The God of Small Things is the encircling story of twins Estha and Rahel and their divorced mother, Ammu. These characters reside in the south Indian state of Kerala. The state of Kerala is well-established world wide for giving relative freedom to women. The Western reader may feel the female characters in this novel are still oppressed and restrained, but by Indian standards, they are a highly assertive and energetic bunch. Author Roy utilizes her story-telling talent to bring across their version of ways in which women have been hurt by male domination in India.
The character Ammu is a Syrian Christian; therefore, she has had no choice after her divorce except to return to her parental home. The man she had married, the father of Estha and Rahel was Hindu. The story itself centers on specific life events surrounding the visit and drowning death of the twins' half-English cousin, a girl of 9 named Sophie Mol. At the same time, Ammu begins a love affair with the family's carpenter, Velutha, who is known in India as a 'pariah' or rather a member of the Untouchable caste ("The God of Loss / The God of Small Things)." (p. 274)
The story is related to the reader from the perspective of the twins. It begins in present-day India and moves backward toward the drowning incident twenty-three years earlier - 1969. The drowning and the intertwined forbidden love affair have dire consequences: Estha stops speaking; Ammu is banished from her home, dying alone at age 31; Rahel marries an American whom she later leaves. The narrative begins and ends with Rahel's return to the family home in India.
Within the story are vivid instances of gender discrimination. For instance, Chacko who seeks to put Ammu down. The Untouchables utilize foreign religion conversion hoping to be relieved of the burdens of inequality; unfortunately, informal Muslim and Christian caste systems evolve along the lines of the old Hindu one, further copying ...