AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of RequirementsFor the Degree of Sarjana Sastra In English Letters
By
IRINE CAHYANING TYAS
Student Number: 044214019
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
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God is in every tommorow,
Therefore I life for today.
Certain of finding at sunrise,
Guidance and strength for the way.
Power for each moment of weakness,
Hope for each moment of pain,
Comfort for every sorrow,
Sunshine and joy after the rain...
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My Little Brothers,
and Edo Baskoro
who
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Mary for the blessings, strength and miracles They have been giving in my life, so that I am finally able to accomplish this undergraduate thesis. Thank God for answering my prayers.
My gratitude is also directed to my advisor, Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S.S, M.Hum. I am also grateful for her guidance, patience, and especially for the time she has spent for reading and correcting my thesis. I also thank to my co- advisor Elisa Dwi Wardani S.S., M.Hum. for your guidance in finishing this thesis. I really appreciate all things she has done in process of writing my thesis
Furthermore, I deeply express my gratitude to my beloved parents for their love, prayers, support, both financial and spiritual and good advices. I am so proud to be their daughter. It is wonderful to have both of them as my parents. For my little brothers; Dhani and Bayu, thanks for the love, support and help. I am so proud of them. I would like to thank them for encouraging and motivating me in finishing my thesis.
Next, my sincere gratitude belongs to Edo Baskoro. Thanks for the love, support, patience, help and guidance. It is very helpful and means a lot for me. It is nice to spend my time with you.
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Ucok, Disti, Eka, Astrid, Amel, Elin, Caca, Rani, Dita, Intan, Lisis, Nanang, Siswanto, Ison, Feme, Rizki, Patrik). It is nice to have nice friends like them. There are many wonderful and exciting moments that we have shared together, “Thanks for the memories friends!” I would not forget to thank all the staffs in English Letters Department. I thank them for their help.
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CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW ... 9
A. Review of Related Studies ... 9
B. Review of Related Theories ... 11
1. Theories of Character and Characterization ... 11
2. Theories of Conflict ... 14
a. Theories of Caste... 16 4. Relation between Literature and Society ... 17
E. Review on the Historical Background of Keralastate, India ... 19
F. Theoretical Framework ... 21
A. The Main Characters’ Characteristics ... 28
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BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 66
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as Reflected through the Main Characters and Their Conflicts in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.
This undergraduate thesis examines one of Arundhati Roy’s novel entitled The God of Small Things. It presents Ammu and her twin children Rahel and Estha as the central characters who live in conservative Syrian Christian and Touchable family that obey the caste system. It is recited in the story that Ammu and her twin children have to face problems happening to her and her children. Roy shows her criticisms toward the rigid caste system that makes the innocent people have to be sacrificed.
There are three problems to be discussed in this study. The first is the description of the main characters: Ammu, Rahel and Estha. The second is the description of conflicts that are undergone by the main characters. The third is Roy’s criticisms toward the rigid caste system by revealing the main characters’ conflicts.
The writer used the library research in collecting the data. This analysis used the socio-cultural historical approach. This approach is suitable for the analysis because it concerned with the criticism toward the caste system in India.
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as Reflected through the Main Characters and Their Conflicts in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.
Tesis ini berhubungan dengan salah satu novel Arundhati Roy yang berjudul The God of Small Things. Novel ini menyajikan Ammu dan anak kembarnya Rahel dan Estha sebagai tokoh utama yang hidup di antara keluarga Kristen Siria yang konservatif dan kaum “Tersentuh” (Touchable) yang sangat menjunjung tinggi sistem kasta. Dikisahkan di dalam cerita tersebut Ammu dan anak kembarnya harus menghadapi masalah-masalah yang terjadi pada mereka. arundhati Roy sebagai penulis menyatakan kritik-kritiknya pada sistem kasta yang kaku sehingga membuat orang-orang yang tidak berdosa menjadi korban.
Ada tiga rumusan masalah yang diangkat dalam penelitian ini yaitu yang pertama gambaran tentang karakter tokoh-tokoh utama: Ammu, Rahel dan Estha. Kedua, gambaran tentang konflik-konflik yang dialami oleh para tokoh utama. Ketiga, kritik yang diberikan oleh Roy mengenai sistem kasta yang kaku dengan melihat konflik-konflik para tokoh utama.
Penulis menggunakan penelitian pustaka dalam pengumpulan data. Pendekatan yang dipakai dalam analisis ini yaitu pendekatan sosio-kultural historikal. Pendekatan ini tepat digunakan dalam analisis karena tesis ini menitikberatkan pada kritik yang terjadi pada sistem kasta di India.
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A. Background of the Study
After reading the work of literature, we find that literary work and reality have one similarity. Both of them convey the story of human life. In real life, we live to learn how to develop, to solve problems and to experience the gloomy side of life. It becomes a place for us to struggle for a better condition and to survive from harsh life. Here, we often deal with conflicts or problems, which are the result of our relationship and interaction with others. The more problems we find, the more experiences of problem solving we get. However, we are also able to become maturer by knowing other people’s problems and their solutions. There are many kinds of problem in our daily life, such as problem on love, social class distinction and education.
We can learn many things in literature, such as the conflict of human life, the ideas, or the criticism the author wants to say. Literature, actually, gives us a picture of life from the author’s view. Besides, this picture is performed to us in a vivid and moving form (Brooks, Purser and Warren, 1952: 8)
surroundings. Basically, the conflict emerges because of the social class differences among them.
In literature, the authors of literary works write the work of literature because of their experience and vision about the situation of the place or time they live in. They will respond whether they admire or criticize the condition of the situation by expressing their ideas, feeling and vision in their own style into meaningful and beautiful work which cannot be expressed by common people.
In the literary works, many authors compose their stories based on what they have seen and experienced in real life. The inspiration of composition is based on their significant life experience that has a big contribution to the author’s personality development. Thus, the theme of their books reveal stories of how people overcome and solve their conflicts or problems in their life. Rene Wellek and Austin Warren in their book Theory of Literature (1956) also suggest that the work of literature portrays life as reality. They also mention that literarature looks like a real-life portrait. It is an illustration of human lives because literary works present the reality of human situations, problems, feelings, and relationships (1956: 96). From the explanation above, we can say that both reality of the life and the literary work consist of stories on how people struggle to overcome their conflicts or problems with others.
it, captures her childhood experiences in Ayemenem (http://website.lineone.net/~jon.simmons/roy/tgost.htm)
Roy’s first novel, The God of Small Things, is a controversial novel, because many praises of some critics, said that the novel is remarkable for its quality of innocence and originality. Besides, it also raises many controversies from her homeland (India) itself, and from Syrian Christian Community. India communist criticism from E.M.S. Namboodiripad said “Anybody who attacks Communists anywhere in the world will be welcomed by the captains of the industry of bourgeois literature in the world.” And Syrian Christian Community said that the novel hurts the community in India. Kerala Chief Minister E.K Nayanar’s claimed that The God of Small Things had won acclaim in the West only because of its anti-Communist venom. It is also called as an obscene novel and some people want its final chapter removed (http://indiastar.com/roy.hlm)
We cannot deny that literature is a good device to depict the reality from the author’s point of view which cannot be presented by other means with intensity and meaning. It means that literature is effectively and frankly showing us the truth of the fact which is unseen for some people. Of course, we realize how useful, meaningful, and beautiful literature is if we pay a scrupulous attention to literature.
In this study, the writer intends to analyze The God of Small Things. The God of Small Things is the spirit of powerlessness and social exclusion that
or Paravan. When Velutha has an affair with Ammu, he breaks an ancient taboo and incurs the anger of Ammu's family and the Kerala police. He breaks the rigid social rules of the caste system and therefore, the authorities must punish him. Ammu tries to live in a patriarchal society, and Ammu, the biggest victim of the system, is a typical image of a daughter being marginalized in a patriarchal society. Roy has given voice and expression to the sufferings of these people; their oppression at the hands of those who wield power and the machinery that dispenses injustice. Based on the description of how the small things in life build up, translate into people’s behavior and affect their lives and the conflicts among the main characters, the writer wants to analyze the author’s criticisms toward caste system as reflected through the main characters and their conflicts, because those conflicts which appear are the author’s criticism towards the Indian society in the novel.
B. Problem Formulation
For further understanding, here, the writer formulated questions based on the background mentioned above:
1. How are the main characters in the novel characterized? 2. What conflicts are undergone by the main characters?
C. Objectives of the Study
Below are the objectives of this study that are drawn by considering the background and the problem formulation mentioned in the previous part. First is to describe the main characters’ physical characteristics and personalities, to reveal the main characters’ conflicts, both the inner conflicts and the external conflicts. And the last is to convey and explain the author’s criticisms towards the caste system that can be drawn from the previous analysis about the main characters and their conflicts.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to provide a clear and accurate analysis and to avoid any misunderstanding, there are some terms that need to be defined.
1. Criticism
According to Baldick in his book The Concise Oxford Dictionary Literary Terms, criticism is concerned with revealing the author’s true motive or intention,
in terms of its relationship to some fields, such us history, gender, and social class (1990: 48). Criticism in this study means the author’s motive or intention as presented in her writing. In the relation with history of a group of people, a novel may be used by the author to defend or to criticize people.
Criticism in this thesis means judgements about the social condition of a society especially in relation with the unfair treatments toward minorities through artistic works as the intention or the motive of the author.
In general, character may be defined as a descriptive analyzes of a human virtue or vice or of a general type of human character. Related to the literature, Abrams in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms specifies this definition. He says:
“Characters are persons presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with moral, dispositional, and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say- the dialogue- and by what they do- the action (1985: 23).”
According to Stanton, the term “character” can be used in two ways. First, character refers to the individuals who appear in the story. Second, character also refers to moral principles that make up each of the individuals (1965: 17). Hence, major or minor character refers to those who become the main focus in the story from the beginning to the end (Milligan, 1983: 55).
3. Conflict
The first definition of conflict is taken from Literature for composition: Essay, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama by Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William
E. Cain. It is mentioned there that conflict is a struggle between a character and some obstacle (for example, another character or fate) or between internal forces, such as divided loyalties (2005: 1375).
4. Caste System
Based on Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, the term caste was first used by Portuguese travelers who came to India in the 16th Century. Caste came from Spanish and Portuguese word “casta” which means “race”, “breed” or “lineage” (http://www.eb.com:180cgibin.html)
5. Syrian Christian
Syrian Christian is also known as Saint Thomas Christians who are ethnoreligious group from Kerala, India, adhering to the various churches of the Saint Thomas Christian tradition. The Syrian Christian people follow a unique Hebrew-Syrian Christian tradition which includes several Jewish elements although they have absorbed some Hindu customs. It is believed that actually the Syrian Christian people are the Brahmins caste who obtained special caste status in the prevailing caste system in India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Christian_of_Kerala.htm)
6. Untouchability
Based on Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, Untouchability is a social system in which people belonging to a particular group restrict people in other
groups from interacting with them socially. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchable_(social_system).
7. Untouchable
CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
The God of Small Things was written by Arundhati Roy in 1997. Roy was
the first Indian novelist who won the prestigious Britain’s Booker Prize in 1997. Her novel was first published in United States by Random House and in Great Britain by Flamingo, both were in 1997.
In this novel, the author’s socio-cultural historical background plays the significant role in shaping the story because the important details in this novel like the characters and the setting are influenced by the historical background of the author. Some of the characters and events in this novel are much similar with her life and her family, no wonder that this novel is presumed as her autobiographical novel.
The God of Small Things is Arundhati Roy’s first literary work that
describes a real condition of the Indian society which applies the caste system strictly. This work portrays the oppression of the caste system toward the people inside the system. People from the lower class of the caste system are treated badly almost in all aspects of life. Caste system for the Indian people is likely their way of life that should be obeyed and maintained.
All of the oppositions to The God of Small Things were not due to the obscenity but rather to the explicit description of the role of the Untouchables in India, and in particular the intimate relationship between an Untouchable
handyman and a factory owner’s daughter. In other words an intimate relationship between an Untouchable man and a higher caste woman was forbidden in India caste system. This was also a proof that fifty years after Mahatma Gandhi claimed the equality for the Untouchables by naming them as Harijans (Children of God), the Hindu caste system remained applied and “Untouchability” was still an
important issue in the society (http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/caste.html)
Besides the criticism above, the writer found the related studies about The God of Small Things in two undergraduate theses. The first was about A Study of
the Influence of Childhood Traumatic Experiences of Fraternal Twins Rahel on
Their Adulthood Personalities, as Revealed in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things by Ida Yudiarini, this undergraduate thesis is about the influence of
childhood traumatic syndrome, focusing on characterization. She stated that unpleasant experiences in childhood can traumatize a person and influence his or her adult personality. Then, the second undergraduate thesis is The Influence of Socio-cultural Aspects on Gender Discrimination as Revealed in Arundhati Roy’s
The God of Small Things by Eny Haryani, which focuses on gender discrimination
problem that occurs in Kerala, India. She stated that women have lower position in society and thus they are considered as the passive object by their husbands. They do not have the same opportunity as men to develop all their talent and potential, and get their rights as God’s creature.
and their conflicts. Then, the writer will analyze what conflicts are undergone by the main characters, and the writer will also analyze on how the conflicts that are being undergone by the main characters appear to be the the author’s criticisms towards the caste system in the novel. The practices of Untouchability in Indian caste system bounded and discriminated every aspect of life of the Untouchables. It makes them cannot improve their life and there are rules which obviously deep rooted in Indian caste system. Nothing is able to bring changes for these rigid social laws.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories of Character and Characterization
Characters are usually the key to a writing and become the simplest place to start a story. It should be noticed at first that characters are fiction. However, characters are very ‘life-like’ so that when you read about them, you will feel that you know them like a person in life (Grenville: 1998: 35-36).
There are two classifications of fictional characters according to Milligan (1983: 155). They are:
a. Major characters
his action, the theme of the story is conveyed. Major characters become the center of the story because they endure problems, conflict, happiness, sorrow, etc. From their action, the reader knows the author’s messages of the story.
b. Minor characters
Minor characters are characters who play less important role than major characters. Their appearance support the main character to develop the story so that they appear only in a certain setting. They do not endure the problem of the story. Minor characters do not have experiences as the major characters have.
Authors use many different ways to convey information about characters in fiction through the methods of characterizing which is often called characterization. Grenville states:
“Characterization is all the things writers do to build up the characters they want. Characterization is the process that transforms real-life people into characters in fiction (1998: 36).”
M. J. Murphy’s Understanding Unseens (1972: 161-173) included the theory of characterization and he proposed nine methods to disclose the characters. Below are those nine methods:
a. Personal description
The character is personally described by the author through his or her appearance (skin color, hair, eyes, nose, hands, and other part of the body) and clothes (how she or he wears the cloth and what kind of cloth she or he wears).
b. Character as seen by another
Instead of describing a character directly, the author can describe the character through the other’s character opinion, view, attitudes, and comments.
The author can give us an insight into the character of one of the persons in the book through what that person says. Whenever a person speaks, whenever he is in conversation with another, whenever he puts forward an opinion, he is giving us some clue to his character.
d. Past life
This methodes invites the readers to describe the characters through their past life of experiences. By letting the reader learn something about a person’s past life, the author can give us a clue to events that have helped to shape a person’s character.
e. Conversation of others
The author describes the character through the conversations of the other people and the things they say about him or her.
f. Reactions
The readers are able to obtained information about the character by analyzing his or her reactions while facing some events, incidents, or cases. Person reacts to various situations and events can also give the reader a clue to a person’s character.
g. Direct comment
The author can describe or comment on a person’s character directly. This method is easier than the other since the author gives the description about the characters directly.
h. Thoughts
The author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about. It is something that we cannot do in our real life. The author also can tell us what different people are thinking.
i. Mannerism
2. Theories of Conflict
Laurence Perrine (1974: 44) defined conflict as a clash of action, ideas, desires or wills between two individuals or among people in the society. Conflict can include external and internal. In the real life, people try to avoid conflict, they prefer to live without any clash or quarrel. Although people try to avoid conflict, they will soon get conflict, even without wars or large scale of disagreement.
Characters in a literary work have important roles in building a good story. The story can be achieved by revealing conflict (Danziger and Johnson, 1961:20). Conflict in the literature seems to be very important because a good conflict will lead readers to the enjoyment of reading a literary work.
In their book A Handbook to Literature (1986: 107) Holman and Harmon stated the conflict is the “the struggle that grows out of the interplay of the two opposing focus in a plot. Conflict provides interest, suspense and tension.” They also stated that the struggles that occur may be the struggle against nature, against another person, against society, and struggle for mastery.
Pooley (1968: 9) also said that conflict may be an argument between opposing forces like man against man, man against nature, man against fate or perhaps an internal one between the two opposing parts of man’s personality.
the main character faces the opposing forces successfully or he or she fails in facing the forces. Redman divides conflict into 2 kinds:
a. The inner conflict : a struggle between the heart and mind of the protagonist andthe conflict between oneself.
b. The external conflict : a struggle between the protagonist and an outside force, for example conflict between two or more people.
Further Redman also suggests the way to find out the conflict is by signing the problems in the story including the characters’ attitude toward the problems. In this way, the conflicts between the characters will be clearly identified and then the end of conflict can be obtained (1964: 363).
According to Perrine (1974: 44) conflict in a literary work may consist of one conflict that is stated clearly and the readers can easily identify the conflict. It may also consist of multi conflicts or more than one conflict that are difficult to be understood by readers. To understand multi conflicts the reader should analyze the conflict one by one.
3. Theories of Caste
The word caste comes from the Spanish and Portuguese word “casta” which means race, breed, or lineage. Many Indians use the term “jati”. Caste as religious concept is recognized by Oxford Dictionary as “each of the hereditary classes of Hindu society, distinguished by relative degrees of ritual purity or pollution and of social status and as any exclusive social class”. Anthropologists use the term more generally, to refer to a social group that is endogamous and occupationally specialized; such groups are common in highly stratified societies with a very low degree of social mobilitythat is to say, a caste system is one in which an individual's occupation and marriage prospects are determined by his or her birth, thus preventing an individual from either getting a better job or from marrying upward.
Hindus believe that being an Untouchable is a punishment for having been bad in a former life. By being good and obedient, an Untouchable can obtain a higher rebirth. Traditionally, a woman who has had sex with a man from a lower caste would be expelled from her caste. There are many unprinted rules that there is no interaction between the Touchables and the Untouchables. The Untouchables are forbidden to touch the goods of the Touchables. And the Untouchables cannot enter the room with the same door. The whole caste system turns on the prestige of the Brahmans (Hutton, 1963:49).
According to the code of Manu, a marriage between a Brahmin woman and a Sudra man would result in a “Candala”, who is described as “the lowest of men” and shares many of the attributes of the contemporary “Untouchable” (Moffit, 1979: 34). Michael Moffit writes that ancient textual sources from the South suggest the existence of similarly ranked human relations and stresses that many attributes of contemporary South Indian “Untouchables” were apparently present 1500 years ago in the Sangam period. “Untouchables” are generally associated with professions such as leather workers, butchers, launderers, and latrine cleaners (http//www.indiastar/roy.hml).
4. The Relation between Literature and Society
The relation between literature and society is usually discussed by starting with the phrase, derived from the De Bonald, that literature is an expression of society, but what does this axiom mean? It is assumed that literature at any given time mirrors the current social institution ‘correctly’, it is false; it is common place, trite and vague if it means only that literature depicts some aspects of social reality (1956: 95).
Therefore, they offer a specific evaluative criterion stating that the relation between literature and society is that literature mirrors or expresses life because an artist is supposed to express life in his or her work. Yet, it does not mean that an artist expresses or mirrors the whole life of a given time but means his or her time completely; the artist is aware of the specific social, economic, political, and religious condition in his or her era, and he or she should be representative of his or her age and society; it is the artist’s duty to convey historical as well as social truths as a symbol of artistic values in literature. Thus, literature can also be viewed as the essence, the abridgement, and summary at all history. Therefore, the relation between literature and society is very close in which the reader can catch literature as the mirror reflects the society as well as in the author’s era (Wellek and Warren, 1956: 95)
be an absolute realistic mirror of the existent society in the real life, but there is a possibility that it comments on the society in our life (1984: 5). The society in the novel has a possibility to become a social criticism in the real life of society.
Langland also explained that everything which is seen such as norms, conventions, codes, background, places, peoples, institutions are included in society. But its particular manifestations in a novel will be determined by its role within the work (1984: 6-7).
C. Review on the Historical Background of Kerala state, India.
1. Religions
Untouchables have separate doors to homes and must take water from separate wells. They are considered to be in an unending condition of impurity. Untouchables were named “Harijans” or Children of God by Mahatma Gandhi. He tried to raise their status with symbolic gestures such as befriending and eating with the Untouchables. Increasing mobility is very rare in the caste system. Most people are still in the same caste in their whole life and marry within their own caste. (http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/caste.html).
D. Theoretical Framework
Concerning to the analysis of main characters and their conflicts in revealing the author’s criticism towards the caste system, three theories are illustrated in the previous section, such as the theories of character and characterization, the theories of conflicts, and the theories of caste are going to be the bases to answer the problem formulation. Each theory has its own contributions to this discussion and therefore they will be very helpful.
The theories of character and characterization are very helpful in giving description of the main character in the story. These theories enable the writer to consider the main character’s personal description, speech, thought, manner, and reaction as the method in disclosing figure. Meanwhile, the theories of conflict guide the writer to differentiate any conflicts that undergo by the main characters. By distinguishing the conflicts, the analysis will be well-arranged and will not be confusing. The relation between literature and society is used due to the sociocultural-historical approach that is applied in this study. The last theory is the theories of caste that will help the writer to answer the third question in problem formulations.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The writer would like to employ a novel written by Arundhati Roy to be the object of this study. The title of the novel is The God of Small Things and its first publication was in 1997. This novel was published by Flamingo in Great Britain and by Random House in United States in the same year, 1997. Yet, this study refers to the Random House edition in 1997 that contains 321 pages.
In Roy’s first novel, The God of Small Things, she got the prestigious Britain’s Booker Prize in 1997 and The Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002. The book is semi-autobiographical and a major part captures her childhood experiences in Ayemenem.
Set in Kerala in the 1960’s, The God of Small Things is about two-children two-eggs, Rahel and Estha and also about their mother, Ammu. It is about their tragic life in the way that they experienced oppressions by other people in their society. They have to experience the tragic life since Ammu, a Syrian Christian married a Bengali Hindu man which causes their caste degraded automatically, became Untouchable people. By marrying a man who came from the lower caste, she was automatically expelled from her family. The condition became worse when Ammu got divorce with Baba, her husband. She had to come back to Ayemenem house where her family lived.
When she came to the house, everyone was mocking her. Until one day, there is accidental-death by accidentally drowning of visiting English cousin-Sophie Mol. The life of the three becomes worst because they have to face conflicts with others, who have already underestimated them. Rahel and Estha live in unhappiness, uncertainty and complicated adult world. Furthermore, Ammu’s rebellion towards the society (caste system) by loving Velutha, an Untouchable man, made her putting away from her family.
Here, the conflicts which have to be faced by the main characters were also influenced by the religions. The conflicts of the main characters with other characters were also as the reflection of the caste system which laid down in their life. Everyone has to obey its unwritten life law. In this novel, The God of Small Things is the spirit of powerlessness and social exclusion that pervades the lives
of the unfortunate of the world. Roy has given voice and expression to the sufferings of these people; their oppression at the hands of those who wield power and the machinery that dispenses injustice.
B. Approach of the Study
actions of certain group of people became the subject matters (Rohrberger and Woods, 1971: 9).
The culture in which a literary work is made takes an important role and the work is a product of a reflection of and commentary on social realities that take place in a society. The sociocultural-historical approach put literary work as a product of and a reflection of civilization. This is supported by Guerin’s statement that the historical-biographical approach percieved a literary work in a great proportion as a reflection of the author’s life and times (Guerin, 1979: 25).
C. Method of the Study
There are some steps that can be applied as the method in composing this thesis. The writer used library research that would supply two sources, primary and secondary sources, to support the analysis of the chosen topic. The primary source was the novel, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. The secondary sources were books and website related to the theories, and the approach which were used to analyze the problems. The book such as Kerala: A Portrait of Malabar Coast, A Handbook to Literature, and Understanding Unseens as the
main sources of were used to determine the approach and the theories in this study.
to find out the main characters’ conflicts in the novel as the author’s criticisms toward the caste system in India. By revealing the conflicts which the main characters faced, the writer can draw that each main character criticizes the caste system that applies in their society.
In attempt to look for the answers from the problem formulation, the second step was collecting the data about the caste system as seen in the novel. Some references which are related to the theories and some studies which are related to the novel, are used to answer the problem formulation.
the problem formulation since the problem is related to the life in Keralan society in the novel and the conflicts within it.
Finally, after analyzing the characters as well as the conflicts in the novel, and the third problem formulation could be answered. The conclusion of this study could be drawn from this step.
CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
As we come to the analysis part, it is better for the writer to give a brief introduction regarding its content. Here, the answers of three problems formulation as mentioned in the first chapter will be given. To specify the answers of each question, this part will be divided into three divisions. The first subchapter discusses on how are the main characters are characterized in the novel “The God of Small Things”. The second subchapter discusses conflicts are undergone by the
main characters, both the internal conflicts and the external conflicts. The third subchapter discusses on Roy’s criticisms toward the caste system that can be drawn from the previous analysis.
A. The Description of The Main Characters
1. Ammu
Ammu, Rahel’s and Estha’s mother, is a beautiful young lady who has a delicate, chiseled face, a small straight nose, nut brown skin, black eyebrows, curly hair and has deep dimples when she smiles. According to Estha and Rahel, Ammu is the most beautiful woman that they had ever seen.
Ammu is a Syrian Christian woman from the Brahmin caste. The Brahmin caste is the highest position in Indian caste system. Syrian Christian people follow a unique Hebrew-Syrian Christian tradition which includes several Jewish elements although they have absorbed some Hindu customs. It is believed that
actually the Syrian Christian people are the Brahmins caste who obtained special caste status in the prevailing caste system in India. As a higher caste woman, she cannot have any relationship with the lower caste moreover with the Untouchables. Although Ammu’s family is a Syrian Christian family, but the family has to follow and obey the caste system because it rooted hereditary. Indian caste system, there are some people outside the fourfold social order, they are often called the “Outcastes” or the “Untouchables”. They have suffered from number of civil and religious disabilities, which have now prohibited by laws but have not entirely vanished in practice. They are not allowed to enter certain part of villages, or drink water from the common village well used by other Hindus.
Since Ammu was a child, she has a tragic childhood because of the patriarchal system practiced in her family. One of its assumption is a girl does not need any a higher education. According to her father, Pappachi, it is an unnecessary expense for a girl to get a high education.
be “looked after”. Baba agrees with his manager’s idea because he worries if he would be fired. He does not refuse his manager’s idea although his wife will be “taken care” by his boss.
Over coffee Mr. Hollick proposed that Baba go away for a while. For a holiday. To a picnic perhaps, for treatment. For as long as it took him to get better. And for the period of time that he was away, Mr. Hollick suggested that Ammu be sent to his bungalow to be “looked after” (p. 41) Ammu cannot understand that her husband sells her to his manager. Mr. Hollick is a powerful man who can do anything toward people of lower position. He has power to control and to oppress people who work for him. Therefore, people from the lower position cannot do anything except agreeing what their boss wants.
Ammu’s rebellion that she made is seen from her divorce with her husband because her husband seems to underestimate, oppress, and regard her merely as his stuff by “selling” her to get safety job position. She cannot accept what her husband did to her, she remains to divorce from her husband. She remains to divorce because she is sacrificed by her husband to please her husband’s boss, and her husband turns to be a rude person when she does not follow what her husband says. Thus, she breaks the Laws again. Ammu realizes that she is not equally treated and she is being underestimated by her husband. Therefore she prefers to break the rules although in her society to get divorce is prohibited and shameful.
consequences of marrying a man who has different religion. But she chooses to take the risk, therefore she is expelled by her family and out of her caste. Ammu is a rebel woman who breaks the tradition because she married a man from different religion. Although she knows the consequences, but she does not care about the rules and it impacts toward her family. The rebellion can also be seen from the way she dresses. Women have to wear a long sleeves shirt with her saris to cover their body, but Ammu prefers to wear backless blouses and smokes long cigarettes. She wears what she likes to wear and do what she likes to do. “She wore backless blouses with her saris and carried a silver lame purse on a chain. She smoked long cigarettes in a silver cigarette holder and learned how to blow perfect smoke rings (p. 39-40)”.
Ammu’s biggest rebellion is seen when she secretly falls in love with an Untouchable Velutha who comes from lower caste. She breaks the rules, because she makes her family embarassed.
What was it that gave Ammu this Unsafe Edge? This air of unpredictability? It was what she had battling inside her. An unmixable mix. The infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless rage of a suicide bomber. It was this that grew inside her, and eventually led her to love by night the man her children loved by day. To use by night the boat that her children used by day. The boat that Estha sat on, and Rahel found (p. 44)
Ammu is a woman in her thirty who raises up her twin children by herself. She is a woman who is very disappointed with her childhood, and considers it as a trauma. She becomes a person who cannot easily believe someone else especially those who have power, because people who have power usually only take advantages from the powerless one without thinking about the effect.
As she grew older, Ammu learned with this cold, calculating cruelty. She developed a lofty sense of injustice and the mulish, reckless streak that develops in Someone Small who has been bullied all their lives by Someone Big (p. 181)
From the quotation above, it seems that violence has created trauma to Ammu. This experience influences her life. Therefore, when she becomes a single parent, she loves her children very much and she is being over protective toward them. She educates them that not all human beings are good. That they should be careful to live their life.
Ammu loved her children (of course), but their wide-eyed vulnerability and their willingness to love people who didn’t really love them exasperated her and sometimes made her want to hurt them- just as an education, a protection (p. 42)
Ammu is kind of a really good mother. She always takes care of her children Rahel and Estha, and tries to be fair to them. Ammu is always there if her children need her, and tries to handle both, Rahel and Estha. She does anything to protect her children. She can give everything for her children’s happiness, although she has to sacrifice herself.
This condition made Ammu seeks someone whom she thinks to be equal to her and loves her no matter what she did in the past. She finds Velutha, her friend when she was a child who comes from the lowest position. By loving Velutha she can be herself without pretending to be someone else.
2. Rahel
Rahel is Ammu’s daughter and Estha’s twin sister. Although they are twins, but Rahel and Estha do not look much like each other, it is because they came from two different eggs. According to the doctor who has helped their birth, they came from two different eggs, so they are just the same with other ordinary siblings.
Physically, Rahel is a little bit skinny with her brown eyes. Her new teeth are waiting inside the gum. Rahel’s hair is bounded on top of her head like a fountain. On her hair, she wears a Love-in-Tokyo- a rubber band. As a child, she is a typical of fashionable child because she wears a rubber band which is very popular in Kerala at that time.
family, she grows to be a broken home child, Rahel really wants to have a mother and a father as a normal family. She wants people to see her like a child who comes from an ordinary normal family. It is seen from her reaction when their car got stuck in the middle of demonstration with Ammu, Chacko, Estha and Baby Kochamma. A man suddenly opened the car’s door and said that she had to ask her father to buy an air conditioner so she could not feel hot anymore in the car. She only smiled to the man for assuming Chacko as her father.
Then, unkindly, “Ask your daddy to buy you an Air Condition!” and he hooted with delight at his own wit and timing. Rahel smiled back at him, pleased to have Chacko mistaken for her father. Like a normal family (p. 76)
Rahel has a deep wish that she has Ammu and Baba to be beside her, although she is also happy with her condition now. She can accept all that happened to her as a gift. She has Ammu, as a single mother who also acts and has role as a father and a mother.
Rahel grows up to be a girl who lacks of love and affection from her family. She has to live her own life. “In matters related to the raising of Rahel, Chacko and Mammachi tried, but they couldn’t. They provided the care (foods, clothes, fees), but withdrew the concern (p. 17).” Her family can give anything she wanted, but they cannot give their love to her. Especially when her mother died, she lost control from her parents. Nobody gives her the best advice regarding to life experience.
anybody who would pay her a dowry and therefore without an obligatory husband looming on her horizon (p. 18)”. She has to manage her marriage alone without the help of her family member. Nobody helps her because she is half Hindu and broken home child.
Rahel is also a trouble maker girl. She does anything to get any attention from her surroundings. Everybody in her environment underestimates her because she is a daughter whose mother a rebel who breaks the ancient taboo of caste system which rooted in the society. The condition becomes worse when Ammu died, she moves from one school to another school. It happens because her family does not give her any affection. She gets everything she wants; money, cloth, but she did not get love.
Rahel drifted from school to school. She spent her holidays in Ayemenem, largely ignored by Chacko and Mammachi (grown soft with sorrow, slumped in their bereavement like a pair of drunks in toddy bar) and largely ignoring Baby Kochamma.
She always makes trouble in her new environment and consequently, she is expelled from one school to other schools. She does all troubles in order to get any attention from her surroundings. She struggles in order to gain a better life and be free of others’ unfair treatments.
When Rahel is eleven years old, she is blacklisted from her school because she is caught decorating the headmistress’ door with little flowers. Regarding to her fault, she got punishment to find the word ‘depravity’ in the dictionary. Six months after her punishment, she was expelled from her school.
her Hausemistress’ false-hair bun, which under duress, Rahel confessed for having stolen. For those Rahel’s weird behavior, the teachers noted that she was an extremely polite child and she had no friends.
The other students, particularly the boys, were intimidated by Rahel’s waywardness and almost fierce lack of ambition. They left her alone. She was never invited to their nice homes or noisy parties. Even her professors were a little wary of her-her bizzare, impractical building plans, presented on cheap brown paper, her indifference to their passionate critiques (p. 19) From above quotation, every student assumes Rahel as a weird girl. She is a typical of a free and independent girl who does not want to be ruled by others. She just does whatever she wants and does not care with what people think about her. She remains free to make her own enquiries.
3. Estha
Estha’s full name is Esthappen Yako. As previously mentioned, Estha and Rahel are two-egg twins who born from separate but simultaneously fertilized eggs. He is older than Rahel by eighteen minutes. Although they are twins but their physical appearances are totally different. Physically, he is skinny. He always wears his beige and pointy shoes. His favorite singer is Elvis Presley, thus he always wears clothes and shoes in Elvis Presley style. Even he has Elvis puff on his hair, his Elvis’ favorite song is “Party”. Estha has slanting sleepy eyes and his new teeth are still uneven on the ends. Ammu says that Estha’s eyes are inherited from Baba’s eyes.
lemon drink called the Orangedrink Lemondrink man. He is sexually harassed by a man in the hall of the cinema. He was forced to masturbate the man who sold orange drinks and lemon drinks. He did not know what to do at that time and he just could not do anything.
“Now if you’ll kindly hold this for me,” the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said, handing Estha his penis through his soft white muslin dhoti, “I’ll get you your drink. Orange? Lemon?”
Estha held it because he had to (p. 98)
After that sexual abuse, he gets psychological trauma. He cannot tell everything to his mother. He prefers to keep his traumatic experience by himself. After he experienced the tragedy, Estha never spoke to anyone. By his traumatic experience he becomes an introverted man who keeps everything to himself only.
Estha had always been a quiet child, so no one could pinpoint with any degree of accuracy exactly when (the year, if not the month or day) he had stop talking. Stopped talking altogether, that is. The fact is that there wasn’t an “exactly when”. It had been a gradual winding down and closing shop. A barely noticeable quietening. As though he had simply run out of conversation and had nothing left to say. Yet Estha’s silence was never awkward. Never intrusive. Never noisy. It wasn’t an accusing, protesting silence as much as a sort of estivation, a dormancy, the psychological equivalentof what lungfish do to get themselves through the dry season, except that in Estha’s case the dry season looked as though it would last forever (p. 12)
The memory of his childhood when he was at Abilash Talkies Cinema always bothers him. He always remembers the Orangedrink Lemondrink man. He always remembers what the Orangedrink Lemondrink has done to him. It causes psychological trauma that makes him to be an introverted man.
It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked. Unspeakable. Numb. And to an observer therefore, perhaps barely there. Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his past (p. 13)
From the quotation above, it seems that the feeling of worthless, expelled, dirty and lonely have killed Estha’s consciousness. Estha becomes an introverted man because he does not have any friend who cares to him. Even his family rejects him because he is a half-Hindu child from a divorced-marriage. His only friend is Khubchand, his dog, which left him because of its death. Later, after Khubchand died, he becomes such an insane man who walks all over the village. Nobody can stop his willing to walk over the village. It is the only way that he can escape from his loneliness and his worthless feeling, besides that he is already oppressed by her mother’s family who treat him badly as if he is not a member of the Kochamma family. He cannot imagine if his family knows about his sexual abuse in his childhood, his family must throw him away from their house. It seems that he cannot receive what his family did toward him only because he is a half-Hindu and broken home child that everyone realizes that nobody wants to have the fate that he has.
B. The main characters’ conflicts
toward readers which make the story more interesting. The conflicts that are undergone by the main characters can be seen below.
1. Ammu’s Conflicts
As the main character, Ammu has external and internal conflicts. The external conflict that she has to undergo is the conflict with her family and the society around her. Whereas, Ammu’s internal conflict is related to her love toward Velutha. Ammu was born as a Touchable Brahmin caste and she grows in a conservative Syrian Christian family. As a high caste woman, she has to marry a man from her caste. If a member of the caste does not obey the rules, moreover if he or she married people from the lower caste or different religion, he or she would be expelled of the caste.
The main cause of Ammu’s conflict is because she marries a Hindu man. In Indian caste system, an intercommunity marriage is not allowed, therefore she is expelled from her family. She has to face some conflicts with her family and the society around her. According to Indian family, to be an Untouchable is a shame, and he or she has not to be respected. It happens to Ammu. Ammu, as a Touchable woman from higher caste community, has to be expelled from her family. Ammu already broke the honor of her family. It makes her family, the Kochammas, tries to prevent Ammu not to make the same mistake in choosing the right man.
take the risk to love Velutha, an Untouchable Hindu man. Her love to Velutha causes a bigger conflict that is opposed by her family.
Ammu who is a Syrian Christian, loves Velutha who has a lower caste or an Untouchable man. She suffers from her prohibited love affair to Velutha. Ammu and Velutha have a secret love affair in which they search for love and emotional security. Actually, she really loves Velutha but to save herself and her children, she pretends that she does not love him. She does it because her family do not let her doing the same mistake in her life, marrying another wrong man. Ammu has made a mistake when she married a Bengali Hindu man and even worse she divorced. The Kochamma family protects her not to do the same mistake.
Ammu as the main character of the novel also has conflicts with other characters. The conflicts focus on Ammu’s conflict with her father, Pappachi. In her childhood, she often got bad treatment by her father because he practices the patriarchal system in her house. Her father, Pappachi, often hits her and her mother without any reason. They cannot do anything because Pappachi is a strict and powerful father who cannot accept any refusal. It is seen in the quotation below:
But alone with his wife and children he turned into a monstrous, suspiciously bully, with a streak of vicious cunning. They were beaten, humiliated and then made to suffer the envy of friends and relations for having such a wonderful husband and father (p. 171-172).
nice father who loves his family. Sometimes he hits Ammu and Mammachi without any reason. It makes Ammu suffers emotionally and physically.
Ammu is a subordinated woman because of her sex. A traditional patriarchal society places little importance on woman’s education. Ammu’s father, Pappachi, does not like the idea of spending money on his daughter’s education.
Ammu finished her schooling in the same year that her father retired from his job in Delhi and moved to Ayemenem. Pappachi insisted that a college education was an unnecessary expense for a girl, so Ammu had no choice but leave Delhi and moved with them. There was very little for a young girl to do in Ayemenem other than to wait for marriage proposals while she helped her mother with the housework (p. 38).
Ammu accepts the very first proposal after five days of courtship. In fact, Ammu has no choice other than accepting whatever life offers her.
Unfortunately, Ammu’s husband turns to be a drunkard man who is unable to support the family. Here, she has to endure conflict with her husband. Her husband tries to force Ammu to please her husband’s boss in the tea plantation because his boss admires Ammu’s beauty. Ammu’s husband, Baba, afraid if he does not do what his boss’ wants, he would be fired. Ammu refuses her husband order to please his boss, and the marriage ends in a divorce. As a divorcee, she has to face disdain by her family and her society.
to see life independently threatens the existing order. She is at conflict with the society at large because she married a man from outside her community and she is a divorcee too. It is seen at Sophie Mol’s funeral: “Though Ammu, estha and Rahel were allowed to attend the funeral, they were made to stand separately, not with the rest of the family. Nobody would look at them (p. 7).” The quotation explains that the society cannot accept what Ammu did in her past related with her intercommunity marriage. By doing so, Ammu is condemned as a woman who breaks the caste system and she is proper to get any kind of rejection and bad treatment from people around her. As stated above, Ammu and her twin children, Rahel and Estha are allowed to attend the funeral ceremony but they have to stand separately from her family. Nobody would respect them because they already broke the honor of the Kochamma’s name.
“Because of you!” Ammu screamed. “If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here! None of this would have happened! I wouldn’t be here! I would have been free! I should have dumped you in an orphanage the day when you were born! You’re the millstones round my neck1” (p. 239-240)
She is angry with what her children have done. She tries so hard to protect her children from any trouble, but she feels that she failed. She realizes all trouble that happened to her just because of her “sin” in the past. She breaks the law by marrying a Hindu man whose caste is lower. Thus, her children only inherited her fault and become the victims of the injustice.
When the death of Sophie Mol and the affair between Ammu and Velutha are known, Baby Kochamma, thinks that Ammu’s affair with Velutha is an embarrassing story to the Kochamma family. She cannot imagine what would happen if the society knows that Ammu, a Syrian Christian has an affair with an Untouchable man. To save the honor of the family name, Baby Kochamma tries to manipulate the story. She tells the police who arrests Velutha that Velutha is the man who kidnapped the twins and causes Sophie Mol’s death, and the one who tries to rape Ammu. Velutha is sacrificed because she thinks that Velutha is only an Untouchable man who is proper to be the victim. There is no difference whether Velutha is alive or dead.
The conflict between the Touchable and the Untouchable is also seen when Ammu and her children come to the jail in order to visit Velutha. The police inspector, Thomas Mathew does a sexual harassment toward Ammu.
He stared at Ammu’s breasts as he spoke. He said the police knew all they needed to know and that the Kottayam Police didn’t take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children. Ammu said she’d see about that. Inspector Thomas Mathew came around his desk and approached Ammu with his baton. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d go home quietly.” Then he tapped her breasts with his baton. Gently. Tap tap. As though he was choosing mangoes from a basket. Pointing out the ones that he wanted packed and delivered. Inspector Thomas Mathew seemed to know whom he could pick on and whom he couldn’t. Policemen have that instinct (p. 9-10).
By condemning Ammu as a veshyas or a bitch, inspector Thomas Mathew has humiliated her. Only because Ammu has an affair with an Untouchable man, Inspector Thomas Mathew who is a Touchable considers that a woman who behaves like Ammu can be treated whatever man likes, therefore he can do anything he likes to her. A woman who is considered from the lower caste is not respected by the upper caste in Indian caste system. It also gives a description about the differences of social class which create a gap among the society. This gap creates injustice for the people of the lower caste.
Velutha in front of her family and her children. She has to do this because she realizes that it would be a trouble if she confesses about her love.
“I’ve told you before,” she said. “I don’t want you going to his house. It will only cause a trouble.” What trouble, she didn’t say. She didn’t know. Somehow, by not mentioning his name, she knew that she had drawn him into the tousled intimacy of that blue cross- stitch afternoon and the song from the tangerine transistor. By not mentioning his name, she sensed that a pact had been forged between her Dream and the World (p.210)
From the quotation above we can see that Ammu does not want her children have a close relationship with Velutha because she knows that her family would be angry if they know about the relationship. Ammu does not want her children get in a trouble. What she wants is to take the risks to what she had chosen by her own, not give trouble to her children. She does not want her children become the victim of her mistake by loving a wrong man anymore because if her family know that she and her children have a close relationship with Velutha, the Kochamma family would treat the children badly or even worse than before.
2. Rahel’s Conflicts
As a half-Hindu child from a divorced marriage, Rahel grows as a girl who lacks of attention and affection. She is considered as worthless and troublemaker girl. This condition becomes worse since the tragedy of Sophie Mol’s death separates her from her lovely mother Ammu and her twin brother Estha.
It seems that Rahel has a big problem which she does not understand. There is something wrong about her, but she does not know what it is. It is seen through the following expression: “Rahel is not sure what she suffers from, but occasionally she practices sad faces, and sighing in the mirror (p. 59)”. Her grandmother, Mammachi, says that her grandchildren suffer from are worse than inbreeding, because their parents are divorced. She says so because in Indian caste system, what Ammu did in her past is very shameful. It is a terrible condition to the family because they have a member who breaks the caste system. Actually, by saying that Mammachi somehow oppresses Rahel and it impacts to Rahel’s internal conflict without realizing it. Rahel thinks that it is unfair because having parents who are divorced and come from the different social class is not her wish. Actually, she wants a complete family which consisted of mother, father, she and her brother. But she cannot do anything. It is a fate that she has to live with mother, her brother and the Kochammas family who ignores her.
her daughter has a close relationship with Velutha that can cause her daughter get in trouble.
Inside the car Ammu whirled around, and her eyes were angry. She slapped at Rahel’s calves which were the only part of her left in the car to slap.
“Behave yourself!” Ammu said.
Baby Kochamma pulled Rahel down, and she landed on the seat with a surprised thump. She thought there’d been a misunderstanding.
It was Velutha!” she explained with a smile. “And he had a flag!” The flag had seemed to her a most impressive piece of equipment. The right thing for a friend to have.
“You’re stupid silly girl!” Ammu said.
Her sudden, fierce anger pinned Rahel against the car seat. Why was puzzled. Why was Ammu so angry? About what?
“But it was him!” Rahel said. “Shut up!” Ammu said (p. 68-69)
Rahel still does not understand what is going on. She just wants to say that she sees Velutha in the march, but Ammu is really angry. It seems that there is something wrong with what she says, there is something hidden in Ammu’s anger. Ammu does not tell the truth that she does not want her daughter to be trapped in a complicated trouble. Ammu wants to save her daughter from the injustice social system that separates them from the people that they love.
The Kochammas, especially Baby Kochamma, really obey the caste tradition. They do not let their family member has a close relationship with the Untouchable people. It is seen when she sees Rahel plays around with Velutha, the Untouchable man.
“And please stop being so over-familiar with that man!” Baby Kochamma said to Rahel.
“Over-familiar?” Mammachi said. “Who is it, Chacko? Who’s being over-familiar?”
“Rahel,” Baby Kochamma said. “Over-familiar with who?”
“Alright, with whom is she over-familiar?” Mammachi asked.
“Your Beloved Velutha- whom else?” Baby Kochamma said, and to Chacko, “Ask him where he was yesterday. Let’s bell the cat once and for all.” (p. 175)
From the quotation above it is seen that no one let Rahel to play with her beloved friend, Velutha. She really loves Velutha as a friend who can make many toys to her. She feels comfortable if she is with Velutha, but because of his Untouchability she cannot play with him
3. Estha’s Conflicts
Estha’s biggest conflict is his internal conflict within himself about the sexual harassment that happened in his childhood as well as his feeling of being ignored by the society. He is ignored by the society because he is Ammu’s son whom already made a fatal mistake in her past, thus Estha is only inherited her “sin’. Actually, he does not know anything about her mother’s past life but the society already condemned him as a son of Untouchable woman who should not be respected.
The sexual harassment makes Estha feels dirty and that memory is secretly buried by himself in the bottom of his heart. He is afraid if he tells Ammu about the tragedy, Ammu would love him less than before. The tragedy changes him to be an introverted man who gradually never spoke to anyone.
Driving past the inky sea, Estha put his head out of the window. He could taste the hot, salt breeze on his mouth. He could feel it lift his hair. He knew that if Ammu found out about what he had done with the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man, she’d love him less as well. Very much less. He felt the shaming churning heaving turning sickness in his stomach (p. 107-108)
He often remembers the tragedy. It is rooted in his mind, therefore it makes him as a silent man who never speak to other people, including Rahel, his sister. It seems that he has the octopus in his head, and only the octopus’ ink which can erase the terrible memory of The Orangedrink Lemondrink man.
Once the quietness arrived, it stayed and spread in Estha. It reached out of his head and enfolded him in its swampy arms. It rocked him to the rhythm of an ancient, fetal heartbeat. It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles inching along the insides of his skull, hovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked. Unspeakable. Numb. And to an observer therefore, perhaps barely there. Slowly, over the years, Estha withdrew from the world. He grew accustomed to the uneasy octopus that lived inside him and squirted its inky tranquilizer on his past. Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it (p. 13)
From the quotation above, it is seen that the feeling of worthless, dirty and lonely has killed Estha’s consciousness. He becomes an introverted man. His quietness comes from the dirty feeling after what The Orangedrink Lemondrink man did to him.
him wherever he hides. He realizes that the insecure condition and he thinks that he has to be ready for the probability that The Orangedrink Lemondrink man can find him anytime and anywhere, and he can do anything like he did in Abilash Talkies Cinema.
Estha is a silent boy who talks to others if he needs. He does not answer or give opinions to people who talk to him. When he grows older, he feels rejected by his family especially by his father-Baba who re-returns him to Ayemenem because he has to immigrate to Australia and he cannot allow Estha to go with him. In Ayemenem house he does not get any attention or good treatment from his family. He is ignored by the society. His aunt, Baby Kochamma hates him and always tries to find a way to make him unhappy to live in Ayemenem house. It is because of the rules of caste system that the family cannot give anything for half-Hindu and a child from a divorced marriage.
Baby Kochamma dislikes the twins, for she considered them doomed, fatherless waifs. Worse still, they were Half-Hindu Hybrids whom no self-respecting Syrian Christian would ever marry (p. 44)
………. As for a divorced daughter-according to Baby Kochamma, she had no position anywhere at all. And as for a divorced daughter from a love marriage, well, words could not describe Baby’s Kochamma outrage. As for a divorced daughter from intercommunity love marriage-Baby Kochamma chose to remain quiveringly silent on the subject.
position at all in the family. She condemns the twins as people who break the honor of the family as well as their mother.
The condition becomes worse when his half-English cousin Sophie Mol arrives at Ayemenem house and Estha is accused as the main cause of Sophie Mol’s accidental-death. Therefore, Maragreth Kochamma, Sophie Mol’s mother is angry and slaps him and separates him from her lovely mother Ammu and his twin sister Rahel. The feeling of the outcast from his family and being unwanted makes him change his behaviour becomes an introverted man.
Estha’s ignorance and quietness is the result of mental pressure of unhappy childhood and life. He cannot resist it anymore and become so much suffer so that he becomes quiet and stop to talk. His disappointment and suffering has forced him to stop talking to anybody.
C. Roy’s criticisms toward the caste system in the novel
that the main characters’ conflicts are a reflection of caste system in India which Roy wants to criticize. The main characters in the novel have to face conflicts which are happened to them. The conflicts are a reflection of caste system that rooted in the society. Roy presents how the people of lower caste are treated in Indian society by their social status, how their life is limited and ruled by the other upper caste that causes injustice, and how Untouchability has made their life miserable as the social punishment.
In Indian caste system, people are treated based on their by their social status. To be an Untouchable is a punishment for being bad in former life because they believed the reincarnation. It can be seen clearly in the following quotation:
“The Untouchable people are only allowed to go to the separate school which is built for them, and they are made to have separate churches, with separate services and separate priests from the Untouchable” (Hutton, 1963:49).
