Plurality of Vision and Reality in 'The God of Small Things'

Arundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things intertwines the universal human issues of globalisation, family ties, and love with voice, vision and reality. The text begins with a quotation from John Berger:

Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one

and this theme of pluralism runs strongly throughout the novel. Although Roy employs an omniscient narrator, we experience certain events from more than one point of view, not only from various characters but also various times in a non-linear chronology. The apparent dysfunction of the family becomes understandable as Roy describes their pasts, their hopes, and their ways of thinking. The family members’ vision are so varied that they inhabit different realities. This pluralism of reality makes communication difficult and compassion impossible.
The driving force, the epicentre around which the entire plot is spun, is 'The Terror'. It is fuelled by the unveiling of a taboo intimacy between Velutha and Ammu and results in a period of chaos that alters the lives of all of the characters. While a cultural theorist could endlessly extrapolate the symbolic collision of Western and Eastern ideals in the context of a globalizing world, this essay will focus on how pluralism relates to themes of time, vision and language, how it echoes, morphs and feeds back into itself, leaving us with the most intimate encounter with contradicting realities.
Thormann suggests that the western 'global master discourse... has the power to determine forms of social exchange universally' and therefore can 'enter into the unconscious processes of subjects everywhere to construct desire' (Thormann, 299). While increasing exposure to American and European films, clothes or ideas could increase a wanting for material goods, it seems a bit far fetched that it could actually construct any other sort of desire, such as the passion between Ammu and Velutha. But perhaps the integration of Western thought in Ayemenem gives the lovers a new ability to see something that was already there, an attraction that had been obscured by tradition and guarded by 'history's fiends' (Roy, 177). Framed by a period of frenzy in honour of Western visitors, Ammu and Velutha suddenly see through a lifetime of socially constructed blindness and realize their attraction to one another. However, in this same instant they become blind to the potential repercussions of their feelings, and ultimately their actions.
The family represents a continuum of insight, from Mammachi who is literally blind, to the grandchildren who see and understand more than anyone expects. Vision is not quantified by acceptance of Western norms, but rather the ability to see individuals within a social context.
Mammachi is a traditionalist: she accepts the world as it is. As an obedient wife, she endures repeated brutal beatings from her husband assuming that showing subservience to her spouse is the ‘right’ thing to do. She cannot see a way out of domestic abuse despite her obvious physical and emotion pain. Beyond accepting societal expectations, Mammachi enforces them with her seniority. She not only believes in the caste system and ‘the Love Laws [that] lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much’(Roy, 177): she is eager to implement them. Whether it is serving a celebratory cake, ‘one piece each’ (Roy, 183), or monitoring 'desire privilege' (Thormann, 300), spitting in untouchable Velutha’s face for desiring what was not rightfully his, Mammachi is blind to human compassion because of a duty to obey ancient societal standards.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are Mammachi’s twin grandchildren, Estha and Rahel, who see the world as its individual parts rather than its class structure. They see cruelty as cruelty and love as love. Rahel is chastised for being ‘over-familiar’ (Roy, 84) with Velutha because she sees him as a kind person rather than his class distinction as an untouchable. As Estha and Rahel grow up, they begin to see the reality of the Love Laws but they can also see their futility. Perhaps sometimes they see too much: their family’s obsession with the West and unfounded fondness for their half-white cousin Sophie Mol, their mother’s pain. Estha literally sees the destruction of their beloved Velutha in the police station cell, a sight that haunts and eventually silences him for life.
Lying somewhere between her insightful children and her blind mother is Ammu. A vivid dreamer and independent thinker, she has the extraordinary and torturing capacity to see two distinct realities that cannot coexist. At first Ammu wonders who the mysterious one-armed man of her reoccurring dreams is, but suddenly she realizes ‘she knew who he was- the God of Loss, the God of Small Things. Of course she did' (Roy, 220). What initially seemed cryptic instantaneously becomes clear, not as newly learned information but a refreshed ability to see something she has already internalized.
But despite this crystallised moment of clarity, this is only one of Ammu’s realities. After the surreal dream sequence of uncertainty and passion, the bathroom scene reveals Ammu’s other vision. This one is more conventional and grounded in the past of her family and Paradise Pickles. Ammu feels as though she can predict the path of her life.

‘So if she were granted one small wish perhaps it only would have been Not to Know. … Not to Know which way her road might turn and what lay beyond the bend. And Ammu knew. Or thought she knew, which was really just as bad (because if in a dream you’ve eaten fish, it means you’ve eaten fish)’ (Roy 224).

Ammu is convinced that she will lead a dry life in Ayemenem which certainly could become a reality. Still her mind has the capacity to legitimize her fantastical dream.
Ammu echoes her extremely insightful son when he wonders that if you dream you’ve done something in a dream, ‘if it counts’ which leads us to the question of multiple realities. Just as the God of Small Things in Ammu’s dream can only do one thing at a time in her dreams, ‘if he held her, he couldn’t kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn’t see her. If he saw her, he couldn’t feel her.’ (Roy, 215), she can only see the world with one vision at a time. But if the world can be envisioned in different ways by different characters or at different times, than which reality is real?
There is a tangible reality in Ammu and Velutha’s love. They are close in age and both depicted as physically attractive. They are both headstrong and more confident than their second-class citizenship entitles them to be. Ammu sees Velutha’s ‘man’s body’ (Roy, 175) and his ability to be a good father while 'holding her daughter in his arms' (Roy, 176). After so many years of servitude and presenting small handcrafts to Ammu, Velutha sees that ‘he was not necessarily the only giver of gifts. That she had gifts to give him too.' (Roy, 176-177). Of course Ammu’s potential gifts are not concrete like his wooden boxes or toy boats, but nonetheless they still are real.
Unlike western Sophie Mol who is 'Loved from the Beginning' (Roy, 186) for no particular reason, Ammu and Velutha are outsiders, not loved in their childhoods because of bad luck rather than bad character. One trauma scholar suggests that when 'two people bonded in and around their respective catastrophic experiences’ they still must face ‘a central problem of listening, of knowing and of representing that emerges from the actual experience of the crisis’ (Caruth, 4-5). The comparatively small troubles Ammu faced as an abused child and the perpetual degrading treatment that Velutha receives brings the couple together in their shared exile; however, it is the sympathetic bond that eventually leads to the more traumatic period of The Terror.
However, the reality of Ammu and Velutha’s love is entirely dependent on a blindness to the institutions of tradition. Their love is forbidden by Indian society so in order to act upon their desires, they must turn a blind eye to the Love Laws. The arrival of westerners Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma disrupts the regular patterns of everyday life just long enough to let Velutha and Ammu discover their passion. When their eyes meet ‘centuries telescoped into one evanescent moment. History was wrong-footed, caught off guard. Sloughed off like an old snakeskin. Its marks, its scars, its wounds from old wars and the walking backward days all fell away’ (Roy, 176). In a single moment, the caste distinctions that blinded Velutha and Ammu to their physical and emotional attractions to each other disappeared. Freed from history’s conventions, Ammu and Velutha can see their powerful attraction to one another. The caste system is dissolved and ‘in its absence it left an aura, a palpable shimmering that was as plain to see as water in a river or the sun in the sky. As plain to feel as the heat on a hot day or the tug of a fish on a taught line’ (Roy, 176). This love is real.
Where the plot’s conflict lies and the Terror begins is in the fact that History and its enforcers are a legitimate reality too. The Love Laws are deeply ingrained and devoutly obeyed, that they began ‘long before Christianity arrived in a boat, (Roy, 33). After the moment when time telescoped in upon itself and passion was realised, Velutha and Ammu returned to the ‘hopeless practical world’ (Roy, 34) and their more conventional visions. 'Ammu saw that he saw. She looked away. He did too. History's fiends returned to claim them. To rewrap them in its' old, scarre`d pelt and dragged them back to where they really lived' (Roy, 177). While their love is a reality, so is the place where they really live, where the Love Laws are seen and obeyed. The return to the practical world comes from even deeper insight, when the simple fantasy of one mind meets reciprocity from another being. To see one another’s desires means that their fantasies could become a reality.
History’s tradition of torment is physically manifested in the History House. The dilapidated and haunted structure is avoided but still standing. Its locked doors deny entry to change: however the house's windows are unlocked, indicating that any violations of History’s laws can be seen and the old rules can reach out from under dusty shadows to punish offenders. Symbolically appropriate, Velutha is found and beaten sleeping just outside the History House. It is the still upheld rules of history that kill him.
It is impossible to envision a world where intimacy between touchables and untouchables and well established caste system can coexist peacefully. Just like the God of Small Things, if Ammu and Velutha observe the Love Laws, they must ignore their attraction. If they can see their love for one another, they become blind to the eventual repercussions of their actions. When the realities of taboo and passion collide, they result in ‘the Terror’. Ammu is most tortured by the conflict of her two realities, between her need to love and provide for her children and be loved intimately by Velutha. What is particularly painful is that she knows the realities cannot coexist, or thinking that she knows. Caruth suggests that trauma has a 'double telling' (Caruth, 7), from the crisis of encountering death as well as the crisis surviving the encounter.
This duality of voice or double telling is personified by the multiple faces of Roy’s narrator. As language gives voice to new visions, new visions consequently represent new realities. Conflicting plurality of vision and reality is embodied by a constantly changing voice, ‘as if the narrative continuity itself is unsettled’ (Thormann, 300).
Perhaps the real tragedy of The God of the Small Things is that Ammu and Velutha’s love affair could have endured in different circumstances, in a different time. But time is unreliable. Rahel’s toy watch with a painted face shows us that time is arbitrary and also unchanging, just like the Love Laws. When the narrative voice sympathizes with the children, words of time are difficult: ‘later’ and ‘never’ are both powerful and dangerously easy to confuse. Time is no help in judging or classifying reality. The family business Paradise Pickles’ banana mash is an unclassifiable consistency, neither jam nor jelly, and therefore not marketable for mass consumption. Rahel notices that ‘this difficulty their family had with classification ran more deeply than the jam-jelly question’ (Roy, 30-31). Ammu and Velutha are caught between the realities of the Love Laws and their emotions. Just like the banana mash, their coupledom is not classifiable so it cannot be accepted by the conventional reality of the masses.


Bibliography

Caruth, Cathy. The Wound and the Voice, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. London: Harper Perennial, 1997.

Thormann, Janet. 'The Ethical Subject of The God of Small Things', Journal for the Psychoanalytical study of Culture & Society, Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2003. Ohio State University, 2003.

picturing poets

Sometimes I like to see pictures of writers, just to get an idea of the faces behind the voices. So for your viewing, um pleasure are Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews.

The latest product

Okay, here's my most reccent essay, written for Contemporary American Poetry class which focuses on L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry. Someone once said that this era represented 'the death of the author' and the consequent 'birth of the reader'. There are some typos and it's a bit dense but let me know what you think...

3. 'Writing doesn't need to satisfy itself with pulverising relations…

In his essay 'Writing: Social Work and Political Practices' (from Paradise and Method, 19) Bruce Andrews criticizes the poetry and literature of past generations as unimaginative and ‘derivative (sublimate) of previously established connections’. The ‘pulverising relations’ he cites refers to convention-based writers whose work can only describe, summarize or record, who can only engender a one-way relationship between actions and words. What Andrews cares about is a productive reciprocity between words and ideas, that ideas can inspire words, but with equal validity words can inspire more, new and different ideas.
He states that poetry can employ ‘the word as “the dwelling place” where meaning will insist on spinning out of the closed circuit of the sign, to reach or act on the world’. Andrews and other language poets try to break the ‘closed circuit’ of elicit denotation that is historically celebrated in the literary tradition. Drawing attention to word choice and language structure (often by breaking normal patterns and usages), the poet ultimately declines authority and allows the reader to devise his or her own interpretations and connotations. It is the development of interpretation from each individual reading that makes poetry productive. The questions that can be produced by poetry are more highly esteemed than the telling of a definite answer or some absolute truth.
Both Bruce Andrews’ and Charles Bernstein’s writing is designed to awaken and empower the reading audience. They believe that conventional or ‘genteel’ writing hypnotizes the reader and craftily transmit an agenda, which may be poignant and persuasive but not actually productive. In order for writing to produce rather than retell and ‘pulverize’ old ideas, the writer must provoke the reader to think actively. Traditionally, readers ingest the polished material produced by a writer, but Andrews and Bernstein intentionally make their work difficult to understand and therefore provocative and a catalyst for open interpretation. Confrontational writing, multi-faced narrators, fragmentation, and self-awareness are all used to unsettle the reading audience.
With regards to confrontation, Bernstein's poem 'Thinking I think I think' begins by directly asking a question ‘What are aesthetic values and why do
there appear to be lesser & fewer of them?’. Bernstein forwardly asks the reader to ponder the classical notion of aesthetics. We wonder, are there really less aesthetics than before? And before when? And why are there fewer? With aesthetics on the table, Bernstein then strays far from mainstream poetic aesthetics such as rhyme and meter throughout the rest of the poem.
He is even more confrontational by putting the reader on the spot, ‘Quick: define the difference between arpeggio & Armani’, as though the audience is taking a pop quiz or on a game show. We can't help but wonder what is the difference between arpeggio and Armani? Are they somehow connected anyway? An arpeggio is the successive playing of tones in a chord which is a traditional convention in western music. Giorgio Armani is a well known Italian fashion designer whose work is usually progressive but quickly considered classic. The difference between the two could be that arpeggios are undeniably classical in nature while Armani’s designs strive to be more avant-garde. Perhaps there is no difference between Armani and arpeggios because they are both associated with some universal aesthetic pleasure. Perhaps Bernstein simply chose the two ‘a-words’ because of their alliteration or the rhyme between Giorgio and arpeggio.
Similarly, in 'O, My Arms Catch on the Nails', Andrews directly asks 'What's your state bone?'. Italicizing 'your' emphasizes the reader's role in the poem. Some readers’ reactions might be to worry or feel embarrassed that they don’t know their own state bone. I immediately think of my state bird. Which leads to more questions: Are there state bones? Who came up with state birds, state flowers and state slogans anyway? Aren’t they just another form of patriotic propaganda? And if there were state bones, what would my state's bone be? The femur? The clavicle? The funny bone? All of these questions are merely my personal example of possible reactions to these poets confrontational writing. Questioning and confrontational writing encourages the reader to think, even if only in self-defence. With every reading, a new reaction to the writing is formed.
Another method that Andrews and Bernstein use to get their readers to create new meanings is to resist the convention of continuity. These poems are without an easily identifiable plot, narrator, or setting. The voices in the poems are not those of the poets, at least not for long. I doubt that whoever says 'I want exhaust pipes directly connected to the President's mouth' in Andrews second paragraph is the same speaker in the fourth, 'I wanted an ant farm without the picnic'. This evocative plurality of perspective holds true to the earlier generation of post-modern artists.
Granted there is some constancy with regards to theme: content often centres on politics and images of mass consumerism. But beyond such motifs, the writing lacks continuity so completely that the reader must realize there is no secret message to be decoded. There is no hidden truth or linear agenda. What the poet is saying, if he is saying anything in particular, is not easy to discern. He does not hand the reader a tidy package with a clear message so the reader is left to find his or her own meaning.
Perhaps the most effective way that Bernstein and Andrews inspire connotation rather than denotation is by playing with units of language. Puns, rhyming and breakdown the rules of grammar and syntax spawn new ways to use words. A striking example of this practice is the slight alteration of a familiar expression. Andrews writes, ‘come over sometime so I can apocryphally fall on your brownies’ which is funny because we are surprised. He uses familiar colloquial language in ‘come over sometime’ but replaces some expected pleasantry with an apocryphal fall. Normally you might invite someone over for tea or dessert but falling on someone else's baked goods is a little absurd. And how can one fall apocryphally? If ‘fall’ is taken literally to mean stumble accidentally, then is this an intentional act of brownie sabotage? Is the guest’s cooking notoriously horrible?
Other manipulations of familiar phrases in Andrews poem include 'state bone' rather than state bird and 'zip coda' rather than zip code, Bernstein's include 'cube steak on rye amusing twist; rather than rye bread, 'pools rush in rather than fools, and 'the actor aborted the fable' rather than another two syllable f-word fetus. Both poems are incredibly rich with more complex word play. Along with irony and absurdity, this word play brings humour to the dense poetry. By not being overly serious when dealing with often heavy material, Bernstein and Andrews encourage their readers to think for themselves. They model that it is appropriate to play with your words.
Andrews also toys with misunderstandings and misprints, ‘No presses will stop at the news that the princes are… prisons are the spanking machine’. Of course, we chuckle at the confusion between princes and prisons because besides beginning with the same three letters, they couldn't really be any more different. Then again, with a small stretch of the imagination we might consider that prisons represent government institutions and princes represent monarchical government so maybe a prince could be a spanking machine.
By bringing up press and the printing process, Andrews show signs of self-awareness. As a writer, it is almost sacrilegious to poke fun at the mistakes made by the press. In addition to being confrontational, the title of his collection of poems, No I don’t have any paper so shut up, hints at a literary reference. Assuming that paper is needed for literary creation, the request is answered with shortness.
The title of Bernstein’s poem, ‘Thinking I think I think’ is also decidedly self aware. Though it may not be serious, when Bernstein writes ‘I’m here strictly on business, literary business’ he shows a detachment from his writing. The narrator defensively states that poetry-making is strictly for business and is not at all personal nor is it pleasurable. And so we wonder what exactly is literary business or the business of literature? Is it just a n entrepreneurial pursuit? For Bernstein and Andrews, I think their business in literature is to innovate, in this case to inspire independent thought amongst their audience. Both poets’ self consciousness of their role proves their disdain for the authority of authorship. By jesting with their positions in the literary world, they minimize their own positions and let the reader shoulder a bit of the creative responsibility. It furthers the hope to make their words a beginning for extensions rather than a narcissistic exercise.
What makes language poetry exciting is its interactive nature. The poet is not painting a picture. The poet is not preaching. The poet tinkers with words, what they have meant and what they could mean someday, and offers them back to the reader or listener for interpretation. Of course, this cannot happen successfully without an intelligent and engages audience. Andrews and Bernstein write to inspire: confrontation, humour, absurdity, discontinuity and irony all break the hypnotic spell of genteel writing with the aim to shock and inspire the audience. Seeking to make 'the words the basis of extensions', the poet steps out of the spotlight to the benefit of language. Andrews combined love of language and preoccupation with power has led him to decline the authority of the writer.
Still what exactly is produced by this sort of writing is not entirely clear. An emphasis on reading and values is apparent. Creating new meanings for units of language is one focus but how are they significant. In a 1995 interview Bernstein asks Andrews ‘Do you think poetry is a place that can change political values?’. Andrews replies ‘I think it works on the writer, and it works on the reader, probably more as a kind of reinforcement of more fragile beliefs or attitudes that were getting formed, that need more support. So I don't think it's so much a matter of mobilizing large numbers of people… But if you're trying to reinforce some attempt at change, then it is going to be modest, and it's going to take place in the actual experience of the work’. So perhaps the productive relationship between poetry and the world lies in the smallest affirmations a reader can gain through reading. These reinforcements come from knowing that the issues that concern us have concerned a writer as well.


Bibliography

Post Modern American Poetry, ed. P. Hoover. London: Norton & Co, 1994.

http://www.fencemag.com/v1n2/work/charlesbernstein.html, C. Berstein, ‘Thinking I think I think’, Fence Magazine Volume 1 Number 2, 1998.

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/andrews/interview.html,
‘How poignant that sounds, even as you read back the transcript
an interview with Bruce Andrews’, 1995.

Welcome to the essay factory!

Hello hello!

Since I've formally been a student for 16 of my 21 years of life, I thought I would share some of the things I've been working on, things like formal essays, book reviews, links to articles, you know that kinda thing.

Rather than overloading the Filiberta blog with silly academia, I thought I would post my essays here. Some of the writing you'll see might actually be interesting, things I'm proud of, and some of it will be the byproducts of the essay factory/ college student life.

So feel free to skim and let me know what you think.

Love, Phoebe