Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
Here Chacko displays the frustration of their cause. Although they are not of the lowest untouchable class, they are limited by the class organization as well; their dreams have been limited and their lives are too insignificant to cause a change in the system. Thus, Ammu’s relationship with Velutha was unacceptable in this society. The class one was born into represented one’s inherent worth and therefore it was impossible to be otherwise, despite the personal merits of an individual; one was ascribed a status at birth and no amount of achievement could grant one admission into a higher class. Ammu and Velutha’s choice to enter into a relationship of such a forbidden nature was a flicker of rebellion. Nevertheless, it soon becomes clear that this flicker too will be subject to severe punishment for there is a predictable outcome to ensue upon the offenders.
Once he was inside her, fear was derailed and biology took over. The cost of living climbed to unaffordable heightsâÂ?¦Two lives. Two children’s childhood. And a history lesson for future offenders(272).
This selection stresses the risk of the undertaking. As they make the final decision to unite, both literally and figuratively, the cost of their decision was hardly conceivable. Although they knew that eventually their desires would be forced into the generic conformity of maintaining acceptable class associations, they were not attempting to overthrow the tides; they understood clearly that they were not capable of affecting society in any significant way. They would, however, destroy their own lives and tragically affect that of Esta and Rahel’s. Accordingly, the history lessons for any future offenders was focused on the concept that one could not individually go against the power of a socially traditional current and expect to out swim it without drowning.
Moreover, this symbolic and literal analogy of the current appears clearly in the text as Velutha, after being turned away by Comrade Pillai, realizes that he has no solid ground to stand upon to fight this battle out. [This was] the last betrayal that sent Velutha across the river, swimming against the current, in the dark and rain, well in time for his blind date with history(267).
Although he struggled against the current of social norms he was still unable to escape the inevitable consequences of these actions in a coldly unyielding society. Once again Roy accentuates the inevitability of history as she describes that in fighting against his destiny, Velutha is in fact running blindly into it. This theme is reminiscent of Oedipus who in attempting to escape from his prophetic fate in fact fulfills it-a destiny that is unavoidable. As Velutha walked despairingly away from the encounter with Mammachi’s wrath, he began to understand that he could not fight the consequences of his actions. He kept walking. His face was neither lifted towards the rain, nor bent away from it. He neither welcomed it, nor warded it off(270).
The rain is a symbol of the adversity hovering ominously over the unfortunate God of small things at this point in the text. He is neither inviting it nor warding it off which represents the passive action of acceptance. He is accepting his impending punishment, although not fully aware at this point of its true brutality. As Velutha is wandering through this driving rain of adversity he became abruptly aware of what he needed to do, for the “âÂ?¦instruction manual(270)âÂ?¦” of history “âÂ?¦directed him(270)âÂ?¦” to his next step before his destined ‘appointment’ at the History House. He turns to Comrade Pillai who coldly indicates, “âÂ?¦Party was not constituted to support worker’s indiscipline in their private life(271).” Velutha’s problems, according to Pillai, lie beyond the scope of the communist party’s dominion and thus assures Velutha that he now has no where to go but the History House and be erased from existence-surely the unjust fate of one unfortunate enough to be born an untouchable.
Nevertheless, Roy does not place the blame of Velutha’s death on Comrade Pillai’s seeming lack of compassion, for he is said to have merely “âÂ?¦slipped his ready fingers into History’s waiting glove(267).” This essentially emphasizes that history is something that is already established by the movement of society, as indicated by the glove and just as it fits his hand, people born into this organization are predestined for specific fates; it is merely the action of putting one’s hand into the glove-fulfilling the path handed to one by society-that propels the events that will soon be known as history. But this is not to be the blame of Comrade Pillai’s choice not to assist Velutha in his personal life for Roy further established, “It was not entirely his fault that he lived in a society where a man’s death could be more profitable then his life had ever been(267).” It is the structure of society that is at fault, not any individual crime over another. This inevitability is an interesting feature of the History House in the novel. The plot centers on the final events in this locality and its title adds particular significance to its symbolic implications. Its physical and emblematic structure is vividly described as: Rotting beams supported on once-white pillars [that] had buckled at the center, leaving a yawning, gaping hole. A History-hole. A History-shaped Hole in the Universe through which, at twilight, dense clouds of silent bats billowed like factory smoke and drifted into the night(291).
The implications of a hole include the absence of something or a type of void that consumes its surroundings. Here history is described in these negative terms. It is a “âÂ?¦yawning, gaping holeâÂ?¦(291)”, one that is indifferent to what it will devour; this is the unmoved nature of History. However, the term history is not used in the usual sense of the word as relating to merely text books and records, but rather the history of all that happens; the collection of every event that occurs into its own place and time. Nevertheless, the history that is told in records is by the winners; it is by those that have oppressed others or by those members of society that benefit from a tight social order. Accordingly, although the twins witness the ruthless beating and consequent murder of Velutha they are not significant enough in the structure of society for their eyewitness to have any effect beyond that of their own individual lives. [It] was a clinical demonstration in controlled conditionsâÂ?¦of human nature’s
pursuit of ascendancy. Structure. Order. Complete monopoly. It was human history(292)…
Roy deciphers that this is human history, an account of maintaining the social order. The injustice of it breathes through every choppy word and phrase of this selection with an anger that brevity proves to portray most effectively. As Velutha represents the entire class of the untouchables his fate is most significant in these terms. What is to become of those who are limited in their life chances because of their class? Through Velutha the reader sees that they remain limited; they cannot singly overthrow the power of their suppressors since the structure is so inherent in the society in which they live. Nevertheless, as the title suggests, the untouchable class had an implied dominion over small things. These are the things that are overlooked by the higher classes in their exertions for power and thus are left to be the only source of livelihood left for a class that is doomed to be limited. However, Velutha was not only the God of small things, but also the “âÂ?¦God of loss(274).” This untouchable class is also over the ‘dominion’ of lose and sorrow as they are destined to remain a suffering assemblage; nothing they have can be held too tightly for it will inevitably be taken away. They are not even permitted to leave the remotest record of their sufferings, for Velutha leaves “âÂ?¦no ripples in the water. No footprints on the shore(274).” He dies an unknown martyr to the cause against injustice.
Clearly, Roy’s valiant attempt to portray the utter enslavement of a society with an immobile organization is as poignant as it is powerful. She utilizes the character of Velutha to symbolize the untouchable class and in so doing brings a tangible embodiment for the reader to embrace and empathize with. Her relentless struggle to bring an awareness of the weakness of human nature captures the reader with a sense of the unjust realities. It sometimes takes an intense examination of the socially maintained darkness to move one closer to the luminous flame of revolution.
Works Cited:
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. London :Harper Perennial, 1998.
