Literature Review

The publication of Arundhati RoyśThe God of Small Things(1997) heralded a new stream in the
field of Indian literature in English . While ostensibly written in the manner of writers
likeAmitavGhosh , the novel in its focus on a serious message was like the modernists. Being
eventually connected with Roy’s activism and non-fictional writings it created for itself a niche of
its own. From the very beginning, the novel has elicited Book Reviews, Journal Articles,
Anthologies and book length studies by both Indians and non-Indians. A topical classification,
based on the treatment of causes of subalternity like gender, class, race and caste helps us to
understand the different types of reactions that this novel has evoked among different kinds of
readers. It also provides a background for finding an answer to my research question of what is
the main cause of subalternity of the subalterns treatedinThe God of Small Things. The critics
have looked at the novel mainly from feminist, postcolonial, Marxist and Eco-critical points of
view. A consideration of these studies will also make it possible for us to place The God of Small
Things within the context of Indian state and society .

VanditaLiddle’s essay titled, ¨Hybridity , Marginalization and the Politics of Transgression in

Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things¨(2013)written from a postcolonial perspective points at
the exclusionary politics and strategies practiced by the powerfulupper caste characters in the
novel.To quote the essayist: ¨The power structures embodied by Mammachi, Baby Kochamma,
and the policeman ensure that the transgressors-Ammu, Velutha, Rahel and Estha, remain
vulnerable and marginalized. They become victims of the caste system, gender-based inequality,
and inflexible law enforcement.¨ (1). The tussle between the power-holders and the subalterns
of caste and gender are, thus, at the centre of the novel. The study tends to point at the caste
system and patriarchy as principally responsible for the misery of Velutha, Ammu and the twins.

Cara Cilano’s essay titled ,“Ẅhere ¨Tomorrow¨? The God of Small Things as Derridean Ghost
Story¨(2009) treats the novel as a story of hauntings in which the places as well as the
characters inherit a temporal space where there is a play of meaning and time is circular and
there is no progression. Situated as the story is in postmodern time, history is an absence and
the characters like Ammu, Velutha and BabyKochamma live in an eternal present. In a complex
consideration of the plot, the characters and the time line, Cilano speaks of a stasis which pits
itself against a symbolic present which is eternal. In the words of Cilano : ¨I view the novel’ś
hauntings as hauntings of possible futures”(26). The spectral nature of time in the novel is
evidenced in the section dealing with the twins, their cousin, Sophie Mol andVelutha. They seem
to inhabit a timeless present unhindered by the world of the elders, who more often than not
turn oppressive against small people and small things and try to wrench a possible future for
others according to their own designs. The final lines of Cilano clarify the point about the
centrality of the powerless and their struggle against the arrogant powerful people in the novel:
¨ Velutha and Ammu’s deaths refuse closure , finality , or control. Even though by the time the
readers reach the novel’s last word- ¨Tomorrow¨ -they know Velutha’s and Ammu’s fates, her
promise to him defies containment: it works as the promise of a future-to-come(Roy 321). Roy
has said that her novel is ¨ a book about human nature ¨(Abraham 91), and, through this
consideration of the Derridean specters , we see that it is truly a book that teaches us ¨how to
live finally¨(Derrida xviii). The novel in this analysis takes us away from the raw reality of caste,
class and gender discrimination and into the world of a kind of hyper reality.

Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things(1997) has elicited not only traditional analyses, but also
explicitly postmodernist analyses, e.g. from the perspective of ¨interrogation of meta-
narratives¨. Binayak Roy’s ¨The Title of The God of Small Things: A Subversive Salvo¨(2009) is
one of them. Instead of the Gods of the Grand Traditions or narratives of India, Binayak quoting
UrbashiBarai places Velutha with ¨the Little Gods of the Hindu tradition, the deities of folklore
and everyday worship¨(71)¨(59). Thus, not only is traditional religions like Hinduism and
Christianity undermined, but there is a definite prescription for opting for small things, small
narratives. The repudiation of grand narratives thus includes Marxism also. Binayak’s analysis is
superb in its focussed nature: ¨Like the religious converts, the Marxist convert Pillai fails
miserably to live up to his professed ideal. His betrayal elicits the narrator’s comment: ¨Another
religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by
human nature¨(287)¨(60).Binayak sums up his point even before reaching the end of the novel,
thus: ¨As a postmodern novel, The God of Small Things thoroughly exposes the hollowness of
family and society, religion and politics. Their failure as sources of values stems from the
ineradicable discrepancy between the human mind and human nature ¨ (61). In its repudiation
of meta narratives the essay takes away focus from categories like gender, class and caste and
proves not useful for our purpose.

.
John Lutz in his essay titled , ¨Commodity Fetishism, Patriarchal Repression, and Psychic
Deprivation in Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things¨(2009), written from a Marxist-Feminist
perspective, suggests that it is ¨through characters victimized by the social order that the novel
explores potential sites of resistance to capitalist exploitation and patriarchal domination¨.(57).
The dominant characters in the novel are inclined to dominate both the ¨natural world and
control human life [which] finds expression through imagery or objects that allude to the
progressive commodification of everyday life under capitalism.¨(57).The immanent nature of
US-centered capitalism is expressed through the infatuation of Baby Kochamma with American
television, who finally finds a refuge in the virtual world created by America in contrast with the
capitalistically regulated and male-controlled world of India, where there is no space for even a
pro-active female like Baby Kochamma. To quote Lutz again:

The description of world events as ¨television worries¨ (29) and violent conflicts as ¨television
wars¨(28) suggests the distance between the reality of these events and their packaged
representation on television, a distance that contributes to Baby Kochamma’s social isolation and
lack of authentic engagement with the real problems confronting the world.(59)

This isolation and aloofness makes Baby Kochamma complicit in the capitalist and patriarchal
networks for exploitation. Face to face with oppressive and repressive characters and forces, the
small things or characters have to take recourse to natural environment and nature against the
ruthless bulldozers of history manned by capitalism and patriarchy. To quote Lutz: ¨ However, if
history is depicted as an agent of destruction, nature is frequently depicted as a transgressive
force allied with human desire in its antagonism to oppressive social, economic and political
structures¨(65). This implies the ancient dichotomy of nature versus nurture or society and
freedom versus oppression and suppression.

Ammu, one of the central characters of the novel, is the anti-thesis of Baby Kochamma in the
sense that she does not let herself be appropriated by the power-holders, but rather opposes
them and dies, while engaged in passive resistance against them. Her lover, Velutha, is
murdered by the police, through which ¨human history manifests itself as a brutal process of
conquest, while human nature finds representation in the pursuit of ascendancy manifested in
monopoly capitalism¨ (66). Thus, the story /plot of the novel revolves around the question of
power exercised by capitalism and patriarchy and thus the resistance of characters like Ammu,
Velutha, Rahel and Estha against these are of a paramount importance in the novel. This
analysis, though it accommodates questions of caste and class, along with that of gender, it does
not clarify their comparative role in creating the subalternity of the dominated characters in the
novel.
SaraUpstone’s ¨The History House The Magic of Contained Space in Arundhati Roy‘s The
God of Small Things¨ is an article that deals with how houses are presented actually and
symbolically in the novel. Up stone thinks that the houses may be seen as ¨metonymic
of wider oppressions¨(73) .The different characters in the novel, including Baby
Kochamma try to quarantine themselves from the world, but the world encroaches and
sweeps through the houses. None of the houses remain a ¨home¨, a safe domestic
space. Ayemenem House is especially significant among the houses in the novel: ¨It is
explicitly imperial, a ¨symbol of colonial authority¨ as the ¨Heart of Darkness¨ and the
house of an ¨Englishman¨ with ¨Map-breath’d ancestors¨ (Chanda 42). It is also
reflective of India’s ¨communal divisions and conflicts¨, where organized power in the
form of the police force utilizes both neocolonial authority and patriarchal male physical
strength(Ramraj 155)¨(75). What Roy suggests is many small histories instead of one
¨official large-scale history¨ (75), which suppresses the voices of the small ¨things¨.While
not denying the necessity of a grand historical narrative altogether, Roy proposes an
opening up of spaces for the small narratives and small details in the manner of the
Subaltern Studies Collective and many postmodernists. However, her acceptance of the
need to have a kind of grand narrative, no matter how fragile along with the smaller
narratives places her in a special position.

This essay while accommodative of the exploited “small things”, do not address the
fundamental question of why there are “small things”. The most it contributes is an
awareness of the exploitative role played by “History”. If it had addressed the question
of why “History” is complicit in the capitalist system and why there are subalterns,
primarily, then it would have served the proper role. The essay prioritizes class as a very
important cause for the subalternity of the characters as it focuses upon capitalism as
the oppressive system which creates misery, suffering and tortures the subalterns.

The first essay of Ghosh and Navarro-Tejerro’santhology,Globalizing Dissent is by Jesse T.Airaudi

and titled , “The (In)fusion of Sociology and Literary Fantasy: Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie,
Ulrich Beck, and the Reinvention of Politics” which deals with the mingling of a sociological
imagination with literary fantasy in the writings of Arundhati Roy. Ulrich beck, the German
sociologist echoes the concerns of Edmund Husserl, which is epitomized in the writings of
among others, Arundhati Roy: “the heart of our social reality is dissolving and we’re acting like
it’s not. Not only family sociology, but the sociology of classes, and sociology itself, rests on the
household. And it doesn’t exist anymore. “(Conversations with Ulrich Beck)”(3). To take on
Ulrich Beck’s point, as first enumerated by Edmund Husserl, the crisis in European thought is,
“The ‘crisis’ of science as the loss of meaning for life”(5)”(7).” Starting with a discussion of
Salman Rushdie, the postmodernist writer and why his works attracted a wide readership, the
essayist points out two major things, later connecting him with Roy. Firstly, the focus upon
minute details and a rejection of holistic grand narratives and secondly, the creation of a
fantastic world of imagination, a la’ Tolkien, of The Lord ofthe Ringsfame makes him popular.
Airaudi connects Rushdie with Roy, the author, who after the experimental explosion of the
nuclear bomb by India, declared that she was declaring herself independent as “a mobile
republic”.Roy, in her novel, deals with the story of a family in Ayemenem, Kerala, which is
disintegrating under the pressure of different contradictory forces, including globalization and
the unfolding of a repressive stratified world based on caste, class and gender divisions,
epitomized subversively by the Ammu-Velutha transgressive love affair. The story is presented,
however, as a fantasy and seen/narrated primarily through the eyes of children and child-like
characters.The author claims that like the works of Rushdie, the crisis of meaning in Roy is such
that “Roy’s novel, like Rushdie’s fiction, has no answers” (19). However, the prevalence of
“Untruth” provides the readers with the space to challenge grand-narratives propounded by the
power-holders and the rebellion of the subalterns in the space of the novel, finds reality and
centrality through it.

This essay is important in its touching upon one of the reasons behind subalternity of the
characters in The God of Small Things,class,though cursorily . That it does not prioritize class
over the other reasons for subalternity is a sign that the essay is a product of its time. It doesnot,
also throw its weight behind caste.

The essay in the collection of essays,Arundhati Roy Critical PerspectivesbyMurari Prasad titled,
¨Power Relationships in The God of Small Things¨(2006),by Antonia Navarro-Tejero, deals
directly with the conflict between the powerless and the powerful or the structures that prop
them up. In the words of the essayist: ¨ Roy investigates how in oppressive conditions powerless
people are pitted against in the three ‘Big’ power structures: Family, State, and Religion” (101).
Using the power-relationships in the pickles factory as a case study, the essay employs a
Marxist-feminist framework to point out the commodification and reification of the powerless
subalterns in the factory by the likes of the hypocritical communist Chacko and how sex and
labour , both are exploited for ensuring the extravagant life-style of Chacko, who takes over the
factory from his mother in order to turn it into a capitalist enterprise connected in the long run
with the global neo-colonial market. Thus, the essay brings into focus the central drama of the
novel or the conflict between the subalterns and the powerful as narrative, drama as well as
allegory.

The essay takes into account the subalternity of women and workers, thusof class and gender,
and the connection between the two. While, this is praiseworthy, the essay does not bring to
the fore the central question of caste in the world of The God of Small Things,primarily, leaving
the question of emancipation largely unanswered .
Julie Mullaney’s essay, ¨¨Globalizing Dissent¨? Arundhati Roy, Local and Postcolonial Feminisms
in the Transnational Economy¨(2006), tries to contextualize Roy as a writer in terms of post
colonialism, feminism and globalization. Mullaney tries to point out the danger in conflating the
author with her work and claims that she presents the west and the non-west ¨equally in
dialogue¨ (115) in both her novel and non-fictional works, despite claims or appearances to the
contrary as in War Talk(2003). Encompassing all her works, Roy as a writer upholds a dialogic,
open ended discourse about post colonialism, feminism and globalization and attempts to
achieve a better world through this. Mullaney calls this act of Roy, appropriately enough,
¨Globalizing Dissent¨.She, thus categorizes Roy as a non-conformist encompassing as well
transcending feminist, postcolonial and anti-globalization discourses and working for a more
understanding, more equal and more caring world.

The above essay presents the author’s understanding of Roy, the author and the activist,
without answering the crucial question about the text, The God of Small Things.While it is true
that dissenting in itself is a work of resistance, it cannot be meaningful without some kind of
action on the part of the subalterns, as becomes clear from Ammu-Velutha’s transgressive love
affair. Resistance cannot be directed and focused without understanding the structures which
are inimical of the subalterns like caste, class or gender. This makes the essay less than
satisfactory for us.

Susan Comfort’s essay titled ¨The Hidden Life of Things: Commodification, Imperialism, and
Environmental Feminism in Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things¨ (2008)is written from a
combination of Marxist and eco-feminist points of view.The essay claims that the central
narrative project of the novel is ¨the interrogation of the commodity logic that underlies the
construction of patriarchal ideological formations under capitalist imperialism.¨ (1) The novelist
is not engaged in a critique of the culture of the West, but of ¨patriarchal ideologies associated
with the political economy of imperialism, which involves both global and local formations of
domination¨(2). The essayist quotes Marx in defining ¨commodity fetishism¨ as ¨a commodity is
...a mysterious thing [because] a definite social relation between men ...assumes , in their eyes,
the fantastic form of a relation between things¨(320-321)¨(6). As an example of commodity
fetishism in the novel, the essayist focuses on ¨the History House¨:

In the novel, then, the History House is at the center stage. It is from there that the invisible
forces of oppression and violence radiate outwards in a system of exploitation that depends on
multiple dimensions of patriarchal domination, from the coercive enforcement of separate
spheres, to the institutional violence used to put down subaltern insurgency, to the
perpetuation of structures of global marginalization, and the rationalization of nature (10).

Patriarchyand capitalism, creating of a rigid division between the arenas of the male and the
females, the use of violence against the resisting subalterns, oppressed because of caste, class,
race and gender, and the disenchantment of nature,is disliked by eco-feminists and postcolonial
environmentalists. They, all contribute to ensuring one thing, the safety and security of the
power-holders against the subalterns. The rationalization of nature alludes to the use of
“Instrumental Reason”for regulating life and thought and thus putting everything in a carceral
grid. Lutz thinks that the novelist ¨ is insisting on a re-examination of the determinate relation
between large forces and small events and between the universal and the particular, according
to which in dominant patriarchal logic the ¨small things¨ and particulars are all but subsumed ,
destroyed or brutalized(17).

This, arguing for focusing on the particular, though, in the apparent style of the postmodernists,
does not present the conflict between the powerful and the subalterns as part of a cinematic
reality, distant from us. The focus of the novelist is on the binaries of real-time conflict, despite
its presentation in a non-linear manner to emphasize the particularities of things and it is power
and those who lack or have it and their mutual conflict, which really occupies the central stage
for this novel about the “small things”.

The above essay written from the eco-feminist and postcolonial perspectives touches upon the
fetishization of commodities and its connection with imperialism. However, it does not touch
upon the predicament of the subalterns and the reasons behind their subalternity directly. As
these causes are not directly identified, the question of identifying the way of emancipation
does not arise. The question of what is the principle cause for subalternity, thus lies untouched.

The first essay in Murari Prasad’s anthologyArundhati Roy Critical Perspectives(2006) by

Amitava Kumar, ¨The Currency of Arundhati Roy¨ presents three broad assertions by Roy which
make her different from the other postcolonial Indian writers in English. Firstly, the general
bunch of writers present India and Indians as exotic stuff for the readers in the West.Roy is
different in this instance. Secondly, these writers though trained or educated in convent schools
or the like hate ¨ the poor and the weak around¨(29) them. Roy does not seem to have the same
problem. Thirdly, these writers are ¨rank individualists¨ not interested in talking, imagining or
writing for the populace or the collective, ensconced in their shells. On this third point the
essayist takes to task Roy too, for her declaration after India exploded the nuclear bomb under
the BJP government: ¨...I hereby declare myself an independent mobile republic¨.(29) . The most
telling comment that Amitava Kumar makes is the following eulogy on Roy which places her
above the category of postcolonial Indian writers in English: ¨[Roy] perhaps the most important
writer in India familiar to the West since Rabindranath Tagore¨.(31) and gives her the position of
an exceptional postcolonial writer.

The essay presents Arundhati Roy as an exceptional writer, but does not go deep into her text,
thus leaving the question of the nature of the subalternity of the characters and the causes
behind it like caste, class and gender untouched.===

Devon Campbell-Hall’s essay in Murari Prasad’s anthology Arundhati Roy Critical Perspectives
(2006) ¨Dangerous Artisans : Anarchic Labour in Michael Ondaatjeś The English Patient and
Anil’s Ghost and Arundhati RoyśThe God of SmallThings¨ basically deals with the figure of
Velutha . Velutha in the words of the author of this essay has ¨peerless manual skills, a tendency
towards silence, and a stubborn insistence on maintaining personal integrity even amidst
domestic violence and war¨(Campbell-Hall 45 ). Another epithet that Campbell-Hall uses for
Velutha is ¨Christlike”(Campbell-Hall 45), which makes him not only a sacrificial figure but also a
salvific one. Velutha’s skills make him an agent, an autonomous or independent agent for
change or movement within the novel, i.e. a deux ex machina, a disruptive catalyst and an
anarchic agent(Campbell-Hall 47) . As a carpenter with a German sensibility, who could have
been an engineer Velutha inhabits ¨a Third Space¨, conceptualized by Bhabha(Campbell-Hall 48)
and a hybrid figure whose potentially anarchic nature makes him a threat for figures of power
and authority in the novel. Velutha’s education also makes him a complex figure. In terms of
negotiating his class and caste-identity, the hybrid Velutha also challenges postmodernist
globalization and uniformitarian agendas. The amalgamation of contradictory characteristics like
passivity and rebelliousness, masculinity and childishness make Velutha , a truly paradoxical
figure and a true thorn in the back of the powerful and the dominant. This essay is also written
from the politically engaged postcolonial point of view, like the one before.

The essay by focusing on the figure of Velutha , brings into focus the two causes for his
subalternity-caste and class. The author, however, does not probe their interconnection.
Madhu Benoit’s “Circular Time: A Study of Narrative Techniques in Arundhati Roy’s The God of
Small Things”, in MurariPrasad’s anthology Arundhati Roy Critical Perspectives(2006) is a study
of style. The novel is written to among other things, to deconstruct linear time and through a
shifting temporal strategy presents the story of The God of Small Things as if it is expressed as a
patchwork of different events, dialogues, snapshots of almost cinematographic images etc. The
adoption of circular time by Roy is connected with her political commitment and her critique of
capitalism and its privileging of grand narratives and linear narratives masquerading as objective
truth. By presenting the story from different points in time and from different perspectives,
including that of children, Roy, according to Madhu Benoit privileges the small things or the
subalterns and the conflict between the powerful and the powerless. Benoit’s words regarding
Roy towards the end of the essay clarifies one of the dimensions of Roy’s novel, i.e. its dialogic
and we might say democratic nature and brings us back to the centrality of the small things or
the powerless to Roy’swork and even to her world:”Her deconstructionist tactics force the
reader to fit the kaleidoscopic pieces together into some sort of coherent ¨whole¨, and this act
of imagination blurs the dividing line between author and reader (85).¨

While, it true that by using circular time as a technique in the novel, Roy does critique
capitalism, Benoit does not say anything about the material causes behind subalternity of the
characters in The God of Small Things, like caste, class or gender leaving the essay incomplete in
a way.

Murari Prasad in the essay titled, “Articulating the Marginal: Arundhati Roy”(2006) discusses
Roy’s giving voice to the marginalized in Keralan society based on gender, class oppression ,
cultural difference or differential experiences of power-lessness and the way of salvation for
these marginalized. The novel deals with the fate of the small things and the “God” of the title of
her novel is not the God of Big Things but of the suppressed and Velutha, the untouchable
carpenter can be considered to be this “God”, according to Prasad: “In a recent essay on the
novel M.K.Naik notes: “It is Velutha who gives the novel its title: ‘The God of Small Things’: it is
he who is that kind of a ‘god’”(Naik 2003:66).”(164). Thus, the liaison between Velutha and
Ammu can be considered symbolically to represent the way out for all kinds of marginalized and
Prasad writes: “Tirthankar Chanda rightly observes: “[B]y ending her novel with the word
“Tomorrow”, the author seems to suggest that tragedy is provisional and complicity between
the subalterns-women and untouchables-holds the key to the future (Chanda 1997: 41)”(168).

The above essay written from the postcolonial and feminist point of views , with an anti-
globalization agenda, is right in talking of the two kinds of subalterns, the women and the
workers. However, the essay fails to understand the dependence of patriarchy on the class
system as well as the complicity of the caste system in the class system.

Alex Tickell’s essay in Murari Prasad’s anthology Arundhati Roy Critical Perspectives(2006), titled
“The God of Small Things: Arundhati Roy’s Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism” deals with
globalization and the complicity of the general run of postcolonial critics and writers in neo-
colonialism masquerading as globalization. Roy’s challenge is in presenting her work to the
English speaking world without selling it or herself. In dealing with hybrid characters, elements
of western culture etc. Roy does not privilege them. Instead of privileging hybridity as an exotic
category ready to be marketed for western consumption, she uses hybridity to question ideas of
purity, essentialism and exclusionary stratifications based on caste, class, gender, profession,
culture etc. Using a broad Marxist inspired framework, Tickell critiques the general run of
postcolonial representations of cosmopolitanism and presents Roy as an exceptional figure in
this context.

While praising Roy, Tickell does not focus upon the principal event in the novel-the conflict
between the dominant and the subalterns. The causes behind the subalternity of the characters
also lie unexplored in it. So, the role of caste or class or gender in defining subalternity also
remains uninvestigated.

Anna Froula’s essay in Murari Prasad’s anthology (2006) titled “In-Between and
Elsewhere liminality in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things” written from a
postcolonial perspective deals with the question of liminality or traces of the colonial
heritage and hybridity. The essay shows how the oppressive structures and the powerful
characters in the novel essentialize and valorize the idea of purity and punish different
independent-minded characters for their acts of crossing-over, transgression or
threatening the power-structures. To quote Anna: “According to the perspective of
Chacko, Inspector Mathew, and Baby Kochamma , Ammu’s unconventional movements
across these unforgiving boundaries corrupt her “two-egg twins” and draw them into
her placelessness, where the systemic Love Laws punish them for the very threat they
pose to the social order.”(39). The Rahel-Estha duo are also considered threats because
of their being half-Hindu hybrids as well as for acting as a unit despite their dual spatial
positions and the occasional distance, temporal, spatial and at times ideational between
them. Like Ammu, they inhabit the “contact zone” or borderlines. To quote Anna again:
“As hybrids , Rahel’s and Estha’s colonized bodies also “inhabit borderlines” (Gairola
par.8) by abandoning yet underscoring the traditions of India that incorporate the caste
system and relegate them to the margins of their home and society”(42). The way
borders act is an interesting thing to study. Anna quotes Douglas indirectly to make
clear the point about sex, borders and transgression: “As Douglas observes, natural
borders are especially powerful because they create order by separating worlds, states,
and the sacred from the profane. Sexual intercourse that results in both the
intermingling of natural bodily fluids and the hybridization of children and caste carries
the strongest threat”(42). Estha is “polluted” by the LemondrinkOrangedrink man but it
is his original “polluted” nature the society of Ayemenem takes into account. Rahel and
Estha as complementary body-souls are marginalized in the society because of their
hybridity, their mother’s transgressive sexual act as well as because of their carrying
both Syrian Christian and Bengali Hindu blood in their veins. The violence against
Velutha , “cleanses the ruling establishment of Ayemenem , [but]Estha remains in a land
of oblivion that is constantly remembered…The clean and proper becomes filthy , the
sought-after turns into the banished , fascination into shame”(Kristeva 8). Uttering the
one word that exiled him into silence leads Estha through his interstitial pathways into
silent abjection. Velutha’s corpse, “the most sickening of wastes, is a border that has
encroached upon everything”(3), and has indeed violated Estha’s entire world. Not all
pollution can be cleansed in the reassertion of social order; thus, Estha’s childhood
wounds fester despite his ritualistic scrubbing at the interminable shame, cultural filth,
and pollution in his clothes.”(45). The novel shows Rahel and Estha finally taking refuge
in each other in order to protect themselves from the alien and alienating world. But
they cannot but be healed only partially. In the concluding words of Anna Frouly,:“ Rahel
and Estha , otherwise and elsewhere , fit in the periphery of this new society[ brought
into existence after the death of Velutha and Ammu] , still entrenched within
boundaries that designate only where they do not belong”(45).In this manner, this essay
also places the powerless and the powerful centrally in the schema of the novel.
The essay written from the postcolonial point of view does not look at the structure of
the society which oppresses Ammu and the twins. This is not unexpected as post
colonialism is basically interested in culture rather than economics and the individual in
place of the collectivities which make up society. Thus, here the question of subalternity
is a cultural question rather than a question of caste, class or gender.
Aijaz Ahmad’s essay in Murari Prasad’s anthology titled ¨Reading Arundhati Roy
Politically¨(2006) deals basically with the treatment of Communism and Communists in Roy’s
novel, especially the veteran leader of Kerala, Comrade E.M.S.Namboodiripad. According to
Aijaz Ahmad the ¨ ...intermeshing of caste and sexuality is indeed the ideological centre of the
book, and it is precisely the transgressive claim in this domain that will account for much of the
popularity of the book¨(35) Ahmad takes Roy to task principally for presenting the private erotic
act between Velutha and Ammu as having the significance of a rebellion. In short, Ahmad
accuses Roy of abandoning the real battlefield of class and focusing upon the popular topics like
caste oppression and sexual transgression. However, as a theorist who has tried to re-orient
postcolonial studies Ahmad acknowledges the excellence of Roy as a novelist, but thinks that
she has overshot the matter.

Ahmad thinks that Roy has not given due importance to the question of class but rather has
valorized eroticism and presented the erotic acts of Velutha and Ammu as of paramount
importance in the novel. In this way she has privileged the individual self above the class and
community and has thus played into the hands of the bourgeoisie. Ahmad also implies that Roy
in creating a cocktail out of a transgressive sexual act and inter-caste liaison, skirted more
substantial issues like class disparity and exploitation which really drives characters like
Comrade Pillai and Chacko.:¨About caste she writes with devastating precision; about class she
seems not to be particularly concerned with those aspects which are not tied to caste” (43).

Aijaz Ahmad’s essay is a kind of biting indictment of Roy from the Marxist point of view. We find
Ahmad’s focus on class as centrally important to be incisive , but find his treatment of gender
and especially caste to be inadequate because of his ideological slant.

One of the several conundrums regarding The God of Small Things is the putative anti-
communism of Arundhati Roy.Pranav Jani’s essay titled “Beyond “Anticommunism” The
Progressive Politics of TheGod of Small Things”(2006) tackles this conundrum frontally
and clearly, from a Marxist perspective and contradistinguishes Roy from “the
disengaged post-colonial writer.”(47). Jani defines The God of Small Thingsas a novel,
thus: “The God of SmallThings, simply put , is an antiauthoritarian , anti-patriarchal
novel, construing a narrative of subaltern struggle and survival in postcolonial
India”(48). However, because of the eclectic nature of the novelist’s ideas people tends
to see the novel and the novelist differently and not as a leftist indebted to Marx and
Marxian ideas and elaborations of Marx, like that done by the writers in the Subaltern
Studies Collective(1982-). The novel is called an instance of “literature from below” like
that of “history from below” of the Subaltern Studies Collective “which exposes and
conducts an all-out struggle against oppression, whether in terms of caste, class, gender,
religion, or nation”(50). Roy escaping the trap of postmodernism, stops short of
deconstructing all narratives in the name of incredulity towards meta-narratives and
remains a leftist in the neo-Marxian sense, for whom oppression is a reality.

Even though we may agree with Jani in absolving Roy of the opprobrium of being a rabid
anti-communist, we cannot really agree that she is a neo-Marxist. Thus, she is so much
indebted to postmodernism that she cannot see beyond caste in understanding the
predicament of Velutha.

Brinda Bose’s”In Desire and in Death:Eroticism as Politics in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things¨(2006) brings the focus back, apparently to the individual and the act of erotic fulfillment
by Velutha and Ammu . Her essay tries to deal with the question of, whether, the sexual union
of Ammu and Velutha is an act transgressive of sexual taboos or whether this act is symbolic and
representative of a wider rebellion against unjust societal laws and norms of contemporary
Indian society based on caste, class and gender discrimination. Brinda reaches the conclusion,
contrary to the views expressed by AijazAhmad that the act is at the vortex of a tumultuous
social undercurrent present in the Keralan society depicted by Roy. To quote Brinda’s words:

She talks of Kerala as a place where biology has been subdued, where, despite their obvious
physical beauty, men and women cannot cross the barriers of caste and class in desiring one
another. Roy’s novel focuses on the lines that one cannot, or should not, cross- and those are the
very lines that do gets crossed, if only once in a while-and that makes for the politics of those
extraordinary stories(89).

At another point talking of Ammu, she writes :

 It is not only sexual gratification that she seeks; she seeks also to touch the Untouchable. There is
then no reason why Roy’s personalized/individualized interrogation of the
caste/class/gender/sexuality nexus should necessarily be seen as soft politics, while an
intervention of communist ideology into the same nexus should raise its status, in some kind of
arbitrary measurement of radicality(91).

She thus pits herself against the position of Aijaz Ahmad and other brands of Marxist
appreciations of the novel and Roy herself. Brinda’s essay in that sense also points out the
centrality of the powerless or the comparatively powerless subalterns in the novel, but from the
psychoanalytic point of view.

Like other psychoanalytic takes on the novel the above essay does not focus on the nature or
causes of subalternity like caste, class or gender.

Jakub Michalek in his review article on The God of Small Things, titled ¨Arundhati Roy: The God
of Small Things¨(2006) categorizes the society depicted in the novel as one where ¨...no God
exists , only Church...¨(5). In this society, where, consequently, there is no meaning and the
small things denote ¨a normal life¨(1) , the Big Things denote the government. In this sense, the
novel deals with the unequal power struggle between the small things and the center of power,
symbolized by the government. While, the author claims that the novel as not specifically
concerned with criticizing ¨Hindu society¨(3), as the England , Chacko discovers is also ruled by
unequal Laws, we do find the author of the essay acknowledging the centrality of the question
of power and the struggle of the subalterns , by implication.

The nature and cause of subalternity is not touched upon in the above review article as the
author thought them not to be within the purview of the article. Thus, the role of caste, class
and gender is not touched upon in the article.
Ng Shing Yi in her essay titled ¨Peripheral Beings and Loss in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things¨(2003) deals with postcolonial marginality of characters like Ammu and Velutha and how
in the neo-colonized world the subalterns are marginalized and pushed to the edge of society, to
be killed, exiled or ostracized. To quote the essayist:

¨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.¨(1)

The powerful characters or their agents in their brutality, insensitivity and opposition to
emancipatory tendencies ¨ exhibit their own indebtedness to colonial prejudices:

VellyaPaapen told Mammachi what he had seen. He asked God’s forgiveness for having
spawned a monster. He offered to kill his son with his own bare hands. To destroy what
he had created..[Baby Kochamma] said (among other things) -´ How could she stand the
smell ? Haven´t you noticed they have a particular smell, these Paravans?¨

And she shuddered theatrically, like a child being force-fed spinach. She preferred an
Irish-Jesuit smell to a particular Paravan smell.¨ (2)

In contrast to the machinations of the powerful characters , who have their own God, small
things also have a God of their own, reminiscent, perhaps of the autochthonous pre-Aryan gods,
who inheres in small things:¨There is a God in small things, the novel insists, embodied in the
marginal Black Man of Velutha, in the hidden narratives of women, children and
untouchables...¨(3), i.e. the subalterns beings, suppressed/oppressed by class, caste and gender
wise powerful characters and they, themselves suffering from repressive insularities.Ng Shing Yi
investigates the novel and reaches the conclusion that rather than the Big Things, it is the small
things, who create history:

Despite appearances of being concerned with details of triviality, The God of

SmallThings proves consequentially that the small things lurking in the human heart are
what, in their simplicity and unshakability, give rise to the complicated cataclysms or
terrible inertia that constitute history and society.(4)

The above essay while focusing on the small things or the subalterns does not probe the
question of the nature of subalternity or the causes behind it like caste, class or gender.
Janet Thormann’s article titled ¨ The Ethical Subject of The God of Small Things¨(2003),
published in the Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society focuses on the breaking of
the incest taboo and other Love Laws as a measure of the valorization of the rebellion of the
subalterns in it:

But since the Love Law at the origin of any law at all is the incest prohibition, the
violation of the incest prohibition in the narrative stands as a measure of the novel’s
radical interrogation of the foundations of social exchange.(300).

The conflict between the powerful and the subalterns in the novel thus is emblematized by the
union between Rahel and Estha and the very basis of human society is interrogated through this.
The author writes of incest:

Incest is the violation of the basis of social exchange, of generational succession in time,
and hence of history, but here it is represented to be fidelity to a betrayed desire. The
incest of the novel is then a radical challenge to Law, because it challenges the very
possibility of social being (304).

She, thus intimates at the normalization of incest by the novelist as an act of rebelliousness on
behalf of the subalterns from the psychoanalytical point of view. The essay does not , however,
deal with the major causes of subalternity or their comparative role in causing subalternity like
caste, class or gender, but in focusing upon incest shies away from the Velutha-Ammu affair as
the more important transgressive act, socially.
Sandra Reina Goulart Almeida in her essay titled ¨UNTOUCHABLE BODIES:ARUNDHATI ROYŚ
CORPOREAL TRANSGRESSIONS” (2002) deals with the transgression of caste, racial and gender
boundaries by different characters in The God of Small Things and how it is connected with the
postcolonial milieu. She explains the thing quite clearly in the following quote: In fact, Roy
herself states in one of her interviews that her work is not about history, but rather about
biology and transgression(¨For me¨ 46).

She says that Roy’s text foregrounds two major corporeal transgressions that lie, on the one
hand, at the core of the cultural contract and, on the other, at a specific prohibition that
involves the social relations of Hindu customs and Indian society. Significantly, Roy’s narrative
unfolds ¨ a time when the unthinkable became thinkable and the impossible really happened¨
(31)(261).

Roy focuses on biology, rather than on gender in dealing with women characters and thus, she
encompasses questions, both of gender and sexuality as well as sexual preferences in her study
of caste-based discrimination in postcolonial India. Untouchability in this context becomes
connected with other kinds of exclusionary frames and the body becomes the site of multiple
types of conflict over and above it. Roy connects this with the concept of the body politic in
post-independence India and how the postcolonial condition does not make any differences for
ancient prejudices enshrined in communal memory as sacred ¨Love Laws¨. Sandra clarifies the
specificities of Ammu’saction , thus:

Seen in this light ,Ammu commits the ultimate transgression in cultural terms by daring to touch
an Untouchable. Viewed in gendered terms, the situation has stronger resonance because in
Indian society it is considered a more serious offence for an upper caste woman to be polluted by
interacting sexually with an Untouchable than it would be for a man. After all, as LeelaDube
reminds us, according to customs, ¨[s]uperior seed can fall on an inferior field but an inferior
seed cannot fall on a superior field¨(qtd. In Khushu-Lahiri 116)(264)

Ammu challenges the casteist and sexist values of Indian society, frontally and that is why she is
made the victim by even her own family members. Roy’s depiction of the subalterns in this
context has been vehemently criticized by the Marxist critic Aijaz Ahmad as a valorization of the
transgressive sexual act as an alternative to radical resistance and rebellion against the power-
holders in society. Sandra, in her intervention in this debate comments: To some extent,
Ahmad’ś criticism of Roy’ś use of the erotic may be perceived as a male biased view of the erotic
as a sign of female inferiority and unacceptable social behaviour.(270)

In this context, subalterns or the powerless in The God of Small Things, including Ammu and the
twins who break the incest taboo, which according to Levi-Strauss has ¨ a regulatory status in
that it is a cultural intervention in a natural system devised to ensure the social organization of a
group¨(268), mark the story with their resilient resistance and rebellion.

The above essay while focusing on the struggle of the subalterns leaves the important question
of the nature and causes of subalternity, like caste, class and gender unexplored.

Pramod K. Nayar’s ¨Cryptosecrets-Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things”(2001) as

anthologized in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology (2001)deals with the secrets of burrowed
places-cryptosecrets. As Nayar points out, ¨Every character in Things is drawn into the
conflagarationsymbolised as secret-crypt-death. Estha and Rahel are especially doomed to recall
a ¨terror¨, ¨buried in a shallow grave¨, in the History House(306). Their selves, desires, pasts are
buried beneath names and dramatization . The places inhabited by the characters become
“crypt-like¨(79). The novel presents a land, death-like in its different features and Nayar in
pointing this out contributes to a better understanding of its characters and theme.

The above essay though it talks of the death like landscape does not question why the land had
been made death-like. The descriptive nature of the essay is typical of some other essays where
the real life and death questions like subalternity and its cause or causes like caste, class or
gender are not tackled.

NandiniNayar’s ¨Twin(Un)Certainties-Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things¨(2001) as

anthologized in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001) deals with two worlds-the world of
geographical-topographical localities and the imaginary world of Estha and Rahel, the two
children. The inhabitants of both the worlds live a life of uncertainty regarding which world is
real. This uncertainty according to Nayar makes the lives of Estha and Rahel so tragic. The essay
deals with the novel analyzing its themes and characters and presents a contradiction in the
narrative, based on a postmodernist perspective. The above essay while focusing on two
subalterns, the twins do not connect their miseries with their perspectives and does not explain
the causes like caste, class or gender, which make them suffer along with the other subalterns.

Twinkle B.Manavar’s essay titled , ¨Velutha: The Downtrodden in Arundhati Roy’s The God of
Small Things¨(2001)in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001) is written loosely from the
subaltern studies point of view. Velutha is considered the prototypical downtrodden
representing the dalit community and the miserable state of the untouchables is vividly but
artistically portrayed in the novel. There is not only an analysis of the predicament of the dalits
but also a critique of the apparently Gandhian stance of non-violence that Velutha takes. This is
a bit problematic, because Velutha has been alternatively associated with the violent Naxalites,
by the author herself. However, it is true that Velutha on his own does not take part in any
violent action but is acted upon.

The above essay like other essays written from the postcolonial perspective skirts issues like the
causes of injustice or subalternity, like caste, class or gender and focusses upon peripheral issues
and takes an ambivalent stance.

NeelamTikkha’s essay ¨ Lo!Cus Stand I! We are not the sinners but the sinned against...¨(2001)
in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001) compares and contrasts the fates of a sister Ammu
with her brother , Chacko and underlines the patriarchal prejudices in Keralan society in a
detailed manner. The role of the powerful characters like Comrade Pillai, Baby Kochamma,
Inspector Mathews all are in tune with the entrenched patriarchy and the feudal-capitalist
structures. In the story males and females have different roles and are valued according to their
gender, but it is not impossible for a female character like Baby Kochamma to utilize patriarchal
structures and values and achieve power. In short the essay shows how in an iniquitous society
the oppressed are presented in front of everyone as the sinned and they do not have a locus
standi from where they can defend themselves. The essay can generally be categorized as
written from the feminist point of view.
The above essay as some other essays written from the feminist point of view focusses on
upholding a sectional angle towards the question of subalternity.Thus, class or caste is not given
the importance it deserves in this essay .

C.Gopinath Pillai’s ¨Aesthetics of Post-Colonial Feminism: A Reading of The God of Small

Things¨(2001) as anthologized in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001)situates Roy’s work
as representing the post-colonial feminist perspective. Using the ideas of Gayatri Chakravarty
Spivak , the critic, rather than drawing a broad line between the genders in the manner of First
World feminism, Roy takes into account the intricacies of local conditions and the reality of
white imperialism.She presents third world women like Ammu as doubly
colonized/marginalized, firstly by the colonial/neo-colonial western women who presume they
know the condition of non-western women and secondly by brown men. The two central
characters, Velutha and Ammu deconstruct the structures of Neo-colonialism and patriarchy
from their own positions:

¨The subaltern speaks through him and resists the iniquitous process of minoritization.
By positioning him in a social context full of revolutionary potential Roy seems to equate
desubalternization with a kind of cultural syncretism. Amu seeks to unsettle the
formidable structures of an irrelevant socio-cultural order by interrogating the
traditional grammar of love. Through their iconoclastic ways Ammu and Velutha
construct an aesthetics of destruction¨(90).

The essay by Pillai can thus be considered as an attempt at understanding The God Small Things
from the postcolonial feminist perspective which misses the bigger questions of caste and class
and ignores the question of how the downtrodden are subalternized by these.
DushyantB.Nimavat’s essay in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001), ¨The Theme of
Suffering and Exploitation in Arundhati Roy’sThe God of Small Things and Toni Morrison’s novels
¨(2001) and is written from a kind of postcolonial feminist point of view. The focus on ¨Suffering
and Exploitation¨ also qualifies the essay to be considered written from a kind of subaltern point
of view. The most significant statement in the essay is the following about Roy:

The God of Small Things is a novel written by a woman and the characters of women are
the focal point of the novel. Arundhati does not pretend to be feminist but we certainly
find some feminine[sic] aspects in the novel.(142)

This essay indicates the possibility that Roy is concerned about the broader category of the
subaltern along with that of women in the novel.

The above essay is partially useful in dealing with the subalterns and learning about them but is
not exhaustively analytical about caste, class or gender.

The third essay of Dodiya and Chakravorty(2001) titled ¨Arundhati Roy Hits the Socio-Political
Ball¨(2001) is an instance of political reading by an informed leftist critic called M.Dasan who
situates the novel in its proper socio-political context. An ironic example from the essay is after
describing the Kathakali male dancers masquerading as females will make the point.The author
adds humorously that even ¨the Kathakali men took off their make up and went home to beat
their wives¨. The description becomes ironic when she writes evenKunti, the soft one with
breasts did the same¨(236)¨(34).¨

Written from the feminist point of view , the above essay is leftist in its angle. It does not,
however, deal with the issue of the subalterns or caste, class or gender as causes of subalternity
in an engaged manner.
The extract from Surendran’s ¨The God of Small Things-A Saga of Lost Dreams as anthologized in
Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001) is basically a thematic study dealing with the
disappointments of the different characters including that of Baby Kochamma and is basically a
thematic study written from the modernist, liberal humanist point of view.

The above essay does not focus upon on substantial issues like the cause of the subalternity of
the characters.

K.K.John’s essay titled ¨A Band of Masqueraders: A Study of Some Characters in Arundhati Roy’s
Novel, The God of Small Things¨(2001) in Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001)deals with
some chameleon like figures in the novel like Comrade Pillai, Chacko etc. Interestingly, John
includes Velutha among the figures which put on a mask in the novel, despite the fact that he
does this in trying to avoid being recognized as a subversive character. The essay seems to be a
simple thematic study of the novel written from a kind of liberal humanist modernist point of
view and in this sense is unusual.
The above essay is like the other essays does not touch upon the question of the causes behind
subalternity like caste, class or gender.

Joya Chakravarty and IndravadanPurohit’s essay ¨Issues in the God of Small Things ¨(20010 in
Dodiya and Chakravorty’s anthology(2001)takes up some of the issues that Roy raises in the
novel, like caste and class disparity, social marginalization, exploitation of the subalterns etc.
The essay can be considered a kind of a thematic survey, though short, written from the liberal
humanist point of view and provides a useful list of the issues, without going very deep into any
of them.

The above essay does not investigate the causes behind subalternity of the downtrodden, like
caste/class/gender in the novel.

Most standard length research articles which were published in refereed journals or reputed
websites of universities dealt with Roy as a postcolonial Indian writer in the line of Narayan,
Naipaul and more precisely Rushdie. Frederick Luis Aldama in his article titled “Arundhati Roy’s
The God of Small Things: ‘Real’ Possibilities in Postcolonial Literature”(1999) deals with how
Roy’s novel had made an exceptional breakthrough in the domain of postcolonial literature and
Roy, was saying significant things in her non-fictional prose like that in India people needed
¨more modernity, not less[...]more democracy, not less¨(War Talk 12)

The above essay by focusing on the postcolonial , rather than on the causes of subalternity,
follows the beaten path and avoids the causes of subalternity like caste/class/gender.

Anil Kinger’s essay titled, ¨Feast from the East: Arundhati Roy’sThe God of SmallThings”(1999)is
written from the general postcolonial point of view which celebrates writers from the previously
colonized areas of the world writing in English. He focuses on the command of these writers
over the English language and celebrates the emergence of any writer as a great event.
However, there is a part of the essay which touches upon an issue, which with hindsight has
become important now a days: the Naxalite issue. Kinger’s words are significant:
 In fact, Roy herself has agreed in an interview that there is ¨cold¨ , ¨deep-set¨, and
¨unforgiving ¨ anger in her book against Naxalites and their arbitrary rationale for their
deeds. She says: ¨...the Naxal sensibility is based on a cold deep-set anger against the
brutality of human society and seeks to correct it with more brutality¨(132).

This take on the Naxalites makes the essay an anti-Marxist one in the view of many. However,
there is a difference between the text and the author which many a critic tend to ignore. The
essay in pandering to the general prejudice against Naxalites, ignores the larger questions of
subalternity and the causes behind it like caste, class or gender.

Ramlal Agarwal’s book review (1998) which was published in World Literature Today
summarizes the novel and points to the avoidance of sentimentality and romanticizing
altogether “as one of the keys for its appeal”. The ¨seriousness¨ pointed at makes it a novel
different from the postmodernist novels which deal with reality in a playful manner and are thus
unconnected with any kind of serious commitment and activism as we find in the case of Roy,
who according to this study seems to be more a modernist than a postmodernist.

The review also does not fail to point out that the conflict between the subalterns and the
powerful are at the centre of the novel. However, it does not probe into the causes of
subalternity like caste, class or gender.

Amita Sharma’sbook review titled, ¨Truths of Memory and Transgression :God of Small
Things¨(1998)focuses on the conflict between networks of relationships, legitimate and
illegitimate and how the powerful have the upper hand in terms of coercive power , but how the
powerless give the meaning to the novel’s story :¨These legitimized and institutionalized
relationships that destroy individuals contrast with the non-legitimate individual acts that forge
their own meaning in a private world. The former must destroy the latter, but meaning inheres
in the latter.(168)¨, implying that the subalterns are the real focus of the novel.

The above essay locates subalterns at the centre of the novel, but does not probe the causes of
subalternity like caste, class or gender. .
LatikaMangrulkar’sbook review (1997) focuses on the innovative use of language but cannot
escape from recognizing the anger of the suppressed subalterns against the power-holders in
the novel:

The nuances are uniquely Keralite, and under the flowing prose there is almost a
seething anger, reminding the reader of the serious themes that underlie a beguiling
narrative : the destructive effects of patriarchy, the integral corruption of the political
system , and the emptiness of values of a seriously flawed social structure(259).

It indicates a volcano of resentment and rebellion, about to erupt any moment.

LatikaMangrulkar in her review of Arundhati RoyśThe God of Small Things focuses mainly on the
effect of the lyrical prose of the novel which was like a fresh monsoon breeze(254) but
acknowledges a deeply entrenched social conscience in the author that presents a reality which
speaks to “ gender consciousness , class biases , and politically controlled sensibilities¨ (259).
Thus, the seriousness of the author about these issues connected with the downtrodden are
recognizable by Latika even though she is enchanted by the lyrical prose. However, in general
the novel is appreciated as a kind of a postcolonial novel.

The interest, even though not exhaustive, in the subalterns make this review useful in an
appreciation of the reception of the novel The God of Small Things by critics, but it does not
probe even cursorily at one of the major causes of subalternity like caste.

The review of some of the prominent discussions on The God of Small Things shows occasional
focus on subalterns, subalternity and the causes of subalternity, like caste, class or gender.
Some of the discussions focus on the artistic excellences of Roy. Some of them look at the novel
from different theoretical angles. Some of the discussions are quite complex, theoretically.
There are certain issues which have engaged some critics, like Roy’s putative “anti-communism”.
Among all these discussions the question of the causes of subalternity of characters has engaged
a minority of the critics. Thus, the challenge of investigating the causes of subalternity of the
downtrodden characters in The God of Small Things.

References:

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