Mahmood & Haque Explorer, Volume 1, Number 2, December 2008, ISSN 1998-

5568

The Inevitable Failure of Meta-narratives in The God of Small Things

Meer Mushfique Mahmood*

Fahmida Haque**

Abstract

Postmodern eye looks at human society from the vantage-point which is much criticized by the
philosophers of a wide range of different disciplines. It is said that postmodernism fails to
establish its own philosophy, own solution and, thereby, postmodern urge is kept aside all
human endeavor looking at it with a suspicious eye. On the other hand, the postmodernists,
addressing the all-inclusive-philosophies as meta-narratives, declare that the metanarratives
have lost their power to convince and, therefore, advocate little narratives. However, this paper
tries to respect the postmodern urges with the study of the novel The God of Small Things.

*Lecturer, Dept. of English, mushfiquemahmood@gmail.com

** Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, fahmida@ibais.edu

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The Inevitable Failure of Meta-narratives in The God of Small Things

Meer Mushfique Mahmood

Fahmida Haque

Introduction

Rice and Waugh in the introductory section of the ‘Postmodernism’ in their Modern Literary
Theory state “Postmodernism is a ‘mood’ expressed theoretically across a diverse range of
theoretical discourses and involving: a focus on the collapse of grand narratives into local
incommensurable language games or ‘little narratives’; a Foucauldian emphasis on the
discontinuity and plurality of history as discursively produced and formulated, and a tendency to
view the discourses of Enlightenment reason as complicit with the instrumental rationalization of
modern life.”(Arnold, 325) Particularly, the ‘grand narratives’ [‘super-narratives’ (Barry, 86)] in
other way are addressed as ‘meta-narratives’ (Barry, 86) which are abstract ideas that are thought
to be a comprehensive explanation of historical experience or knowledge. (wikipedia). The
examples of metanarratives are Christianity, Islam, Enlightenment theories, Freudian theory,
feminism, Marxism or the myth of scientific progress etc. (Barry, 86) According to postmodern
philosophers, meta-narratives have lost their power to convince – they are, literally, stories that
are told in order to legitimise various versions of “the truth”. (wikipedia) With the transition
from modern to postmodern, Lyotard proposes that metanarratives should give way to ‘petits
récits’, or more modest and “localized” narratives. (wikipedia) Postmodernists attempt to replace
metanarratives by focusing on specific local contexts as well as the diversity of human
experience. (wikipedia) Based on the postmodernist view, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things esteems the postmodern urge for ‘little narratives’ which helps us to reveal the quicksand
of the metanarratives in forms of “Love-Laws” [16], Christianity, feminism, Marxism and the so
called social codes of the society.

Literature Review

It seems that the postmodern issues have been less discussed regarding The God of Small Things.
But definitely some major works have already been done on this novel, which in other way carry
the postmodernist endeavor. Of them, the most prominent and supporting discussion is of Ng
Shing Yi’s “Peripheral Beings and Loss in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things” where
Yi (2003) investigates how Roy's invisible narratives dwells upon the small things, how the main
protagonists of the story essentially occupy peripheral positions in their family or society. Yi
(2003) again explains how The God of Small Things attempts to overturn their marginality, their
absent histories, by recording the careful detail of their lives, each minute fantasy and idea, the
small creeping emotions that culminate in passion or despair.

Ng Shing Yi (2003) exposes the novel as the corruption and inhumanity of socialist party politics
(or more specifically, politicking) and capitalism, both of which are domains of power and of
subtle colonial imperialism. As if to underline that their marginalized narratives constitute a hole
in chronological history, time in the novel is synchronized: the traumatic events of loss and

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expulsion are told in brief, crystallized flashbacks. While “small things” may ironically connote
triviality, the novel is ultimately concerned with marginality, absence and loss: in other words,
the invisible narratives that are consumed by power, politics, or imperialism.

Another important work is Laura Carter’s “Critical Essay on The God of Small Things” where
she (Thomson Gale, 2006) points out that Velutha is used as an example by the authorities of
those who remain out of step with the new regime or the British way of life. Ultimately, it is the
influence of outside political and social forces that kill Velutha both spiritually and physically, as
well as permanently scar Estha and Rahel’s psyches. Carter also explains that Velutha’s
excellence as a person illuminates the unfairness of the caste laws. When Velutha is seen
marching in a Communist parade, it illustrates the changing structure of political power in the
culture. Velutha’s grandfather had converted to Christianity, but even the new religion could not
overcome the entrenched caste laws of the society, and the churches became segregated for the
Untouchables. Later, many years after the incident, the culture protects the men who uphold its
prejudices and injustices. When Rahel meets Comrade Pillai, she notices that he “didn’t hold
himself in any way personally responsible for what had happened. He dismissed the whole
business as the Inevitable Consequence of Necessary Politics.” [8]

Similarly, Prasad (2006) suggests that in the case of Roy’s corpus, the discourse of marginality
must be considered in conjunction with the representation of resistance. Prasad pleads that the
title of Roy’s celebrated novel must not be applied to Velutha exclusively. The God of Small
Things is the spirit of powerlessness and social exclusion that pervades the lives of the
unfortunate of the world. In this connection Chapter Eleven of the novel must be re-read and re-
interpreted. The God of Small Things takes in his embrace Velutha, Ammu, Rahel, Estha,
labourers and women in the factory — indeed all those who area, in one way or another,
marginalized. Prasad (2006) explains by what stylistic means Roy has given voice and
expression to the sufferings of these people; their oppression at the hands of those who wield
power and the machinery that dispenses injustice. Roy states, “misfortune is always relative,”
(Kirkus Review, 2009) a country in which personal turmoil is dwarfed by the “vast, violent,
insane public turmoil of a nation.” [10]

Besides these discussions, the theme of love is obviously a vital issue of the novel The God of
Small Things. Scott Trudell’s (Thomson Gale, 2006) “Critical Essay on The God of Small
Things” discusses why the two forbidden sexual episodes in the final two chapters of The God of
Small Things are so crucial to the history of the Kochamma family and emblematic to the
meaning of the novel. He also explains how cultural forces guide an individual to break the
social rules. In the end, the novel shifts and the cultural forces begin to exert their power over the
individuals. Baby Kochamma performs her machinations “not for Ammu,” [119] but to “contain
the scandal” [119] that has occurred when the Love Laws were broken. Trudell’s (2006) essay
observes that all the tension, desire, and desperation beneath the surface of the narrative meet the
expressions of love, which are examples of perhaps the greatest, most unthinkable taboos of all.

Discussion and Analysis

The novel precisely deals with the disasters in life of Ammu, Velutha, Rahel, Estha. The points
which strike most in the text might be – Ammu’s divorce, Rahel’s marriage, Rahel’s divorce,

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affair and relation between Ammu and Velutha, relation between Rahel and Estha. All these
issues can be taken as the violation of social codes. But if we study the novel with a keen eye, we
would see that these violations of social codes are inevitable incidents in the lives of these
characters. In fact, what is brought under criticism is the meta-narratives which guide their
society in which they live in.

Throughout the novel, we see Ammu, Estha, Rahel, and Velutha are not typical characters
among all other typed members of Kochamma Family. This is a story of dream, desire to be
loved and to love, desire to remain in touch with near and dear ones. The narrative shows how all
small beautiful desires of life are just smashed. The novel exclaims why the dreams are not
fulfilled, desires are not satisfied and life is either to be worn-out or, inevitably, to enter that
corner of life which forms its own senses, own rules contrary to the social codes of the civilized
society; and its own explanation of life which will help us to understand the quicksand of the
civilized world. Throughout the whole novel, we see almost a ghetto is created and Rahel, Estha,
Ammu and Velutha are just thrown inside it mercilessly. Sophie Mol’s death, marked as the
point to enter the life of ultimate disaster in the life of Ammu, Estha, Rahel, and Velutha, is
mirrored in the mind of Rahel as “Sophie Mol died because she could not breathe.” [4] This
utterance shows not only the immature line of thought of a minor child, but also connotative to
the meaning of the whole novel. All characters mentioned above are turned into speechless and
breathless state of existence.

Rahel returns to Ayemenem not only to see her twin Estha but also to see her loving one, to feel
the touch of her loving one, to fulfill the ultimate taste of life. In the writer’s words — “‘Rahel
gave up her job at the gas station and left America gladly’. ‘To return to Ayemenem’. ‘To Estha
in the rain’”. [10] The image ‘rain’ signifies one’s sophisticated taste, one’s desire from the inner
most part of one’s heart — both mental and physical. And here arises the conflict — conflict
with the social code, conflict with the teachings of meta-narratives.

The theme of love is a conspicuous issue of the novel The God of Small Things and also a much
discussed and debated issue by the critics. The writer is accused of discussing the points which
are conflicting with the social codes like “Love Laws” [16]. And all romantic love in the novel
relates closely to politics, history and social circumstances. If the novel is studied carefully, we
can find out that ‘Love’ is not a mere emotion but a motivating force that can be explained in
terms of two peoples’ (Ammu and Velutha) cultural backgrounds, political identities and other
factors which ultimately become the quicksand of all existent meta-narratives.

We see, in Kochamma Family, both the Children — Rahel and Estha — were the objects of
negligence. They were bound to feel that they were just the burdens to the family. Several times
it is stated that Ammu was being neglected in the Kochamma Family — her parents’ family. The
children were neglected and were suffering from inferior complexity at every step. We see, in
Sophie Mol’s funeral, Estha, Rahel and Ammu stood separately. Rahel, a child who was upset
because of ‘little less’ [52] loved by her mother wanted to sacrifice her dinner in exchange of her
mother’s complete love. But, disastrously she encountered the most tragic death of her mother
and the refusal of the church for her mother’s burial. All of these instances may be seen as the
possible causes of any type of disorder.

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Rahel was sent to the Christian Missionary school — an institution with the signboard of meta-
narratives, an institution to carry on the wheel of civilization. We see Rahel is punished for her
revolting deeds against ideology.

Six months later she was expelled after repeated complaints from senior girls. She
was accused (quite rightly) of hiding behind doors and deliberately colliding with
her seniors. When she was questioned by the Principal about her behavior
(cajoled, caned, starved), she eventually admitted that she had done it to find out
whether breasts hurt. In that Christian institution, breasts were not acknowledged.
They weren’t supposed to exist (and if they didn’t could they hurt?). [9]

Again, we see that remaining in the laps of meta-narrative guided world; a child is being reared
without the touch of love and guidance like an orphan.

Rahel grew up without a brief. Without anybody to arrange a marriage for her.
Without anybody who would pay her a dowry and therefore without an obligatory
husband looming on her horizon. [9]

Her life became dreamless and tasteless. She marries not with the dream to be loved or not to
love her lover whole-heartedly: “Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an
unoccupied chair in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense.”[10]

The dream world of married life becomes monotonous one to her.

But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though
they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at
the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat. He was
exasperated because he didn’t know what that look meant. He put it somewhere
between indifference and despair. [10]

Rahel is divorced. The divorced life is a dead life to her.

“We’re divorced.” Rahel hoped to shock him into silence. “Die-vorced?” His
voice rose to such a high register that it cracked on the question mark. He even
pronounced the word as though it were a form of death. [60]

After the divorce, Rahel worked at the Gas Station and faced the beastly faces of a civilized
country. On the other hand, Estha’s experience of the circumstances surrounding Sophie Mol’s
visit is somewhat more traumatic than Rahel’s, beginning when he is sexually abused by the
Orangdrink Lemondrink Man at the Abhilash Talkies Theater. The narrator stresses that Estha’s
“Two Thoughts” [90] in the pickle factory, which stem from this experience (that “Anything can
happen to Anyone” and “It’s best to be prepared” [90]) are critical in leading to his cousin’s
death.

Estha is the twin chosen by Baby Kochamma, because he is more “practical” [144] and
“responsible,” [144] to go into Velutha’s cell and condemn him as their abductor. This trauma, in

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addition to his departure for Calcutta to live with his father, contributes to Estha becoming mute
at some point in his childhood. Estha never went to college and acquired a number of habits,
such as wandering on very long walks and obsessively cleaning his clothes. Estha rambled
around Ayemenem target-less, speechless. He didn’t answer Pillai. This was a silent protest of a
man who has lost his everything. Estha's conflict within himself turns him into a silent creature.
But in his inside “there is an uneasy octopus that lived-and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his
past” [7].

Both, Estha and Rahel, are victims of family, society, institutions. According to Pillai, a
communist leader “One was mad. The other die-vorced.” [60] These two human beings one ‘die-
vorced’ and another maddened, inevitably, touch each other with love.

Ammu, a woman hankering after the purity of life, innocent beauty of life, sweetness of life, love
and touch of her beloved one — all of the small and beautiful and sophisticated desires of life,
falls in love with a carpenter neglecting the social codes of traditional society. But why? We,
again, do not get any answer from the all inclusive meta-narratives and what we get is only the
barriers and threats.

Ammu finished her schooling the same year that her father retired from the job in Delhi and
moved to Aymenem. Pappachi insisted that a college education was unnecessary expense for a
girl so Ammu had no choice but to leave Delhi and move with him. There was little for a young
girl to do in Aymenem other than to wait for marriage proposal.

Ammu, an adolescent girl tortured in her parents’ home married her husband as she, at any cost,
wanted to leave her parents’ home. But the marriage takes her inside a terrible life.

She was twenty-seven that year, and in the pit of her stomach she carried the cold
knowledge that, for her, life had been lived. She had had one chance. She made a
mistake. She married the wrong man. [18]

She became the public property — property of some civilized people. “Ammu, beautiful, young
and cheeky, became the toast of the Planters’ Club.” [19] She was targeted by Mr. Hollick, the
English gentleman. And her husband consented to the proposal and tortured her physically. Her
father, her begetter, became doubtful of her complaint, in a way, accused her. We see her world
filled with darkness; she returns to her parents’ house and, thereby, embraced a life full of
disrespect, disaster, hatred and scolding. Even, she faced the ugliest face of relationship also.

Within first few months of her return to her parent's home; Ammu quickly learned
to recognize and despise the ugly face of sympathy. Old female relations with
their incipient beards and several wobbling chins made overnight trips to
Aymenm to commiserate her about her divorce. She fought off the urge to slap
them. [20]

In this giddy world, Ammu falls in love with Velutha ignoring the codes of traditional society.
As a consequence, Velutha is mudered, Ammu is dead or murdered.

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For one thing, therefore, the forbidden love affairs at the end of the novel are crucial because
they reveal the disgust and horror with the lovers that is at the root of the violence and tragedy
directed against them. Present-day readers probably do not consider inter-caste romance
repulsive, but they are quite likely to be shocked and offended by incest. The reader’s reaction to
such violations of the Love Laws allows him/her to understand how and why such drastic social
and political consequences could have resulted from the transgressions at the end of The God of
Small Things. Roy allows the reader an insight into the emotional basis behind the careful,
planned brutality of those dedicated to Kerala’s social code, such as the Touchable Policemen
who believe that in beating Velutha to death they are enforcing the Love Laws and “inoculating a
community against an outbreak.” [140]

However, the love affairs also allow the reader to identify with the transgressor, and they inspire
a sympathetic reaction for four people who are abused, tortured, and betrayed by their society’s
most fundamental rules. The reasons for Ammu’s turn to Velutha are sharply drawn and inspire a
great deal of sympathy when she studies her body, the body of an “inexperienced lover,” [104] in
the mirror and peers “down the road to Age and Death through its parted strands.” [104]
Ammu’s love affair is, in a sense, the cause of the novel’s tragedy because it shatters her family,
condemns Velutha to a brutal death, traumatizes Rahel and Estha for the rest of their lives, and
results in her own decay and death. It is also, however, the result of an entire lifetime of abuse,
confinement, and imprisonment in a stinting social code. This code not only fails to protect
Ammu against her father beating her with a brass vase, her father imprisoning her in the house
even when she is an adult, and her husband beating her; it actually leads to these consequences.
When she recognizes that Kerala’s social code is in the process of forcing her down Baby
Kochamma’s path of bitter, joyless confinement to the house until death, she acts in perfectly
understandable desperation and attempts to find happiness with Velutha.

Rahel’s incestuous contact with Estha is so crucial and definitive in their identity search. In the
opening passages of the novel, the narrator relates that, during their childhood, “Esthappen and
Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us. As
though they were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities.”
[2] The twins’ love-making is a metaphor for their in search of this fractured and traumatized
joint identity in their adulthood, and it is a real, physical and emotional expression of their grief
and longing remaining inside the meta-narrative guided society.

To illustrate Rahel’s isolation and despair and to find out the causes of her eccentricities the
writer writes:

He didn’t know that in some places, like the country that Rahel came from,
various kinds of despair competed for primacy. And that personal despair could
never be desperate enough. That something happened when personal turmoil
dropped by at the wayside shrine of the vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous,
insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation. That Big God howled like a hot
wind, and demanded obeisance. Then Small God (cozy and contained, private and
limited) came away cauterized, laughing numbly at his own temerity. Inured by
the confirmation of his own inconsequence, he became resilient and truly
indifferent Nothing mattered much. Nothing much mattered. And the less it

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mattered, the less it mattered. It was never important enough. Because Worse
Things had happened. In the country that she came from, poised forever between
the terror of war and the horror of peace, Worse Things kept happening. [10]

This is a direct comment of the author through the voice of Rahel’s husband. This shows the
desolation of the society, where Rahel was born. The phrase ‘Big God’ directly indicates and
satirizes the metanarratives and the phrase ‘Small God’ directly indicates little desires of life
with the sympathetic heart. And this direct analysis of metaphysical issues reveals the writer’s
assessment of meta-narratives.

The author (www.progressive.org), when asked what the god of small things implies, she stated
that it is “the inversion of God,” a “not accepting of what we think of as adult boundaries.” Roy
asserts that throughout the course of the narrative, “all sorts of boundaries are transgressed
upon.” It is, according to Roy, small events and ordinary things “smashed and reconstituted,
imbued with new meaning to become the bleached bones of the story.” [16] Subsequently, it is
these small events and ordinary things that form a pattern of her narrative art.

Douglas Dupler (2006) says that Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things reveals a so-
called Big God presides over the large happenings of the world, the “vast, violent, circling,
driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation.” [10] In contrast, it is a Small
God that resides over the individual lives caught up in forces too powerful and large for these
individuals to understand and to change. This Small God is “cozy and contained, private and
limited,” [10] residing over people for whom “worse things” are always happening. Individuals
ruled by the symbolic Small God adopt resignation and “inconsequence” in the face of mass
movements, while at the same time their oppression makes them “resilient and truly indifferent.”
[10]

The ultimate outcome of this love affair is the tragic death of an “Untouchable” by the
“Touchable Boots” [138] of the state police, an event that makes a travesty of the idea of God.
God is no more in control of “small things” rather the small things have an ultimate power over
God, turning him to “The God of loss” (141)

Again, we find the writer’s microscopic look on the so called civilized dealings of society and
culture —

The performances were staged by the swimming pool. While the drummers
drummed and the dancers danced, hotel guests frolicked with their children in the
water. While Kunti revealed her secret to Karna on the riverbank, courting
couples rubbed suntan oil on each other. While fathers played sublimated sexual
games with their nubile teenaged daughters, Poothana suckled young Krishna at
her poisoned breast. Bhima disemboweled Dushasana and bathed Draupadi’s hair
in his blood. [58-59]

This statement of the writer shows the darker corners of the so called civilized minds of the
society which upholds the signboard of civilization. The simultaneous presence of the issues —
fathers playing sublimated sexual games with their adolescent daughters, allusion of Kunti’s

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revealing her secret of Karna, Poothana suckling young Krishna, Bhima’s disemboweling
Dushasana and bathing Draupadi’s hair — reveals the writers satiric most look on the religion
guided society.

Again, the writer criticizes the social institutions. To state regarding Ammu’s presence at the
police station, it is written —

Inspector Thomas Mathew’s mustaches bustled like the friendly Air India
Maharajah’s, but his eyes were sly and greedy.

“It’s a little too late for all this, don’t you think?” he said. He stared at Ammu’s
breasts as he spoke. He said the police knew all they needed to know and that the
Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate
children. Ammu said she’d see about that. Inspector Thomas Mathew came
around his desk and approached Ammu with his baton.

“If I were you,” he said, “I’d go home quietly.” Then he tapped her breasts with
his baton. Gently. Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket.
Pointing out the ones that he wanted packed and delivered. Inspector Thomas
Mathew seemed to know whom he could pick on and whom he couldn’t.
Policemen have that instinct. [5]

This is a clear tirade against an institution which is formed by the guidelines of the
metanarratives guided society and state. There was a board in the police station which inscribed:

Behind him a red and blue board said:

Politeness.
Obedience.
Loyalty.
Intelligence.
Courtesy.
Efficiency. [5]

This is a powerful satire through which Arundhati distinctively shows how the protectors of laws
ultimately manipulate and transgress it. Here, Roy ironically means everything regarding the
meta-narratives of civilization and the novel is replete with such type of instances.

Likewise, we get to know how the writer dissected the Kochamma Family, the Church, the
society with a strong expression of hatred which clearly states the writer’s views on the so called
established systems of the civilization and her intention to show the quicksand of the meta-
narratives.

Indian history and politics shape the plot and meaning of The God of Small Things in a variety of
ways. Some of Roy’s commentary is on the surface, with jokes and snippets of wisdom about
political realities in India. However, the novel also examines the historical roots of these realities

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and develops profound insights into the ways in which human desperation and desire emerge
from the confines of a firmly entrenched caste society. Roy reveals a complex and longstanding
class conflict in the state of Kerala, India, and she comments on its various competing forces.
Roy’s novel attacks the brutal, entrenched, and systematic oppression at work in Kerala,
exemplified by figures of power such as Inspector Thomas Mathew. Roy is also highly critical of
the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of the conventional, traditional moral code of Pappachi and
Mammachi. On the opposite side of the political fence, the Kerala Communist Party, at least the
faction represented by Comrade Pillai, is revealed to be much more concerned with personal
ambition than with any notions of social justice.

Again, Kerala is the place which is populated with the Christians and Hindus, inherited by the
people with colonial hangover. With this very setting, the writer directly and vividly includes the
causes of the misery of the characters — all the instances of the history of civilization, all the
sign-boards of civilization, all the causes, logics, thoughts helped to initiate the journey of the
civilized world, all the civilized institutions of the society — human society spread throughout
the whole world. To state about the causes of miseries the characters faced the writer writes:

Equally, it could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long
before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch
Ascendency before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin’s conquest of
Calicut. Before three purple-robed Syrian bishops murdered by the Portuguese were
found floating in the sea, with coiled sea serpents riding on their chests and oysters
knotted in their tangled beards. It could be argued that it began long before
Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag. That it
really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down
who should be loved, and how. [16]

Here the writer includes all of the metanarratives; all of the historical experiences or knowledge;
every of the transcendent thoughts, beliefs, feelings; every of the moments of the history of
civilization from the very beginning of its journey.

After stating all of the dark corners, short comings of the society, the writer, comments on
miseries of their life:

Perhaps Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors. But it wasn’t just
them. It was the others too. They all broke the rules. They all crossed into
forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be
loved and how. And how much. The laws that make grandmothers grandmothers,
uncles uncles, mothers mothers, cousins cousins, jam jam, and jelly jelly. [15]

And what happened, according to the writer, because of all these is — “Little events, ordinary
things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the
bleached bones of a story.”[16] So, what is being revealed is — they broke the rules, built their
own world with little narratives which was simply inevitable for them.

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By drawing the reader into the microcosm of the lives of Ammu, Velutha, and the twins, one
undergoes the realization that these small lives, ruined by large impersonal forces and the petty
tyranny of men, are not trivial at all, but contain a portrait of humanity in exquisite miniature:

...Instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside.
They knew that there was nowhere for them to go. They had nothing. No future.
So they stuck to the small things... [152]

…….they had to put their faith in fragility. Stick to Smallness. Each time they
parted, they extracted only one small promise from each other.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow.’ [153]

Ammu, together with her children, Rahel and Estha, as well as the mostly-absent but pivotally
significant Velutha, they form the novel’s core: socially marginalized, their personal histories
constitute what Roy would call “a hole in the Universe.” [89] That is, their narratives are largely
absent from the larger narratives of history and politics, since they are mostly victims rather than
enactors of the rules comporting their society.

Conclusion

Thus, all the meta-narratives in forms of “Love-Laws” [16], Christianity, feminism, Marxism,
sense of civilization, institutions of civilization are criticized by the writer clearly throughout the
whole text. Roy clearly stands for the little desires of human life and The God of Small Things
attempts to overturn their marginality, their absent histories, by recording the minute details of
their lives, each minute fantasy and idea, the small creeping emotions that culminate in passion
or despair. Arundhati Roy’s, critical observation, severe attack on the metanarratives and, on the
other hand, powerful support on the little desires of human life forces us to esteem the
postmodern urges from the inner most part of our heart.

References:

Barry, Peter. Beginning theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995.

Carter, Laura. Critical Essay on The God of Small Things. Thomson Gale, 2006.

Prasad, Murari (ed). Arundhati Roy: Critical Perspectives. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2006.

Rice, Philip and Partricia Waugh. Modern Literary Theory. London: Arnold, 2002.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. London: Random House, 1997.

Yi, Ng Shing. “Peripheral Beings and Loss in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Thing”. QLRS
Vol. 2 No. 4 Jul 2003.

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Mahmood & Haque Explorer, Volume 1, Number 2, December 2008, ISSN 1998-
5568

http://www.progressive.org/intv0401.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6563923/Arundhati-Roy-The-God-of-Small-Things

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative, February 18, 2009.

http://www.litlovers.com/guide_godsmall.html

The Inevitable Failure of Meta-narratives in The God of Small Things 12