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An Ecocritical Perspective of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things:

An Ecocritical Perspective of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things: This study is an ecofeminist reading of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things focusing on how the novelist utilizes various techniques signaling modes of revolt of Nature in terms of the muted group theory and backchannel communication motifs. The novelist also apostrophizes Nature to blur dialectical pairs. Cartesian dualism is extended to the culture/nature dichotomy. Roy encompasses the subaltern of the human race within the downtrodden, the predominant being the image of woman imprisoned in the presets of immanence. On another level, the author refers to animals and plants that required a voice that told the story of Nature or of innate instinct through the medium of human beings: an inverted form of apologues where the story of humans was told through animals. Symbiotic relationships of nature gather strength as they are foregrounded by Roy through relations of metaphor and metonymy exhibiting underlying principles of kinship. The survival instinct of the female characters is delineated through the language of ecology and emblematizes the dismantling of boundaries in the culture/ nature dialectical pair. Keywords Asia, area studies, humanities, cultural anthropology, anthropology, social sciences, race/gender, arts and humanities, curriculum, education, gender/sexuality and politics, intersectional politics, literature The popularity of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things Concerns pertaining to ecofeminism are underscored in rests in manifold possibilities for interpretations of the novel as the novel, as the subjugation of women and the degradation a polysemic text. This article is an ecofeminist reading of the of Nature function on a parallel plane. Ecofeminism, as a novel with special focus on how the novelist utilizes various theory, has been widely advanced as one which argues that techniques reflecting modes of revolt of Nature in terms of the “the current global environmental crisis is a predictable out- muted group theory and backchannel communication motifs. come of patriarchal culture” (Salleh, 1988, p. 138). On a Another strategy utilized by the novelist is to apostrophize broader scale, the theory emphasizes the importance of inter- Nature and even the Earth at various instances with a view to relationships between humans and the natural environment communicate the pathos to the readers and dismantle dichoto- (animals, plants, and the earth), and is now viewed in a larger mies. Ammu stands analogous to the river that functions as a perspective as a movement working against the intercon- microcosm of the ecosystem. The survival instinct of female nected oppressions of gender, race, class, and nature. In a characters against patriarchy is outlined in the language of bearing that blurs all these demarcations, the river in the ecology, in a stance that emblematizes the dismantling of novel stands as an eloquent metaphor for Ammu in its boundaries in the culture/nature dialectical pair. Roy encom- unchartered potential, potential undercurrents and its dor- passes the subaltern of the human race within the downtrodden, mancy. In “The Power and the Promise of Ecological the predominant being the image of woman imprisoned in the Feminism,” Karen J. Warren (1990) ascertains that any femi- presets of immanence, as the boundaries of civilization corre- nism, environmentalism, or environmental philosophy that spond to the constraints imposed by man on woman. Cartesian fails to recognize important women–nature connections is dualism is extended to the culture/nature dialectical pair. On simply inadequate. Although the word river is of neuter another plane, the author refers to animals and plants that required a voice that told the story of Nature or of innate instinct Nehru Arts and Science College, Kanhangad, India through the medium of human beings: an inverted form of apo- Farook College, Calicut, India logues where the story of humans was told through animals. Corresponding Author: Symbiotic relationships of nature gather strength as they are Rukhaya M. Kunhi, Nehru Arts and Science College, Padnekad P.O., foregrounded by Roy through relations of metaphor and Kasaragod, Kanhangad, Kerala 671314, India. metonymy exhibiting underlying principles of kinship. Email: rukhaya_mk@rediffmail.com Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open gender in the English language, it has always been attributed why they either live in moist places or have special adapta- with feminine qualities in India, owing to its features of sus- tions to deal with dry habitats. Just as the twins in spite of tenance, creativity, and fertility. The motif appears to subvert their vulnerability, adapted to circumstances to live without the notion of man being the sole creator in the image of the Ammu (the river). Noteworthy is that soon after the transcendent God as signified by the creative pen–penis. The Orangedrink man episode, Estha longs for the river, as kinetic principle of the river stands for the fluidity and mul- instinctively as he would crave for maternal protection. The tiple possibilities inherent in the female genitalia as postu- river–women connection is also pronounced in the manner lated by Luce Irigaray. Roy likens Ammu to a river during the Velutha–Ammu Numerous instances are cited by the novelist that illus- union. Roy claims, “She was as wide and deep as a river in trate the association between Ammu and the river. After the spate. He sailed on her waters” (Roy, 1997, p. 337). Nature death of Ammu, the novelist asserts, as a pleasure-giver as well as a nurturer is clearly fore- grounded in these images. The river is so close to the twins’ You couldn’t see the river from the window anymore. You could, hearts that they simultaneously dream of “their river” (p. until Mammachi had the back verandah closed in with 122), as they sleep cuddled together at Hotel Sea Queen. The Ayemenem’s first sliding-folding door. Though you couldn’t see experience serves as a nostalgic reminiscence of swimming the river from the house anymore, like a seashell always has a together through “their mother’s cunt” (Roy, 1997, p. 93) sea-sense, the Ayemenem house still had a river-sense. (Roy, during their prenatal existence. The children’s familiarity 1997, p. 31) with the river and closeness to it is clearly evinced by Roy: “They knew the afternoon weed that flowed inwards from The wild instincts Ammu inherited from her ancestors the backwaters of Komarakom. They knew the smaller fish” thrived in the genes and are transmitted to Rahel. Aleyooty and it is here that they study “Silence (like the children of the Amma found it difficult to abandon the river, the author says. Fisher Peoples), and learn(ed) the bright language of dragon- “Through the holes in her ears, you could see the hot river flies” (Roy, 1997, p. 203). Thus, the river, on another level, and the dark trees that bent to it” (Roy, 1997, p. 30). Even the serves as a surrogate mother to the twins, feeding them and vehicle they owned, the Plymouth, is characteristic of a fish. teaching them. There are more evidences to demonstrate the river to be a The river motif also comes across as a microcosm of the metaphor of Ammu, the wronged woman: ecosystem in Roy’s works that reflects other components of the natural environment—the moon, the skies, and the trees. The river was no more than a swollen drain now. (p. 124) Ecofeminism is conceptualized as a sisterly bond, a funda- mental rejection of all forms of domination, whose necessary It was choked with a succulent weed, whose furred brown roots goal is diversity rather than dualism (Vance, 1993). The river waved like thin tentacles under water. Bronze winged lily- that once reflected the whole of Nature in its diversity and trotters walked across it splay-footed, cautious. (p. 124) immaculate beauty is now a dismal picture, and is said to be So now they two harvests a year instead of one. More rice for the price of a river. (p. 44) a slow sludging green ribbon lawn that ferried fetid garbage to the sea. Many years later as Rahel returns, she finds the river Many years later as Rahel encounters the river, she is welcoming her with a ‘ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed.’ The reminded of how Ammu was choked to death by the callous spiritual essence endowed to the rivers is substituted with a patriarchal society: sense of nihilism. Bright plastic bags blew across its viscous, weedy surface like sub-tropical flying flowers. (p. 124) Both things had happened. It had shrunk and she had grown. (p. 124) The fluidity of the river seems to be curtailed and its limpid- Symbiotic relationships are underscored by Roy through ness adulterated. Elsewhere the river is described to have the motifs of metaphor and metonymy thereby revealing “smelled of shit, and pesticides bought with World Bank underlying principles of kinship. Ecofeminist practice is nec- loans” (p. 13). This concern for the river and the dispossessed essarily antihierarchical. It preaches that life on earth is an is later seen to mark her works of nonfiction where her com- interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hier- mitment to the River Narmada and its people are discussed in archy; human hierarchy is projected on to nature and then detail. Prof. I. Shanmugha Das (2011), a noted Indian critic, used to justify social domination (King quoted in Vakoch, states how Arundhati Roy started her march toward the 2011). In the novel, the twins’ relationship with their mother Narmada mission from the banks of another river in Kerala, and the river functions on a parallel plane as Ammu poses as the Chaliyar that has also been subjected to pollution by the the river, and the twins as frogs. Ammu’s reference to the effluents from Gwalior Ryons (p. 24). He ascertains that her twins as frogs is significant, as frogs have semipermeable clarion call to save Narmada is perhaps her plea to save the skin rendering frogs susceptible to dehydration, which is Meenachal of her childhood from succumbing to the Kunhi and Kunhi 3 venomous pollution spewed out by the developmental process Two Genders. I See Gender As a Spectrum” (Roy, 2015). (Das quoted in Kunhi, 2014, p. 151). In her essay, “The Greater Ecofeminists insist on a gender-sensitive language, theory, Common Good,” Roy (2002b) foregrounds the harm caused and practices that revolt against the exploitative experiences by Big Dams on rivers, “Ecologically, they’re in the doghouse. and insensitive patriarchal culture that thwart women and They lay the earth to waste. They cause floods, water-logging, nature, as Susan Griffin, a distinguished ecocritic, calls for a salinity, they spread disease. There is mounting evidence that “nurturing femaleness to speak, chant and sing so that people links Big Dams to earthquakes” (pp. 57-58). might live” (quoted in Elliott, 1988, p. 1067). The survival instinct of other female characters against As per the muted group theory, that is generally used to patriarchy is delineated through the medium of ecology that refer to ethnology and the study of cultures, marginalized serves to efface boundaries in the culture/nature dichotomy. groups (a) do not have a voice in the culture—not only do they Gruen places dichotomies against the background of feminist not have a say explicitly but in fact are silenced—and do not and animal liberation theories and suggests that these tradi- have the right to speak, and (b) these groups tend to develop tional views promote and perpetuate unnecessary and unsus- alternate ways of communicating what is sometimes postu- tainable dichotomies (between nature and culture, between lated as “back-channel” communication. Robin Lakoff states reason and emotion). She underscores that ecofeminist theory that women use backchannel communication with specialized can provide an alternative, inclusive framework for liberation ways of communicating, and so do men who speak from mar- struggles. (Gruen, 1993, p. 7), from a linear, fragmented, and ginalized situations—the poor, the powerless (Zhu, 2011, p. detached mind-set to a more direct, holistic appreciation of 613). In keeping with this theory, suppression manifests in subjective knowing (Gruen, 1993, p. 61). Margaret terms of silence or in terms of revolt against the unnatural in Kochamma’s affinity toward Chacko is expressed in terms of the novel. Roy in The God of Small Things speaks of strange the phenomenon of phototropism, as “she found herself drawn insects that appeared like ideas in the evening and burnt them- towards him like a plant in a dark room towards a wedge of selves before evening. These original ideas were suppressed light” (Roy, 1997, p. 248), while the phenomenon of Etiolation and did not see the light of day due to the rigid constraints of would be more apt as comparison in this regard. Chacko tells communism where people were asked to be politically right. Rahel and Estha that Ammu had no Locusts Stand I with refer- Individualism was relegated. Epistemic violence is found in ence to her lack of share in the inheritance, as she is likened to the rejection of ideas that were non-Western. So native ideas the gregarious nomadic-like-locust owing to her wild instincts, that emerged from inherent instinct burnt themselves like the with references to her migrating from place to place. The par- fireflies than survive on borrowed light of a superficial English allel between the man/woman, culture/nature dichotomies is culture. Epistemic violence conceptually relates to the evident in the similes utilized to describe woman. Baby Subaltern, wherein the “Subaltern must always be caught in Kochamma’s physical attraction for father Mulligan through- translation, never truly expressing herself,” because of the out her life is reflected in the flower she loved the most: the colonial power’s destruction of her culture, and the marginal- “anthurium.” The anthurium is also called the “boy flower” in ization of her way of understanding and knowing the world accordance with its phallic shape. The flowers on the spadix (Spivak qtd in Briggs and Sharp, 2008, p. 664); particularly are often divided on the basis of sex, with a sterile band sepa- significant is the concept of colonialism being always per- rating male from female flowers. Gender difference theories ceived as a masculine phenomenon. The muted voice of nature also emphasize how, as in the realm of gender, the territory of is discerned in this kind of suppression. human life has been divided into “the external world” and “the The second aspect, revolt functioning as a backchannel domestic world,” with women having speech rights in one but communication motif, is found in the unnatural union of the not in the other (Zhu, 2011, p. 64). twins. The twins express dissent against their unnatural sepa- The dismantling of boundaries in the culture/nature dia- ration. Mortensen in his essay “Civilization’s Fear of Nature” lectical pair functions parallel to the thematic aspects of the argues that The God of Small Things voices the consequences novel. Ammu strives to dismantle preset boundaries for of exploiting nature in the name of progress. He states, women, caste, and an immanent existence, in her relation- “Nature, is not so much absent as simply repressed, and the ship with Velutha. Velutha and Ammu unite as man and brilliance of Roy’s approach consists precisely in showing woman on the site of the River Meenachal transgressing all that the postmodern denial of nature produces a threatening man-made barriers of caste and class. Roy’s language also return of the repressed” (Mortensen, 2003, p. 188), in line registers an attempt at effacing boundaries as the language with Usha Jesudasan’s retaliation of the suppressed. Coined “guides us to those who are often excluded from our vision. by Freud, Jean-François Rabain (2005) describes the phrase Her use of short sentences, use of metaphors alluding to as a process whereby “repressed elements, preserved in the smallness and her emphasis on solitary, pregnant words are unconscious, tend to reappear, in consciousness or in behav- all the devices she uses to highlight her vision” (Ch’ien, iour, in the shape of secondary and more or less unrecogniz- 2004, p. 156). The language appears to be employed with a able ‘derivatives of the unconscious’” (Kunhi, 2014, pp. view to subvert the inherent sexism in language, as Roy 159-160). The unnatural union of the twins toward the end of claimed in an interview, “I Don’t Believe There Are Only the novel comes across as an attempt on the part of the twins 4 SAGE Open to revert to their zygotic form by means of fusion. The term how much” (Roy, 1997, p. 328). Readers must take note of zygotic is utilized here to refer to their spiritual oneness at the once again and they that point to an earlier instance of birth though they are not identical twins. The separation of transgression. the twins who were inextricably linked was unquestionably Backchannel communication is also found in the disman- unnatural according to the author. Roy states, tling of walls that are prototypical of civilization. The coun- tryside is said to turn an immodest green as it forebodes the They were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, doom to come. Nature makes a desperate attempt to establish but with joint identities. (Roy, 1997, p. 2) itself as “boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turns moss green. Pepper vines snake up In the Orangedrink Lemondrink incident, Rahel is aware of what electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and happened to Estha even without his telling her. Besides, Rahel spill across the flooded road” (p. 1). Man forgets that mod- has a memory of waking up one night giggling at Estha’s funny ernization can never insulate itself to the effects of Nature. dream. (p. 2) Mortensen in his essay “Civilization’s Fear of Nature” argues that The God of Small Things voices more than just empha- She remembers the taste of the tomato sandwiches—Estha’s size the consequences of exploiting nature in the name of sandwiches, that Estha ate—on the Madras Mail to Madras. (p. 3) progress. It also signals the revolt of nature. Survival instinct of the downtrodden functions as a She didn’t notice the single Siamese soul. (p. 41) backchannel communication motif and is highlighted through parallels with nature as both function on the plane Before the twins were separated they were thought of together as of the subaltern. Estha is said to have a difference defense Me and separately or individually as Us or We. (p. 2) mechanism to survive, similar to a lungfish that estivated through dry seasons. The lungfish remains unusually dor- A further revolt of Nature against what was deemed mant and survives extreme conditions just as Estha unnatural can be perceived in the unnatural sexual relation- remained unusually silent and sailed through situations. ship between the twins even while they were children. The He is also said to blend into the background of whichever act appears to be an emotional requite directed against the place he was: into bookshelves, gardens, curtains, door- sexual abuse of Estha by the Orangedrink Lemondrink man. ways, and streets, to appear inanimate. There is an allusion Writers have always likened child sexual abuse to the prema- to his chameleon-like quality here in his survival instinct. ture plucking of a bud from a plant. The twins revolt against The author also talks of an octopus residing within Estha. this early unnatural act by indulging in a sexual act while An octopus’s main (primary) defense is to hide, either not they were still young. An evocative scene points to a sexual to be seen at all, or not to be detected as an octopus. An encounter between Rahel and Estha with references to the octopus’s camouflage is aided by certain specialized skin rupture of the vagina, and sperms floating on the water: cells which can change the apparent color, opacity, and Two happy hearts soared like coloured kites in a skyblue sky but reflectiveness of the epidermis. Like an octopus had three then, in a slow green whisper, the river . . . . a pair of two-egg hearts, Estha also struggled against the conflicting emo- twin hearts sank and settled on the step above the sixth . . . The tions within himself. He grew accustomed to the octopus deep swimming fish covered their mouths with their fins and that grew inside him and squirted inky tranquilizers on his laughed sideways at the spectacle . . . A white boat-spider, past to escape from his abusive past. We find other struggled briefly and drowned. Her white egg sac ruptured instances where Estha called Rahel a Refugee Stick Insect prematurely, and a hundred baby spiders . . . stippled the smooth during their fights owing to her tendency to go into exile. surface of the green water. (Roy, 1997, p. 204) The history house becomes a refuge later as lizards inhabit the house. Lizards were characteristic of autonomy as they To further attest this fact, before they transgress as adults deserted/amputated tails as a self-defense mechanism. later in life, the author remarks, Later, the readers find the lizard on the adult Rahel’s t-shirt as well, as she was emotionally cut off from Estha. Perhaps Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors. But “Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no it wasn’t just them. It was the others too. They broke all the longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered presence where he no longer was,” says Márquez (1998) in with the rules that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much. The laws that make grandmothers grandmothers, Love in the Time of Cholera. This move on part of the nov- uncles uncles, mothers mothers, cousins cousins, jam jam and elist to introduce correspondences in terms of nature jelly jelly. (p. 31) proves to be effective. Particularly in lieu of arguments of ecocritics that to separate the environment as an isolated Also, immediately after they transgress as adults, the phenomenon is to revitalize not only the sovereignty of author remarks, “Only that once again they broke the Love humans over nature but also the inequities that sovereignty Laws. That lay down who should be loved And how. And entails (Johnson, 2009). Kunhi and Kunhi 5 Survival instinct is also manifest in the theme of preserva- blink of the earth woman’s eye. As earth is apostrophized as tion in the novel. Nature desperately attempts to be preserved the mother, the act of defilement proves to be as deceitful and for posterity in the eloquent symbol of Paradise Pickle dishonorable as working against one’s own mother. Preserves. Analogous to the same, Ammu strives to uphold Roy, thereby, succeeds in presenting an ecocritical perspec- her individuality. The fear of losing nature in its pristine form tive through humanizing nature in a way that appeals to our brings in the need for it to be artificially preserved. The emotions as well, and justifies the title of the novel. The move to author states that Nature and history were prevalent in the blur the boundaries between nature and the human world not form of bleached bones indicating artificial preservation yet only works as a stylistic strategy that echoes the theme but com- again. In the chapter, “The God of Small Things,” Ammu municates with the sensibilities and sentiments of the readers. senses the vinegary fumes that rose from the cements of The ecofeminist dilution of duality works as a subversive strat- Paradise Pickles—“fumes that wrinkled youth and preserved egy questioning the conceptualization of hierarchies where for futures” (Roy, 1997, p. 224). Ursula Heise (2008) creates “the anthropocentric feminists, the ‘other’ is nonhuman animals new ecocritical perspectives in Sense of Place and Sense of and nature; for radical feminists, ‘other’ is culture and man; for Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global, in the animal liberationists, ‘other’ is human emotion and collec- which she urges ecocritics to look beyond the immediacy of tivity” (Gruen, 1993, p. 80). Efficacious incorporation of the place and envision the Earth as “our place, our locus,” as a various motifs to signal revolt in an age of anthropocene proves place that deserves loyalty and preservation (p. 46). to be successful. The author underscores that “literature does The picture Roy conjures up of Earth as a Woman giving not float above the material world in some aesthetic ether, but life to Man subverts the theory of Semitic religions profess- rather, plays a part in an immensely complete global system, in ing woman to be created from the ribs of Man. which energy, matter and ideas interact” (Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996, p. xix). The foregrounding of the personal despair of the The earth—four thousand six hundred million years old—was a downtrodden like Velutha, Ammu, and the suppression of other forty-six-year-old woman—as old, say, as Aleyamma Teacher, natural elements in the novel, work by extension through inter- who gave them Malayalam lessons. It had taken the whole of the textuality and activism in Roy’s prose works, extending the Earth Woman’s life for the earth to become what it was. For the theme of revolt beyond the purview of the characters and text. oceans to part. For the mountains to rise. (p. 27) She extends it to the state of the dispossessed tribals and the displaced farmers affected by the “Big Dams,” which Roy Chacko presents an objective and impersonal Earth Woman claims in her essay, “The Greater Common Good,” are a brazen as opposed to Mother Earth stripping the earth of its humane means of taking water, land, and irrigation away from the poor qualities. Carolyn Merchant (1993), a noted ecofeminist, and gifting it to the rich, as “their reservoirs displace huge popu- says that in olden days, “The image of the earth as a living lations of people, leaving them homeless and destitute” (Roy, organism and nurturing mother had served as a cultural con- 2002b, p. 42). And this “public turmoil of the nation” is further straint restricting the actions of human beings,” and she extended to the earth as a whole when she voices her concern stresses, “As long as the earth was considered to be alive and over the amassing of nuclear weapons: sensitive, it could be considered a breach of human ethical behaviour to carry out destructive acts against it” (p. 276). As If there is a nuclear war, our foes will not be China or America with the case of Chacko, the modernization process lessened or even each other. Our foe will be the earth herself. The very man’s reverence for Mother Nature and ecological destruc- elements—sky, the air, the land, the wind and water—will all tion proved to be as rampant as the subordination of women. turn against us. (Roy, 2002a, p. 6) Virgina Woolf (1929) in her A Room of One’s Own states, The voice of The God of Small Things, thus, works through “Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically extension. she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.” Roy’s Declaration of Conflicting Interests assertion of “Man’s subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify” (Roy, 1997, p. 308) functions par- The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect allel to the same. Carolyn Merchant’s (1990) outstanding to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Funding Revolution traces the Renaissance shift toward patriarchal authority that expunged the female presence in an The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author- Aristotelian, God-permeated universe. In keeping with Roy’s ship, and/or publication of this article. subversive tactics, when Roy states, “The whole of contem- References porary history, the World Wars, the War of Dreams, the Man on the Moon, science, literature, philosophy, the pursuit of Ch’ien, E. N.-M. (2004). The politics of design. In E. N.-M. Ch’ien knowledge was no more than a Blink of the Earth Woman’s (Ed.), Weird English (pp. 154-200). London, England: Harvard eye” (p. 27), she renders the whole of (his)tory to a mere University Press. 6 SAGE Open Das, I. S. (2011). Sareeram Nadi Naskshatram [Body, river, star]. Roy, A. (2015, August 24). Talking to Arundhati (S. Naqvi, Thrissur, India: Kairali Offset Press. Interviewer). Outlook India. Retrieved from http://www.out- Elliott, E. A. (1988). Literature as radical statement. In E. 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New York, NY: Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Berghahn Books. Heise, U. (2008). Sense of place and sense of planet: The envi- Vance, L. (1993). Ecofeminism and the politics of reality. In G. ronmental imagination of the global. New York, NY: Oxford Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, animals, nature (pp. 118- University Press. 145). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Johnson, L. (2009, December). Greening the library: The funda- Warren, K. J. (1990). The power and the promise of ecological mentals and future of ecocriticism. Available from http://www. feminism. Environmental Ethics, 12, 125-146. asle.org Woolf, V. (1929). A room of one’s own. New York: Harcourt, Kunhi, Z. M. (2014, April). Multiple voices in Arundhati Roy’s fic- Breace and World, p. 45. tion and non fiction. Shodhganga: Online Reservoir of India. Zhu, L. (2011, May). Woman subculture development seen Merchant, C. (1990). The death of nature: Women, ecology, and the from woman language. Journal of Language Teaching and scientific revolution. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins. Research, 2, 613-617. Retrieved from http://www.academy- Merchant, C. (1993). The death of nature. In C. Merchant & M. E. publication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol02/03/15.pdf Zimmerman (Eds.), Environmental philosophy: From animal rights to radical ecology (pp. 268-283). NJ: Prentice Hall. Author Biographies Mortensen, P. (2003). Civilization’s fear of nature: Postmodernity, Rukhaya M. Kunhi is an award-winning writer who has published culture and environment in The God of Small Things. In K. her works in National and International Journals and Anthologies. Stierstorfer (Ed.), Beyond postmodernism (pp. 179-195). New She has won various accolades in writing including ones from the York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. New Book Society of India, Ekphrasis India, Storymirror.com and Rabain, J.-F. (2005). Return of the repressed. Retrieved from http:// the Forgotten Writers’ Foundation, Egypt. Rukhaya is the recipient www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3435301263.html of the Reuel International Prize for Criticism 2016, for the most Roy, A. (1997). The god of small things. London, England: promising upcoming critic. She currently works as an assistant pro- Flamingo. fessor of English at Nehru College, Kasaragod, Kerala. Read more Roy, A. (2002a). The end of imagination. In A. Roy (Ed.), The alge- of her work at www.rukhaya.com. bra of infinite justice (pp. 1-38). London, England: Flamingo. Zeenath Mohamed Kunhi is currently working as an assistant pro- Roy, A. (2002b). The greater common good. In A. Roy (Ed.), The fessor of English at Farook College, Calicut, India. She has her algebra of infinite justice (pp. 38-126). London, England: Flamingo. articles and poems published in National and International Journals. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png SAGE Open SAGE

An Ecocritical Perspective of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things:

Kunhi, Rukhaya M.; Kunhi, Zeenath Mohamed
SAGE Open , Volume 7 (2): 1 – Jun 30, 2017
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Abstract

This study is an ecofeminist reading of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things focusing on how the novelist utilizes various techniques signaling modes of revolt of Nature in terms of the muted group theory and backchannel communication motifs. The novelist also apostrophizes Nature to blur dialectical pairs. Cartesian dualism is extended to the culture/nature dichotomy. Roy encompasses the subaltern of the human race within the downtrodden, the predominant being the image of woman imprisoned in the presets of immanence. On another level, the author refers to animals and plants that required a voice that told the story of Nature or of innate instinct through the medium of human beings: an inverted form of apologues where the story of humans was told through animals. Symbiotic relationships of nature gather strength as they are foregrounded by Roy through relations of metaphor and metonymy exhibiting underlying principles of kinship. The survival instinct of the female characters is delineated through the language of ecology and emblematizes the dismantling of boundaries in the culture/ nature dialectical pair. Keywords Asia, area studies, humanities, cultural anthropology, anthropology, social sciences, race/gender, arts and humanities, curriculum, education, gender/sexuality and politics, intersectional politics, literature The popularity of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things Concerns pertaining to ecofeminism are underscored in rests in manifold possibilities for interpretations of the novel as the novel, as the subjugation of women and the degradation a polysemic text. This article is an ecofeminist reading of the of Nature function on a parallel plane. Ecofeminism, as a novel with special focus on how the novelist utilizes various theory, has been widely advanced as one which argues that techniques reflecting modes of revolt of Nature in terms of the “the current global environmental crisis is a predictable out- muted group theory and backchannel communication motifs. come of patriarchal culture” (Salleh, 1988, p. 138). On a Another strategy utilized by the novelist is to apostrophize broader scale, the theory emphasizes the importance of inter- Nature and even the Earth at various instances with a view to relationships between humans and the natural environment communicate the pathos to the readers and dismantle dichoto- (animals, plants, and the earth), and is now viewed in a larger mies. Ammu stands analogous to the river that functions as a perspective as a movement working against the intercon- microcosm of the ecosystem. The survival instinct of female nected oppressions of gender, race, class, and nature. In a characters against patriarchy is outlined in the language of bearing that blurs all these demarcations, the river in the ecology, in a stance that emblematizes the dismantling of novel stands as an eloquent metaphor for Ammu in its boundaries in the culture/nature dialectical pair. Roy encom- unchartered potential, potential undercurrents and its dor- passes the subaltern of the human race within the downtrodden, mancy. In “The Power and the Promise of Ecological the predominant being the image of woman imprisoned in the Feminism,” Karen J. Warren (1990) ascertains that any femi- presets of immanence, as the boundaries of civilization corre- nism, environmentalism, or environmental philosophy that spond to the constraints imposed by man on woman. Cartesian fails to recognize important women–nature connections is dualism is extended to the culture/nature dialectical pair. On simply inadequate. Although the word river is of neuter another plane, the author refers to animals and plants that required a voice that told the story of Nature or of innate instinct Nehru Arts and Science College, Kanhangad, India through the medium of human beings: an inverted form of apo- Farook College, Calicut, India logues where the story of humans was told through animals. Corresponding Author: Symbiotic relationships of nature gather strength as they are Rukhaya M. Kunhi, Nehru Arts and Science College, Padnekad P.O., foregrounded by Roy through relations of metaphor and Kasaragod, Kanhangad, Kerala 671314, India. metonymy exhibiting underlying principles of kinship. Email: rukhaya_mk@rediffmail.com Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 SAGE Open gender in the English language, it has always been attributed why they either live in moist places or have special adapta- with feminine qualities in India, owing to its features of sus- tions to deal with dry habitats. Just as the twins in spite of tenance, creativity, and fertility. The motif appears to subvert their vulnerability, adapted to circumstances to live without the notion of man being the sole creator in the image of the Ammu (the river). Noteworthy is that soon after the transcendent God as signified by the creative pen–penis. The Orangedrink man episode, Estha longs for the river, as kinetic principle of the river stands for the fluidity and mul- instinctively as he would crave for maternal protection. The tiple possibilities inherent in the female genitalia as postu- river–women connection is also pronounced in the manner lated by Luce Irigaray. Roy likens Ammu to a river during the Velutha–Ammu Numerous instances are cited by the novelist that illus- union. Roy claims, “She was as wide and deep as a river in trate the association between Ammu and the river. After the spate. He sailed on her waters” (Roy, 1997, p. 337). Nature death of Ammu, the novelist asserts, as a pleasure-giver as well as a nurturer is clearly fore- grounded in these images. The river is so close to the twins’ You couldn’t see the river from the window anymore. You could, hearts that they simultaneously dream of “their river” (p. until Mammachi had the back verandah closed in with 122), as they sleep cuddled together at Hotel Sea Queen. The Ayemenem’s first sliding-folding door. Though you couldn’t see experience serves as a nostalgic reminiscence of swimming the river from the house anymore, like a seashell always has a together through “their mother’s cunt” (Roy, 1997, p. 93) sea-sense, the Ayemenem house still had a river-sense. (Roy, during their prenatal existence. The children’s familiarity 1997, p. 31) with the river and closeness to it is clearly evinced by Roy: “They knew the afternoon weed that flowed inwards from The wild instincts Ammu inherited from her ancestors the backwaters of Komarakom. They knew the smaller fish” thrived in the genes and are transmitted to Rahel. Aleyooty and it is here that they study “Silence (like the children of the Amma found it difficult to abandon the river, the author says. Fisher Peoples), and learn(ed) the bright language of dragon- “Through the holes in her ears, you could see the hot river flies” (Roy, 1997, p. 203). Thus, the river, on another level, and the dark trees that bent to it” (Roy, 1997, p. 30). Even the serves as a surrogate mother to the twins, feeding them and vehicle they owned, the Plymouth, is characteristic of a fish. teaching them. There are more evidences to demonstrate the river to be a The river motif also comes across as a microcosm of the metaphor of Ammu, the wronged woman: ecosystem in Roy’s works that reflects other components of the natural environment—the moon, the skies, and the trees. The river was no more than a swollen drain now. (p. 124) Ecofeminism is conceptualized as a sisterly bond, a funda- mental rejection of all forms of domination, whose necessary It was choked with a succulent weed, whose furred brown roots goal is diversity rather than dualism (Vance, 1993). The river waved like thin tentacles under water. Bronze winged lily- that once reflected the whole of Nature in its diversity and trotters walked across it splay-footed, cautious. (p. 124) immaculate beauty is now a dismal picture, and is said to be So now they two harvests a year instead of one. More rice for the price of a river. (p. 44) a slow sludging green ribbon lawn that ferried fetid garbage to the sea. Many years later as Rahel returns, she finds the river Many years later as Rahel encounters the river, she is welcoming her with a ‘ghastly skull’s smile, with holes where teeth had been, and a limp hand raised from a hospital bed.’ The reminded of how Ammu was choked to death by the callous spiritual essence endowed to the rivers is substituted with a patriarchal society: sense of nihilism. Bright plastic bags blew across its viscous, weedy surface like sub-tropical flying flowers. (p. 124) Both things had happened. It had shrunk and she had grown. (p. 124) The fluidity of the river seems to be curtailed and its limpid- Symbiotic relationships are underscored by Roy through ness adulterated. Elsewhere the river is described to have the motifs of metaphor and metonymy thereby revealing “smelled of shit, and pesticides bought with World Bank underlying principles of kinship. Ecofeminist practice is nec- loans” (p. 13). This concern for the river and the dispossessed essarily antihierarchical. It preaches that life on earth is an is later seen to mark her works of nonfiction where her com- interconnected web, not a hierarchy. There is no natural hier- mitment to the River Narmada and its people are discussed in archy; human hierarchy is projected on to nature and then detail. Prof. I. Shanmugha Das (2011), a noted Indian critic, used to justify social domination (King quoted in Vakoch, states how Arundhati Roy started her march toward the 2011). In the novel, the twins’ relationship with their mother Narmada mission from the banks of another river in Kerala, and the river functions on a parallel plane as Ammu poses as the Chaliyar that has also been subjected to pollution by the the river, and the twins as frogs. Ammu’s reference to the effluents from Gwalior Ryons (p. 24). He ascertains that her twins as frogs is significant, as frogs have semipermeable clarion call to save Narmada is perhaps her plea to save the skin rendering frogs susceptible to dehydration, which is Meenachal of her childhood from succumbing to the Kunhi and Kunhi 3 venomous pollution spewed out by the developmental process Two Genders. I See Gender As a Spectrum” (Roy, 2015). (Das quoted in Kunhi, 2014, p. 151). In her essay, “The Greater Ecofeminists insist on a gender-sensitive language, theory, Common Good,” Roy (2002b) foregrounds the harm caused and practices that revolt against the exploitative experiences by Big Dams on rivers, “Ecologically, they’re in the doghouse. and insensitive patriarchal culture that thwart women and They lay the earth to waste. They cause floods, water-logging, nature, as Susan Griffin, a distinguished ecocritic, calls for a salinity, they spread disease. There is mounting evidence that “nurturing femaleness to speak, chant and sing so that people links Big Dams to earthquakes” (pp. 57-58). might live” (quoted in Elliott, 1988, p. 1067). The survival instinct of other female characters against As per the muted group theory, that is generally used to patriarchy is delineated through the medium of ecology that refer to ethnology and the study of cultures, marginalized serves to efface boundaries in the culture/nature dichotomy. groups (a) do not have a voice in the culture—not only do they Gruen places dichotomies against the background of feminist not have a say explicitly but in fact are silenced—and do not and animal liberation theories and suggests that these tradi- have the right to speak, and (b) these groups tend to develop tional views promote and perpetuate unnecessary and unsus- alternate ways of communicating what is sometimes postu- tainable dichotomies (between nature and culture, between lated as “back-channel” communication. Robin Lakoff states reason and emotion). She underscores that ecofeminist theory that women use backchannel communication with specialized can provide an alternative, inclusive framework for liberation ways of communicating, and so do men who speak from mar- struggles. (Gruen, 1993, p. 7), from a linear, fragmented, and ginalized situations—the poor, the powerless (Zhu, 2011, p. detached mind-set to a more direct, holistic appreciation of 613). In keeping with this theory, suppression manifests in subjective knowing (Gruen, 1993, p. 61). Margaret terms of silence or in terms of revolt against the unnatural in Kochamma’s affinity toward Chacko is expressed in terms of the novel. Roy in The God of Small Things speaks of strange the phenomenon of phototropism, as “she found herself drawn insects that appeared like ideas in the evening and burnt them- towards him like a plant in a dark room towards a wedge of selves before evening. These original ideas were suppressed light” (Roy, 1997, p. 248), while the phenomenon of Etiolation and did not see the light of day due to the rigid constraints of would be more apt as comparison in this regard. Chacko tells communism where people were asked to be politically right. Rahel and Estha that Ammu had no Locusts Stand I with refer- Individualism was relegated. Epistemic violence is found in ence to her lack of share in the inheritance, as she is likened to the rejection of ideas that were non-Western. So native ideas the gregarious nomadic-like-locust owing to her wild instincts, that emerged from inherent instinct burnt themselves like the with references to her migrating from place to place. The par- fireflies than survive on borrowed light of a superficial English allel between the man/woman, culture/nature dichotomies is culture. Epistemic violence conceptually relates to the evident in the similes utilized to describe woman. Baby Subaltern, wherein the “Subaltern must always be caught in Kochamma’s physical attraction for father Mulligan through- translation, never truly expressing herself,” because of the out her life is reflected in the flower she loved the most: the colonial power’s destruction of her culture, and the marginal- “anthurium.” The anthurium is also called the “boy flower” in ization of her way of understanding and knowing the world accordance with its phallic shape. The flowers on the spadix (Spivak qtd in Briggs and Sharp, 2008, p. 664); particularly are often divided on the basis of sex, with a sterile band sepa- significant is the concept of colonialism being always per- rating male from female flowers. Gender difference theories ceived as a masculine phenomenon. The muted voice of nature also emphasize how, as in the realm of gender, the territory of is discerned in this kind of suppression. human life has been divided into “the external world” and “the The second aspect, revolt functioning as a backchannel domestic world,” with women having speech rights in one but communication motif, is found in the unnatural union of the not in the other (Zhu, 2011, p. 64). twins. The twins express dissent against their unnatural sepa- The dismantling of boundaries in the culture/nature dia- ration. Mortensen in his essay “Civilization’s Fear of Nature” lectical pair functions parallel to the thematic aspects of the argues that The God of Small Things voices the consequences novel. Ammu strives to dismantle preset boundaries for of exploiting nature in the name of progress. He states, women, caste, and an immanent existence, in her relation- “Nature, is not so much absent as simply repressed, and the ship with Velutha. Velutha and Ammu unite as man and brilliance of Roy’s approach consists precisely in showing woman on the site of the River Meenachal transgressing all that the postmodern denial of nature produces a threatening man-made barriers of caste and class. Roy’s language also return of the repressed” (Mortensen, 2003, p. 188), in line registers an attempt at effacing boundaries as the language with Usha Jesudasan’s retaliation of the suppressed. Coined “guides us to those who are often excluded from our vision. by Freud, Jean-François Rabain (2005) describes the phrase Her use of short sentences, use of metaphors alluding to as a process whereby “repressed elements, preserved in the smallness and her emphasis on solitary, pregnant words are unconscious, tend to reappear, in consciousness or in behav- all the devices she uses to highlight her vision” (Ch’ien, iour, in the shape of secondary and more or less unrecogniz- 2004, p. 156). The language appears to be employed with a able ‘derivatives of the unconscious’” (Kunhi, 2014, pp. view to subvert the inherent sexism in language, as Roy 159-160). The unnatural union of the twins toward the end of claimed in an interview, “I Don’t Believe There Are Only the novel comes across as an attempt on the part of the twins 4 SAGE Open to revert to their zygotic form by means of fusion. The term how much” (Roy, 1997, p. 328). Readers must take note of zygotic is utilized here to refer to their spiritual oneness at the once again and they that point to an earlier instance of birth though they are not identical twins. The separation of transgression. the twins who were inextricably linked was unquestionably Backchannel communication is also found in the disman- unnatural according to the author. Roy states, tling of walls that are prototypical of civilization. The coun- tryside is said to turn an immodest green as it forebodes the They were a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, doom to come. Nature makes a desperate attempt to establish but with joint identities. (Roy, 1997, p. 2) itself as “boundaries blur as tapioca fences take root and bloom. Brick walls turns moss green. Pepper vines snake up In the Orangedrink Lemondrink incident, Rahel is aware of what electric poles. Wild creepers burst through laterite banks and happened to Estha even without his telling her. Besides, Rahel spill across the flooded road” (p. 1). Man forgets that mod- has a memory of waking up one night giggling at Estha’s funny ernization can never insulate itself to the effects of Nature. dream. (p. 2) Mortensen in his essay “Civilization’s Fear of Nature” argues that The God of Small Things voices more than just empha- She remembers the taste of the tomato sandwiches—Estha’s size the consequences of exploiting nature in the name of sandwiches, that Estha ate—on the Madras Mail to Madras. (p. 3) progress. It also signals the revolt of nature. Survival instinct of the downtrodden functions as a She didn’t notice the single Siamese soul. (p. 41) backchannel communication motif and is highlighted through parallels with nature as both function on the plane Before the twins were separated they were thought of together as of the subaltern. Estha is said to have a difference defense Me and separately or individually as Us or We. (p. 2) mechanism to survive, similar to a lungfish that estivated through dry seasons. The lungfish remains unusually dor- A further revolt of Nature against what was deemed mant and survives extreme conditions just as Estha unnatural can be perceived in the unnatural sexual relation- remained unusually silent and sailed through situations. ship between the twins even while they were children. The He is also said to blend into the background of whichever act appears to be an emotional requite directed against the place he was: into bookshelves, gardens, curtains, door- sexual abuse of Estha by the Orangedrink Lemondrink man. ways, and streets, to appear inanimate. There is an allusion Writers have always likened child sexual abuse to the prema- to his chameleon-like quality here in his survival instinct. ture plucking of a bud from a plant. The twins revolt against The author also talks of an octopus residing within Estha. this early unnatural act by indulging in a sexual act while An octopus’s main (primary) defense is to hide, either not they were still young. An evocative scene points to a sexual to be seen at all, or not to be detected as an octopus. An encounter between Rahel and Estha with references to the octopus’s camouflage is aided by certain specialized skin rupture of the vagina, and sperms floating on the water: cells which can change the apparent color, opacity, and Two happy hearts soared like coloured kites in a skyblue sky but reflectiveness of the epidermis. Like an octopus had three then, in a slow green whisper, the river . . . . a pair of two-egg hearts, Estha also struggled against the conflicting emo- twin hearts sank and settled on the step above the sixth . . . The tions within himself. He grew accustomed to the octopus deep swimming fish covered their mouths with their fins and that grew inside him and squirted inky tranquilizers on his laughed sideways at the spectacle . . . A white boat-spider, past to escape from his abusive past. We find other struggled briefly and drowned. Her white egg sac ruptured instances where Estha called Rahel a Refugee Stick Insect prematurely, and a hundred baby spiders . . . stippled the smooth during their fights owing to her tendency to go into exile. surface of the green water. (Roy, 1997, p. 204) The history house becomes a refuge later as lizards inhabit the house. Lizards were characteristic of autonomy as they To further attest this fact, before they transgress as adults deserted/amputated tails as a self-defense mechanism. later in life, the author remarks, Later, the readers find the lizard on the adult Rahel’s t-shirt as well, as she was emotionally cut off from Estha. Perhaps Ammu, Estha and she were the worst transgressors. But “Amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches in the leg that is no it wasn’t just them. It was the others too. They broke all the longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered presence where he no longer was,” says Márquez (1998) in with the rules that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much. The laws that make grandmothers grandmothers, Love in the Time of Cholera. This move on part of the nov- uncles uncles, mothers mothers, cousins cousins, jam jam and elist to introduce correspondences in terms of nature jelly jelly. (p. 31) proves to be effective. Particularly in lieu of arguments of ecocritics that to separate the environment as an isolated Also, immediately after they transgress as adults, the phenomenon is to revitalize not only the sovereignty of author remarks, “Only that once again they broke the Love humans over nature but also the inequities that sovereignty Laws. That lay down who should be loved And how. And entails (Johnson, 2009). Kunhi and Kunhi 5 Survival instinct is also manifest in the theme of preserva- blink of the earth woman’s eye. As earth is apostrophized as tion in the novel. Nature desperately attempts to be preserved the mother, the act of defilement proves to be as deceitful and for posterity in the eloquent symbol of Paradise Pickle dishonorable as working against one’s own mother. Preserves. Analogous to the same, Ammu strives to uphold Roy, thereby, succeeds in presenting an ecocritical perspec- her individuality. The fear of losing nature in its pristine form tive through humanizing nature in a way that appeals to our brings in the need for it to be artificially preserved. The emotions as well, and justifies the title of the novel. The move to author states that Nature and history were prevalent in the blur the boundaries between nature and the human world not form of bleached bones indicating artificial preservation yet only works as a stylistic strategy that echoes the theme but com- again. In the chapter, “The God of Small Things,” Ammu municates with the sensibilities and sentiments of the readers. senses the vinegary fumes that rose from the cements of The ecofeminist dilution of duality works as a subversive strat- Paradise Pickles—“fumes that wrinkled youth and preserved egy questioning the conceptualization of hierarchies where for futures” (Roy, 1997, p. 224). Ursula Heise (2008) creates “the anthropocentric feminists, the ‘other’ is nonhuman animals new ecocritical perspectives in Sense of Place and Sense of and nature; for radical feminists, ‘other’ is culture and man; for Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global, in the animal liberationists, ‘other’ is human emotion and collec- which she urges ecocritics to look beyond the immediacy of tivity” (Gruen, 1993, p. 80). Efficacious incorporation of the place and envision the Earth as “our place, our locus,” as a various motifs to signal revolt in an age of anthropocene proves place that deserves loyalty and preservation (p. 46). to be successful. The author underscores that “literature does The picture Roy conjures up of Earth as a Woman giving not float above the material world in some aesthetic ether, but life to Man subverts the theory of Semitic religions profess- rather, plays a part in an immensely complete global system, in ing woman to be created from the ribs of Man. which energy, matter and ideas interact” (Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996, p. xix). The foregrounding of the personal despair of the The earth—four thousand six hundred million years old—was a downtrodden like Velutha, Ammu, and the suppression of other forty-six-year-old woman—as old, say, as Aleyamma Teacher, natural elements in the novel, work by extension through inter- who gave them Malayalam lessons. It had taken the whole of the textuality and activism in Roy’s prose works, extending the Earth Woman’s life for the earth to become what it was. For the theme of revolt beyond the purview of the characters and text. oceans to part. For the mountains to rise. (p. 27) She extends it to the state of the dispossessed tribals and the displaced farmers affected by the “Big Dams,” which Roy Chacko presents an objective and impersonal Earth Woman claims in her essay, “The Greater Common Good,” are a brazen as opposed to Mother Earth stripping the earth of its humane means of taking water, land, and irrigation away from the poor qualities. Carolyn Merchant (1993), a noted ecofeminist, and gifting it to the rich, as “their reservoirs displace huge popu- says that in olden days, “The image of the earth as a living lations of people, leaving them homeless and destitute” (Roy, organism and nurturing mother had served as a cultural con- 2002b, p. 42). And this “public turmoil of the nation” is further straint restricting the actions of human beings,” and she extended to the earth as a whole when she voices her concern stresses, “As long as the earth was considered to be alive and over the amassing of nuclear weapons: sensitive, it could be considered a breach of human ethical behaviour to carry out destructive acts against it” (p. 276). As If there is a nuclear war, our foes will not be China or America with the case of Chacko, the modernization process lessened or even each other. Our foe will be the earth herself. The very man’s reverence for Mother Nature and ecological destruc- elements—sky, the air, the land, the wind and water—will all tion proved to be as rampant as the subordination of women. turn against us. (Roy, 2002a, p. 6) Virgina Woolf (1929) in her A Room of One’s Own states, The voice of The God of Small Things, thus, works through “Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically extension. she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history.” Roy’s Declaration of Conflicting Interests assertion of “Man’s subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify” (Roy, 1997, p. 308) functions par- The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect allel to the same. Carolyn Merchant’s (1990) outstanding to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Funding Revolution traces the Renaissance shift toward patriarchal authority that expunged the female presence in an The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author- Aristotelian, God-permeated universe. In keeping with Roy’s ship, and/or publication of this article. subversive tactics, when Roy states, “The whole of contem- References porary history, the World Wars, the War of Dreams, the Man on the Moon, science, literature, philosophy, the pursuit of Ch’ien, E. N.-M. (2004). The politics of design. In E. N.-M. Ch’ien knowledge was no more than a Blink of the Earth Woman’s (Ed.), Weird English (pp. 154-200). London, England: Harvard eye” (p. 27), she renders the whole of (his)tory to a mere University Press. 6 SAGE Open Das, I. S. (2011). Sareeram Nadi Naskshatram [Body, river, star]. Roy, A. (2015, August 24). Talking to Arundhati (S. Naqvi, Thrissur, India: Kairali Offset Press. Interviewer). Outlook India. Retrieved from http://www.out- Elliott, E. A. (1988). Literature as radical statement. In E. 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Journal of Language Teaching and scientific revolution. San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins. Research, 2, 613-617. Retrieved from http://www.academy- Merchant, C. (1993). The death of nature. In C. Merchant & M. E. publication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol02/03/15.pdf Zimmerman (Eds.), Environmental philosophy: From animal rights to radical ecology (pp. 268-283). NJ: Prentice Hall. Author Biographies Mortensen, P. (2003). Civilization’s fear of nature: Postmodernity, Rukhaya M. Kunhi is an award-winning writer who has published culture and environment in The God of Small Things. In K. her works in National and International Journals and Anthologies. Stierstorfer (Ed.), Beyond postmodernism (pp. 179-195). New She has won various accolades in writing including ones from the York, NY: Walter de Gruyter. New Book Society of India, Ekphrasis India, Storymirror.com and Rabain, J.-F. (2005). Return of the repressed. Retrieved from http:// the Forgotten Writers’ Foundation, Egypt. Rukhaya is the recipient www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3435301263.html of the Reuel International Prize for Criticism 2016, for the most Roy, A. (1997). The god of small things. London, England: promising upcoming critic. She currently works as an assistant pro- Flamingo. fessor of English at Nehru College, Kasaragod, Kerala. Read more Roy, A. (2002a). The end of imagination. In A. Roy (Ed.), The alge- of her work at www.rukhaya.com. bra of infinite justice (pp. 1-38). London, England: Flamingo. Zeenath Mohamed Kunhi is currently working as an assistant pro- Roy, A. (2002b). The greater common good. In A. Roy (Ed.), The fessor of English at Farook College, Calicut, India. She has her algebra of infinite justice (pp. 38-126). London, England: Flamingo. articles and poems published in National and International Journals.

Journal

SAGE Open – SAGE

Published: Jun 30, 2017

Keywords: Asia; area studies; humanities; cultural anthropology; anthropology; social sciences; race/gender; arts and humanities; curriculum; education; gender/sexuality and politics; intersectional politics; literature

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