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The God of Small Things | Introduction

Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things rapidly became a world-renowned literary sensation after it was published in New Delhi in 1997. Immediately recognized as a passionate, sophisticated, and lushly descriptive work, it won Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize and launched its author to international fame. The novel tells the story of the Kochammas, a wealthy Christian family in a small village in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Based loosely from the perspective of Rahel Kochamma, who has returned to her hometown to see her twin brother, it pieces together the story of the dramatic events of Rahel’s childhood that drastically changed the lives of everyone in the family.

The God of Small Things is an ambitious work that addresses universal themes ranging from religion to biology. Roy stresses throughout the novel that great and small themes are interconnected, and that historical events and seemingly unrelated details have far-reaching consequences throughout a community and country. The novel is therefore able to comment simultaneously on universal, abstract themes, and a wide variety of ideas relating to the personal and family history of the members of the Kochamma family as well as the wider concerns of the Kerala region of India. Some of the novel’s most thoroughly developed themes are forbidden love, Indian history, and politics. It is in love and politics that Roy’s carefully constructed, multifaceted narrative tends to dwell, and it is when love, politics, and history combine that Roy is able to communicate her most profound authorial insights.

The God of Small Things Summary

Chapter 1
The God of Small Things begins with Rahel returning to her childhood home in Ayemenem India to see her twin brother, Estha, who has been sent to Ayemenem by their father. Events flash back to Rahel and Estha’s birth and the period before their mother Ammu divorced their father. Then the narrator describes the funeral of Sophie Mol, Rahel and Estha’s cousin, and the point after the funeral when Ammu went to the police station to say that a terrible mistake had been made. Two weeks after this point, Estha was returned to his father

The narrator briefly describes the twins’ adult lives before they return to Ayemenem. In the present, Baby Kochamma gloats that Estha does not speak to Rahel just as he does not speak to anyone else, and then the narrator gives an overview of Baby Kochamma’s life. Rahel looks out the window at the building that used to contain the family business, Paradise Pickles and Preserves, and flashes back to the circumstances surrounding Sophie Mol’s death.

Chapters 2–4
The second chapter describes the trip in which Rahel, Estha, Ammu, Chacko, and Baby Kochamma travel to the town of Cochin in order to pick up Margaret Kochamma and Sophie Mol from the airport. They are on the way to see The Sound of Music, but they are delayed at a train crossing by a Marxist demonstration in which Rahel sees her friend Velutha, who is a Paravan, or Untouchable Hindu, employed by the Kochamma family. When she yells to him out the window, Ammu scolds her furiously.

A flashback describes Velutha and his relations with the Kochamma family, and then one of the protesters opens Rahel’s door and makes Baby Kochamma wave a Marxist flag. Before they drive away, Chacko says that Ammu, Estha, and Rahel are “millstones around his neck.” In chapter 3, which takes place in the present day, the narrator describes the filthiness of the Ayemenem House. Estha comes home, goes upstairs, and takes off his clothes to wash them while Rahel watches.

Chapter 4 continues the story of the family trip at the point when they arrive at the movie theater. Ammu makes Estha go to the lobby because he cannot resist singing along, and the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man at the refreshments counter forces Estha to masturbate him. The family leaves early because Ammu sees that Estha will be sick, and on the way out she comments... » Complete The God of Small Things Summary