THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

CHAPTER 18
THE HISTORY HOUSE

Zobia Ahsan

Roll # 56
SUMMARY
• Back in 1969,on the day of Sophie Mol’s death,
policemen cross the river looking for clues.
• They trudge among small creatures and the beauty
of nature. They come upon the History House, on
which veranda Estha, Rahel and Velutha are
sleeping.
• They beat Velutha brutally, to the children’s horror.
The policemen have no sense of Velutha as a fellow
human being, because he is an Untouchable.
SUMMARY
• The twins learn two new lessons;
1. The first that “Blood barely shows on a Black Man,”
and
2. The second that “It smells though, sicksweet, like roses
on a breeze”.
• Even though Velutha is beaten so badly that he cannot
move, the policemen handcuff him and drag him off.
SUMMARY
• They feel good about ‘saving’ the twins from this
Untouchable.
• One of the policemen asks the twins if they are OK.
• The six policemen take all of Estha and Rahel’s toys for
their kids. The only thing they leave behind is Rahel’s
watch, which has the fake time painted on it.
THE HISTORY HOUSE
• There are two different versions of the History House in
the novel,
➢ metaphorical
➢ literal.
1. The first is the imaginary house that Chacko uses as a
metaphor for the history of India. He explains to Estha
and Rahel that they come from a long line of
Anglophiles, but the story of their true family
background lies somewhere else.
 2nd
• Kari Saipu's house, then, becomes the second version
of the History House that we encounter in the novel.
• It even starts to become the History House in our own
eyes, since we know that when Estha and Rahel talk
about going to the History House they mean going to
the long-dead Kari Saipu's residence.
• The History House, as the site where Velutha and
Ammu meet in secret as lovers, where Estha and
Rahel hide after Sophie Mol drowns, and where
Velutha is nearly beaten to death, becomes an
important symbol of the personal history that our
characters both witness and experience.
ANALYSIS
• The scene in this chapter is horribly cruel and violent, yet Roy opens the
chapter by portraying the Kottayam police as cartoon-like.
The Kottayam Police.A cartoonplatoon.
New-age princes in funny pointed clowns.
Dark of Heart.
Deadlypurposed
(Pg#1,ch:18)
• It's as if what happens is too hard to deal with as reality. The beauty of
nature and of the History House are juxtaposed against the ugly brutality
of the police officers' actions.
• Six policemen cross the river. The description of them walking toward the
History House lasts for a few pages. There is a dramatic effect with this long
build up.
ANALYSIS
• The picture of this polic posse is constantly laced with sarcasm aim at
exposing ‘the servent of state’.
• Arundhati Roy creates a strange symmetry in The God of Small Things
by presenting here precisely the public display of what each letter in
the word POLICE stands for.
P stands for Politeness
O stands for Obedience
L stands for Loyalty
I stands for Intelligence
C stands for Courtesy
E stands for Efficiency
• However, that is a comment on what at heart they do not believe.
ANALYSIS
• There is a long description of small things with many pauses
which generates a feeling of suspense.
A forked canal. Still. Chocked with duckweed.
Like a dead green snake.A tree trunk fallen over it.
Grey squirrels streaked down mottled trunks of rubber trees that
slanted towards the sun. Old scars slashed across their bark.
Sealed . Healed . Untapped .
(Pg#2,3 ch:18)
Analysis
• We learn more about History House- it is beautiful but old.
• The roof of the house is lined with bats , doors are locked and
windows open, it has cold stone floors and ship shaped shadows
on the wall.
• In the History House, the Terror is buried in a shallow grave,
hidden under the happy humming of old communists.
• Capital letter of “Terror” reinforce the idea of something big.
Analysis
• The policemen creep towards the house on their knees and
elbows like Film-policemen , carrying batons but thinking of
machine guns.
Batons in their hands.
Machine-guns in their minds.
(pg#4 ch:18)
• They came to the History House, feeling the responsibility of the
“touchable future”.
• The twins and Velutha are all asleep when the police find them.
• They wake up Velutha by kicking him.
Analysis
• The twins woke up and realize for the first time that Velutha is there ,
they are paralyzed by fear and disbelief.
• The police beat Velutha with extreme violence and brutality. The
narrator describes his skull cracking and his broke ribs puncturing his
lungs.
• The narrator tells us that the twins are too young to understand that the
police feel like they have a reason and a right to do this to Velutha.
There is nothing accidental about what’s happening.
• The twins watch as Velutha is beaten almost to death and the blood
smells like old roses to them.
It smells , though. Sicksweet.
Like old roses on a breeze.
(pg #6)
Analysis
• The Rhetorical questions the children asked , show interrogation
in their minds and give their point of view.
Where had he come from?
What had he done?
Why had the policemen brought him here?
• The policemen stop beating Velutha. We learn that his skull is
fractured in three places. The bones in his face are smashed,
leaving it featureless and mushy. Six teeth are broken. He’s
bleeding from his mouth because four of his ribs are puncturing
his lungs. His spine has been damaged. His intestine is ruptured.
Both of his kneecaps are shattered.
Analysis
• One of the policemen brings his boot down heavily on Velutha's groin.
They handcuff him.
They locked his arms across his back.
Click. And click.
• The use of word “click” helps the reader to visualize and hear the
scene like a play.
• Rahel tells Estha that she can tell that it isn’t Velutha – she says it’s
Urumban, his “twin” who was at the march. Estha says nothing
because he is “unwilling to seek refuge in fiction”.
• The policemen suddenly grow friendly with the twins making sure
that Velutha didn’t hurt them.
Analysis
• The six policemen take all of Estha and Rahel’s toys for their
kids. The only thing they leave behind is Rahel’s watch, which
has the fake time painted on it.
• They drag Velutha across the floor.
• The last line of the chapter;
Bats, of course,are blind.
is an indirect reference to population.
Themes
• Indian politics , society and class.
• Caste system , the division between touchable and
untouchable.
• Change v/s preservation
• Small things and Big things.
The policemen are the ultimate symbol of Big things.
Velutha used to be the God of Small things , now he is the God of
loss.
Thank You!