of suppressed trauma.
- Ammu: Perhaps the most tragic figure. Divorced, disgraced, and fiery, she is condemned by her society for seeking love with Velutha. Roy notes: “She lived as though she was already dead” — her rebellion against caste and patriarchy ultimately costs her everything.
- Velutha: The novel’s most beloved character, the so-called “God of Small Things.” An untouchable carpenter, Velutha embodies both tenderness and defiance. He gives the children joy but is destroyed for daring to love Ammu. His violent death is a brutal indictment of caste violence.
- Baby Kochamma: One of literature’s most bitter aunts. Spiteful, envious, and manipulative, she betrays Velutha and helps engineer his downfall. She represents the pettiness of small-minded orthodoxy.
- Chacko: Educated at Oxford, quoting poetry, yet hypocritical. He fancies himself a Marxist but exploits the family’s factory workers and women alike. He is a parody of failed intellectual idealism.
- Sophie Mol: The English cousin whose drowning sets the tragedy in motion. Though only briefly alive in the story, she symbolizes colonial privilege, adored above the twins.
Every character is simultaneously sympathetic and flawed — Roy refuses to paint in black and white.
3.2 Writing Style and Structure
Roy’s narrative is nonlinear, circling back and forth between past and present. She employs a child’s-eye perspective, often breaking language into playful fragments: “Things can change in a day” or “Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age”.
Her style combines:
- Stream-of-consciousness: Mimicking memory’s fluidity.
- Capitalization of concepts: e.g., “The Laws,” “The Loss of Sophie Mol,” elevating them into myth.
- Sensory imagery: Scent, sound, taste, and color saturate her prose.
- Lyrical repetition: Lines echo across chapters, reinforcing trauma’s cyclical nature.
The book’s fractured structure mirrors the fractured lives it portrays — trauma cannot be told in a straight line.
3.3 Themes and Symbolism
The novel is rich in themes:
- Caste and Social Hierarchy: Velutha’s fate shows how the untouchable body is punished for transgressing the “Love Laws.”
- Colonial Hangover: The family’s adoration of Sophie Mol illustrates India’s lingering inferiority complex toward whiteness.
- Love and Transgression: Ammu and Velutha’s love, as well as the twins’ final reunion, challenge social taboos.
- Silence and Voice: Estha’s muteness symbolizes both trauma and protest.
- Memory and Time: The non-linear storytelling mirrors how trauma lingers outside chronological time.
Symbolism abounds:
- The River = fate, danger, flow of time.
- Paradise Pickles & Preserves = preservation of grudges and history.
- Pappachi’s Moth = the gnawing insect of unacknowledged failure.
3.4 Genre-Specific Elements
While a work of literary fiction, The God of Small Things borrows techniques from:
- Postcolonial fiction: Critiquing imperialism, caste, and patriarchy.
- Family saga: Generations bound by tragedy.
- Tragic romance: Ammu and Velutha’s doomed love recalls Romeo and Juliet.
- Magic realism: The childlike perception occasionally blurs reality and imagination (e.g., Sophie Mol’s “secret cartwheel in her coffin”).
Who it’s for:
This novel is best suited for readers of literary fiction, postcolonial studies, feminist literature, and those who enjoy experimental narrative.
4. Evaluation
Strengths
- Lush, poetic prose.
- Deeply layered characters.
- Courageous critique of caste and gender oppression.
Weaknesses
- Nonlinear structure can confuse readers.
- Some critics see the ending (twins’ intimacy) as too shocking.
Impact
Reading this book is an emotional and intellectual upheaval — one leaves with a visceral sense of injustice, yet also of fragile beauty.
Comparison
Comparable to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (for style) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (for trauma and memory).
Reception & Criticism
The novel won the 1997 Booker Prize, but was banned in Kerala for “corrupting public morality” due to its portrayal of inter-caste love. Conservative critics called it anti-Indian propaganda, while scholars hailed it as groundbreaking.
Adaptation
In 2018, the novel was optioned for a limited TV series adaptation by Annapurna Pictures, though production has faced delays. Unlike Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, which reached the screen, Roy’s novel remains unadapted, perhaps because its lyrical language resists visual translation.
5. Personal Insight with Contemporary Relevance
Reading The God of Small Things in 1997 was to be immersed in a daring act of storytelling; reading it today is to confront how little has changed in terms of caste, gender, and silence in India and beyond.
Caste and Dalit Lives
Velutha’s lynching resonates disturbingly with contemporary India. Reports show caste-based violence remains widespread: according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB 2022), crimes against Dalits rose by 1.2%, with over 57,000 cases reported in a single year. Velutha’s fate mirrors the many Dalits who are punished for transgressing invisible social lines — from temple entry to inter-caste marriages. Arundhati Roy anticipated this in fiction before it became a staple of headlines.
Gender, #MeToo, and Ammu’s Anger
Ammu, condemned as “veshya” (prostitute) by the police, is silenced not only for her caste-transgressive love but also for being a divorced woman. Her experience mirrors the ongoing struggles of Indian women during the #MeToo movement, where survivors who spoke out were branded liars or immoral.
In a way, Ammu’s unfinished life is a literary ancestor to today’s feminist battles: women demanding the right to desire, to resist, and to be heard.
Silence, Trauma, and Mental Health
Estha’s muteness speaks volumes about how trauma works. Today, when discussions of mental health in South Asia are finally entering the mainstream, Estha feels like a reminder of those who survive but never recover. His silence is not weakness but a survival strategy. The novel, therefore, anticipates our 21st-century conversations about PTSD, childhood abuse, and the generational weight of unspoken pain.
Postcolonial Hierarchies Still Alive
The family’s obsession with Sophie Mol — the half-English cousin — speaks to the continuing colonial hangover in South Asia. Even today, matrimonial ads prize “fair-skinned brides,” and economic policies often still privilege Western connections. The shadow of empire lingers, just as Sophie Mol’s memory haunted the Ayemenem household.
Personal Reflection: As a reader, I found myself uncomfortably mirrored in Baby Kochamma’s obsession with “what will Sophie Mol think?” How often do we, as societies or individuals, measure our worth against external — often Western — standards? This makes The God of Small Things not only a story of one family’s tragedy but also a universal parable of how small humiliations accumulate into systemic oppression.
6. Quotable Lines/Passages
Here are some of the most striking lines from the novel, which capture its essence:
- “Things can change in a day.” — The novel’s refrain, encapsulating how sudden moments reshape lifetimes.
- “The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.” — A devastating description of caste and social boundaries.
- “Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age.” — Roy’s lyrical compression of mortality.
- “They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much.” — The novel’s central moral transgression.
- “It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined.” — On grief and remembrance.
- “She lived as though she was already dead.” — Ammu’s tragedy distilled.
- “Small things lurk in the corners of everyday lives. Fragile but enduring.” — A reminder that the novel’s title is about paying attention to the overlooked.
These lines not only stay with the reader but also crystallize Roy’s poetic style.
7. Conclusion
The God of Small Things is more than a novel; it is an x-ray of a society fractured by caste, patriarchy, colonial legacies, and silence. It is also a love story — not just between Ammu and Velutha, but between siblings who refuse to let trauma completely erase their bond.
Roy’s achievement is twofold: she gives us prose of shimmering beauty, and she forces us to confront uncomfortable truths. If reading feels like carrying “a small coffin lined with satin” (to borrow the imagery of Sophie Mol’s funeral), it is because beauty and brutality are inseparable in the story of India, and indeed in the story of human history.
Recommendation: This book is indispensable for lovers of literary fiction, postcolonial literature, feminist critique, and anyone willing to sit with discomfort in order to witness beauty. It is not an easy read, but it is one that lingers — like the smell of old roses on a breeze.
