In the novel The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, the domination of women is a common theme that is manifested by each of the generations of the novel. . Roy writes about the serious social problems plaguing Indian society; she wrote The God of Small Things after the caste system in India was abolished, but describes how the caste system was banned but still ruled India. Roy was raised to see the flaws in Indian society and therefore wrote a novel with a message showing the problems that exist and go unmentioned. Through the major theme of gender identity, Roy conveys the message that all people should be equal and that no caste system or gender bias should create a society that does not revolve around fairness and opportunities, regardless of a person's caste or gender. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayJudith Butler's theory of gender as performance is extremely relevant to the characters in The God of Small Things who are forced to conform to society. The idea that gender is just a performance because society has created the illusion that to fit in one must suppress one's inner desires and conform to society's ideal image in order to survive in the world, describes the issues that make up the preference for first in a world. set of binary oppositions. Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément theorize how society perceives the importance of binary oppositions and how their ordering has become a reality. Binary oppositions favor the first of the whole, which is always the masculine, and subvert the second, the feminine. The masculine is always favored in society, but in Roy's novel, the unpopular in the opposition is favored, depicting the flaws that exist within the opposition. Indian society. Roy depicts gender inequality through his female characters which simply shows how women in Indian society have evolved over three generations. Roy clearly shows the problems that exist within Indian society by writing about a relationship between a touchable and an untouchable who both end up dying due to their violation of Indian "laws of love". For Roy, the suppression of the least and inequalities within a nation is unacceptable. Roy makes it clear that these issues need to be brought to light for progress to take place. The God of Small Things challenges patriarchy, leading to changes in conventional notions of gender and sexuality in a patriarchal society. Roy grew up in a Syrian Christian community, whose grandfather founded a school for untouchables, and his mother left their hometown in Kerala to get married. a Bengali Hindu. (Friendman 118) His mother eventually divorced the Bengali Hindu and returned to her hometown in Kerala with her children, where she later opened a co-ed school and "successfully challenged in court the ban on Christians Syrians to inherit family property through women. » (Friedman 118) Roy's upbringing in a household where women were not repressed and ultimately fought for what they believed in is evident in his feminist writings. (Friedman 118) The differences that divide a nation are deep and intertwined, Friedman writes. Boundaries of caste and class, gender, sexuality and age crisscross the home, legacies particularly of what Roy calls the "laws of love" embedded in local, regional and national Indian cultures, formed in the timeseparately and interactively with waves of religious and colonial interaction. (Friedman 118). Performances held in order to continue to be a functioning member of society are deeply rooted in the heritage of a country and a family. The God of Small Things shows how strong existing boundaries are and how difficult it is to rebel against a society that forces everyone to conform. Gender is a forced role for the God of Small Things characters, and it simply exists. as undefine social construction. The characters' true gender is fabricated, as the characters in the novel would be excluded from Indian society if they acted in a manner other than that expected of them. The women in the novel are forced to remain true to femininity in Indian society, otherwise the consequences are unacceptably harsh. Judith Butler writes that gender is a performance, and Roy describes gender as a flawless performance through its female characters, as well as the consequences that affect when the characters deviate from the ideal path laid out for them. The God of Small Things Older Generation focuses on the relationship between Mammachi and Pappachi. Mammachi was an extremely talented violinist who married Pappachi. When Mammachi's violin teacher once mentioned that Mammachi was extremely talented and had incredible potential and the possibility of becoming a famous violinist, Pappachi made Mammachi stop her lessons immediately. In this case, Pappachi was afraid that Mammachi would do more of herself than Pappachi did of himself, therefore resulting in the first instance of male dominance in Mammachi's marriage to Pappachi. Mammachi suffered years of physical abuse at the hands of Pappalchi. One day their son, Chacko, stood up to Pappachi and that day the abuse stopped. From that moment on, Mammachi adored Chacko more than anyone and he became the center of her universe. She would allow Chacko to bring women of a different class in and out through a door she had specially installed so that Chacko's sexual needs would be satisfied night after night. But the double standard continues to be evident not only in Indian society, but also in the Ipe family home, where Mammachi's daughter Ammu was treated unfairly compared to her brother Chacko, whom Mammachi idolized. The abuse Mammachi suffered from her husband. influenced her in a strange way: “At Pappachi's funeral, Mammachi cried until her contact lenses slipped in her eyes. Ammu told the twins that Mammachi cried more because she was used to him than because she loved him. (Roy 49) The static nature of Mammachi's life is evident, making it clear that she hated the idea of ​​change, even if that change was the death of her abusive husband. Mammachi plays the role of a woman who lost her loving husband during his funeral simply because she was used to her role as a submissive wife who lowered herself to accept her husband's humiliating nature towards her throughout their entire life. marriage. Mammachi was finally given the opportunity to begin a life that would not be controlled by her husband, but she could never truly escape the abuse inflicted on her mentally by Pappachi's physical beatings and the end he put to his career as a violinist. . The tears Mammachi cried at Pappachi's funeral were tears of emptiness simply because she felt connected to him by the love they were supposed to have for each other since marriage. If there is anyone who has ever looked at Mammachi and seen the reality of her life, it is Ammu, who was considered second in her mother's eyes, allowing her to have a viewoverview of his mother's complete personality. Mammachi's identity was founded through Pappachi, and there would never be enough time or support for Mammachi to feel more than a submissive wife to her power-hungry husband. Ammu could never measure up to Chacko in Mammachi's eyes because Chacko was the reason she was saved from her husband's years of abuse. Once Mammachi was no longer controlled by Pappachi, she unconsciously allowed herself to be controlled by Chacko by doing everything in her power to make him happy. Mammachi is by far the most submissive female character in the novel because she feels the need to worship a male figure in her life, whether that male figure is her husband or her son. Mammachi made sure that her life revolved around their pleasure and happiness. . Ammu ended up marrying a drunk and having twins with him, but he ended up leaving him because he was a violent drunk. Ammu's character seems to be inspired by Roy's mother. This depiction of Ammu is similar to that of Roy's mother who left her husband "in a love match" and returned to her hometown in Kerala. (Freidman 118) Unlike Mammachi, Ammu learned not to accept the abuse from a man who was her husband, but still accepted the oppression that Indian society imposed on women, simply because she did not have no control over the Indian government, but Ammu made sure to test the limits of love laws in India. Ammu spent the first years of her life playing the role of the woman her Indian culture wanted her to be, but once she showed dominance in her relationship with her abusive husband, she began to rebel against the norm of patriarchy for women. Her performance changed slightly, allowing Ammu to withdraw from Indian society in a dangerous way. Ammu spent his life on the family's Pickle Preserve, spending time with the people who worked for them in their family. One man in particular, Velutha, grew up working for the family in the pickle-canning business and, although he was from a different social caste, they treated him more like one of their own than like a member of the untouchable society: "Here, the talented and kind Velutha breaks the boundaries of untouchability by running the factory, supervising the lower caste workers angered by his uncaste authority, serving as a surrogate father to the twins. (Friedman 118) When Ammu and Velutha were older, they fell in love and defied the love laws that the Indian government had in place when they had sex to realize the love they had. 'one for the other. With Velutha belonging to the untouchable caste and Ammu belonging to the touchable caste, this was unheard of and did not end well. Velutha was betrayed by Estha and Rahel and he was beaten, almost to death by the police, and died shortly after. Velutha, belonging to a different caste in Indian society, ended up losing his life because he was inferior to a woman in Indian society, and therefore more oppressed than Ammu. Ammu's rebellion against the patriarchy leads to her own death when she is fired after sleeping with Velutha and her family name is tarnished by her actions. However, the difference between the generations here is major in the description of the evolution of binary oppositions within the novel. Mammachi endures years of abuse from Pappachi, where Ammu leaves her abusive husband drunk and raises the twins alone, and takes them. on herself to rebel against the patriarchy. However, Rahel, the twin, seizes her life when she gets the chance, but by then it is too late for her to live a lifeof simplicity because his innocence has been taken away and destroyed. Growing up, Rahel had no place in society except with her brother. Rahel and Estha were extremely close growing up, which created a bond that continued to grow over the years. Rahel grows up to be a free woman because she was not raised like previous generations. Rahel grew up alongside her upper caste brother and could move freely and do whatever she wanted. She was raised solely by her mother, which allowed her to never truly be influenced by the patriarchy, as she was raised to be her brother's equal and was not raised by a father. Ammu provided the twins with everything they needed and her different attitude from Mammachi's is evident in her children's education. Ammu also lived in a house where double standards were evident, given that it was acceptable for Chacko to bring in women from different castes. and out of the house they lived in because Mammachi wanted Chacko to be happy in every way because he saved her from Pappachi. However, the reader sees the difference between Chacko and Ammu when Ammu is punished severely for sleeping with Velutha. Rahel grows up and eventually moves away after the gruesome death of her mother and the beating death of Velutha, whom she looked up to as a father figure her entire life. She moved out and started her own life, making her the most free of all the women in the novel. Rahel is by far the freest, but Ammu died for her freedom, and she played a major role in creating the individual Rahel grew to be. However, Rahel is not completely free from her oppression, and the reader sees this in her violation of the laws of love with her brother Estha. The final scene Roy wrote, including Rahel and Estha, depicts the two having sex, in the most poetic way incest can be depicted. Estha and Rahel lost their innocence at a young age: “By then, Esthappen and Rahel had learned that the world had other ways of breaking men, they already knew the sweet-sick smell. Like old roses carried on a breeze” and the only person they could turn to for comfort was each other. (Roy 15) The foreshadowing of the novel begins in the first chapter when Roy writes that they already knew the other ways of breaking men, referring to the love between Velutha and Ammu. The twins saw how man could be destroyed with the two people they were closest to other than themselves. But, before learning Velutha and Ammu's fate, Estha learned one of the harsh realities of the world on a day that was supposed to be magical for him and Rahel. Estha lost her innocence when the man with the orange and lemon drink attacked her. and Rahel also lost her innocence that day when she learned that something terrible and indescribable had happened to her brother. If the attack wasn't enough, the twins were also present when Sophie Mol died. In the final moments where the audience sees Rahel and Estha together, the incestuous act is not seen as entirely negative because it is obvious that it is the one and only true one. moment in the twins' lives when they feel whole. They found their completion in another, but this could not have been done without breaking the laws of love. The greatest performance in the novel is between the two strange characters in the novel, Rahel and Estha. The entire novel makes the characters of the twins two characters who play the role of a man and a woman in Indian society in a more skewed sense than any of the other characters in the novel. Royportrayed in a favorable manner, making it easy to sympathize with these characters. The empathy that Roy makes the reader feel for Estha and Rahel makes it easy to find the faults of Indian society and to hope for a change that would alter the unacceptable harshness conveyed through the image of Indian society that Roy explicitly depicts. Ammu was never able to overcome oppression and her life, after finally being satisfied by her one true love, came to an end, but she paved the way for her children to take another step towards elimination of binary oppositions from society. As for Rahel and Estha, the reader does not know what happens to them after the last moments mentioned in the book, but it proves that the only way to completely overcome the trials that life imposes on them is to break the most important ones. societal laws to find happiness within themselves. The happiness they give each other also brings happiness to the other party, but it usually doesn't end well. Going against societal taboos is a major theme for Roy in his novel, but it also demonstrates the importance of the strength of relationships with others with whom friendships may exist, but relationships do not. The novel about the violation of what Roy calls the "laws of love" occurs in the theater, when Estha is attacked by the man with the orange and lemon drink. This assault results in “separating the two-egged twins into destinies of different genders.” (Freidman 121) Another instance in the novel where the “laws of love” are broken occurs this time with the two twins. The twins break the "laws of love" when they engage in incestuous relationships in the "connection of souls" figured in the anguish of touch. (Freidman 121) After a lifetime of suffering, the twins finally come together in a way that connects them on a level that defies the laws that society has put in place over time, but it is the only time in the novel where the twins feel complete. The only way the twins could feel complete was to engage in a sexual act that defied all societal norms, because their entire lives they had been beaten down by the consequences of societal norms. Friedman writes Just Alive to suffer the consequences of his transgression and watch the child he befriended disown him and the family he enriched denounce him. But not long enough to see the woman he loved standing by his side, thereby condemning himself to exile and slow death, a modern-day immolation of womanhood at the "Unsafe Edge." (Friedman 122) Velutha and Ammu met a tragic end, simply because they could no longer resist the urge to love each other, leading to the disastrous end of both their lives and symbolically ending life of Estha and Rahel who both admired. Velutha and Ammu unconditionally. After the deaths of Velutha and Ammu, the twins never again found comfort in any aspect of their lives. When Ammu, Rahel and Estha shared a moment together after Veluthra's death “Estha nodded at Ammu's face leaning towards the train window. At Rahel's, small and stained with station dirt. All three were bound by the certain and distinct certainty that they had loved a man until death. (Roy 306) Ammu was not the only one who loved Velutha. The twins looked up to Velutha and his father's figure in their lives was monumental and he shaped them into the individuals they were up to that point in their lives. His influence would linger in their lives for the rest of time, making it difficult for them to lose the love they had for the man who always had time for them. Velutha's death showed the twins the evil ways the world betrays and itsruthlessness. The twins' identities were greatly influenced by the cruel world that ultimately controls even the patriarchy. Velutha's death was one that no one imagined, but the reader needed to see it to understand the dynamics of the cruel world that was shaping and shaping the future of Ammu, Rahel, and Estha. Rahel walked away and Estha stopped talking and lost the last glimmer of innocence that belonged to her. The only time after these horrible events the twins felt comfortable in their cruel world was when they were able to have sex together. Eventually, they were able to find comfort in a world that had brought them nothing but sorrow and revealed to them what was truly wrong with human nature and society's view of love. The deaths of Ammu and Velutha crushed Rahel and Estha, making it simply impossible to truly move on from such a terrible ending for the two people they loved the most. Judith Butler strongly advocates that gender differences should be considered arbitrary and that all people should be treated equally. “If the interior truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false, but are only produced as effects of truth of a speech. of primary and stable identity. (Butler 583) For Butler, gender is simply instituted by society and a specific gender, depending on society, is too often inflicted on the sex with which it is primarily associated. For example, masculinity is automatically a masculine quality, even though some women acquire masculine traits. Women are automatically associated with feminine characteristics, and if either gender deviates from either, they are seen as people who do not follow the heterosexual norm set by society. As Butler also writes: "Acts, gestures and desire produce the effect of a core or internal substance, but produce this effect on the surface of the body, through the play of signifying absences which suggest, but never reveal the organized principle of identity as cause. Such acts, gestures, stagings, generally interpreted, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they claim to express are fabrications manufactured and supported by bodily signs and other discursive means. "(Butler 583) Gender identity should come from the actions and gestures a person chooses to perform, not based on the sex they were biologically assigned at birth. In The God of Small Things, it's easy to see that Roy thinks the dominant theme of his book is Estha's lack of identity, and Rahel writes: "In those amorphous early years when memory was just beginning, when life was full. of beginnings and ends, and where everything was eternal, Esthappen and Rahel saw themselves together as me, and separately, individually, as us or As if they were a rare breed of Siamese twins physically separated, but with common identities. Roy 29) Emphasis is placed on the importance of the fact that Rahel and Estha are dizygotic twins, that is, two separated, but they appear in some cases to be Siamese twins, joined at the hip, like two beings moving as one until their innocence is lost. Until the day of Estha's attack, Rahel and Estha were almost identically the same person. The day the loss of innocence occurred, distinct individualized identities. In Margaret Homan's essay "Women of Color", she frequently references Butler and repeatedly agrees with statements Butler made about gender identity andfeminism. Homan agrees with Butler that there should be no identity imposed on a person, but rather identity should be arbitrary. Homans points out that Butler also argues that “identity” is a category that imposes false coercion. Western feminism itself, unitary, just white, middle class, has been accused of imposing a single interpretation of the multiplicity of female lives by privileging the category "woman" to the detriment of those of race, ethnic origin, class, nationality, age, etc. The id, like some forms of white feminism, must be suppressed because of what it excludes. (Homans 679) There should not be identity found simply in being a unit. Identity must be on an individualized basis and it must be inclusive and not exclusive. The only characters in The God of Small Things who did not experience this gender labeling were Rahel and Estha because they were one and the same. The twins lived through each other and it didn't matter that one was a man and the other a woman, at the end of the day, there were no gender boundaries between the two of them. Ammu never made them feel like they had to act a certain way because of the gender automatically assigned to their biological sex. In Luce Irigaray's essay “The Blind Spot of an Old Dream,” the main question she addresses is: Why is a specific gender assigned to a specific sex? Irigaray's problems date back to Frued and his theory that even when women hold power, they do not enjoy that power and do so simply to keep nature moving. For example, Irirgaray attacks Frued's belief that breastfeeding women cannot find pleasure in nurturing another human being they have created by saying: "Any consideration of the pleasure of breastfeeding seems here excluded, misunderstood , under a silent ban. » (Irigaray 647) A woman is the vessel that creates new life and nurtures that life until it is ready to enter the world. Anyone who creates a new life plays an extremely active role, and it is the woman who gives birth to the next patriarchy. An active woman in this role is certainly not just a role that she assumes and in which she does not find pleasure. Freud argues: “The fact is that man is the procreator, that sexual production-reproduction relates to his only “Activity”, to his only “project”. The woman is nothing but the receptacle that passively receives its product, even if sometimes, through the" (Irigaray 647). However, Irigaray in no way agrees with this way of thinking. Irigaray continues stating that a gender cannot be defined by a person's activity or passivity. Creating a human needs a strong person, and the person who creates humans is the woman who raises the child. in her for nine long months it seems to be a passive role, but during this period during these nine months the woman is expected to continue her tasks as she would if she were not pregnant, while a sucking parasite. the nutrients of his body develops inside him. There is no correct measure of activity and passivity for each sex, but rather in the person himself. very active and have many masculine qualities, but a woman can also be just as active and have feminine qualities. These feminine qualities do not make a woman less active simply because she is associated. with femininity.In The God of Small Things, Ammu enjoys her role as mother of the twins even when they put her to the test. Ammu is proud of her duty as a mother because she saves her children from their abusive father and gives them a lifebetter than the one they would have had if they had continued to live with him. Ammu's active nature in her children's lives appeals to her because she holds all the power in their lives and has chosen to hold power for the sake of being able to see her children grow up. Ammu is the woman Freud claimed did not exist. Ammu was extremely active in her children's lives and this took nothing away from her feminine qualities. From a different perspective, Mammachi enjoys her role as a mother, at least being Chacko's mother because she has created a life that is the symbol of patriarchy and holds enough power to control his life and the one around him. surrounded. Mammachi was not an active female character, fitting very well into the gender role assigned to women as she let her husband do what he wanted with her and her life. For Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément, gender is a label that must be completely rejected. These two women demonstrate their rejection through a double hierarchical opposition. In their examples of binary oppositions, each set listed demonstrates how the masculine is always first in the pair and the feminine second. For example, “Activity/passivity, Sun/moon, Culture/nature, Day/night, Father/Mother, Head/Heart”. (Cixious and Clement 654) The words associated with masculinity in these pairs always come first, however, the rejection of these ideas that society has associated shows that they should be challenged and that masculinity and femininity should not be divided into distinct spheres. Roy privileges the queer figure in the novel and values ​​their differences. Straight is not privileged in Roy's eyes because it describes the differences that exist in the world and how unfair they are. Cixious and Clément do not agree with binary oppositions. Different qualities exist and there will always be an opposite to each term, but one should not be favored over the other. Roy promotes the incestuous relationship of Rahel and Estha, and she promotes the union of a touchable and an untouchable through her depiction of Ammu and Velutha. Mammachi's conformist nature gives the reader a good starting point to understand how these binary oppositions are addressed in the novel. The irony that lies within the novel regarding gender differences is extremely influential. The differences that existed between Chacko and Ammu were unfair, and being raised in a home where unfair treatment was evident, Ammu raised her twins differently. Ammu raised Rahel and Estha equally, never favoring one over the other, as her mother did with her and Chacko. Chacko is the ultimate symbol of patriarchy within the Ipe family. However, to Ammu, her power was unrecognizable except to herself and her children who she raised to be equal to each other, something she never had with Chacko. Since Chacko ruled the Ipe household, he symbolized patriarchy. The patriarchy is free to do whatever it wants, but when someone under the control of the patriarchy goes against the demands of the patriarchy, they are punished severely. Unfortunately, the double standards that existed in the Ipe household also existed in Indian society and Ammu suffered not only under her domestic rule but also under her government rule because she was a woman. Ammu slept with a man of a different caste and was sent into exile which resulted in her death, while Chacko slept with many women belonging to a different caste and he was only rewarded with more than women to use only for his sexual desire. Ammu's love with Velutha meant nothing because she had relations with a man of a different caste, and Chacko's sexual desires were depicted in the Ipe house.