Thursday, December 10, 2015
The God of Small Things: chapters 9-11
Share with the rest of the class one insightful idea that you and your group discussed. Try to make reference to a specific aspect of the novel to back up your idea. Feel free to comment on any other posts! Due by Thursday, December 17th. Don't forget to vote in the poll to the right!
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“Madness slunk in through a chink in History. It only took a moment.”
ReplyDeleteI found that we get the sense that madness refers to being “madly in love” but most importantly that it was quite ironical because I linked it to the only fact that the love between Velutha and Ammu is forbidden because of the caste system. Madness is only going against the conventions implemented by “History” but we do not get the feeling that Arundhati Roy is judging or expressing a negative opinion on it but quite the opposite and that is why I find it ironical as it is rationally unbased and unsubstantiated. In my opinion it is a denunciation and condemnation of most people judgment of this type of relationships in India.
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ReplyDelete"A thin red cow with a prtotruding pelvic bone appeared and swam staight out of the sea without wetting her horns, witout looking back." (p.216)
ReplyDeleteThe cow made me think of Hinduism and of the importance of Hindus in India : there culture is so ancient it's become traditional for everybody and represents a sort of order and rules that one should respect, which emphasizes the theme of transgression in the book. However, the fact that she is red is quite disturbing : it makes it different, marginalized, quite like Ammu becomes throughout the novel. The fact that it doesn't wet its horns, also, makes her into something mystical, and it is personified : we can't help but wonder about its meaning, creating mystery.
The river is mentioned many times throughout the novel, especially in chapter 10. In this chapter it does not at all seem to be dangerous. It seems to be associated to hope. Indeed, the Meenachal is a way for Estha to escape from the Orange drink lemon drink man and to be safe. We could even associate it to baptisme and rebirth. However, the title of the chapter "the river in the boat" seems to announce some kind of danger as does the expression: "Greygreen. With fish in it. The sky and trees in it." It is as if the river swallows everything, including Sophie Mol.
ReplyDeleteFinally it also represents the Indian landscape, memories, indeed "here they had learned to fish..." It will be completely destroyed when Rahel returns to Ayemenem, "the river was no more than a swollen drain now".
In conclusion the river represents change, the passing of time. It shifts from being a place of joy, memories, beauty and safety to a place of danger, death and pollution.
"Things can change in a day." (p.164 but repeated several times)
ReplyDeleteThis line is one of the pattern we can find many times in the novel. I really like it because there is a deep meaning in a phrase which is quite simple in terms of length, vocabulary and syntax. When Roy says 'Things can change in a day.' I think she means that all the little things that happen everyday, little changes as we can say, will bring deep transformation in our life and character. For instance, at the end of chapter 7, when Rahel looks back at old Estha's notebook, she feels nostalgia. Maybe this means obviously that the arrival of Sophie Mol (small) thing) changed everything for her (big thing), it triggered the whole plot. Moreover, maybe it also signifies that her childhood went by as fast as a day, and she didn't make the most of it.
Also, p.213, you have "'How long will it take ?' Estha asked. 'A day,' Velutha said." Here, the man and the boy are talking about the building of the boat. Maybe this could be a reference to the same phrase. The building of the boat (small thing) triggered the death of Sophie Mol (big thing), and this only took a day. Therefore, this quotation represent one of the major theme of the novel: destiny, unpredictability and the importance of Small Things.
So could we make a parallel with the arrival of the East India Company (seemingly small thing at the time)which ended up changing everything for India through colonisation and decolonisation (big thing)?
DeleteYes I think you could make this kind of parallel, even though it didn't take only 'a day' to colonize and 'transform' India, it was still triggered by little, maybe insignificant things such as the arrival of the East India Company.
DeleteWith Marie M. and Garance we thought of the title of chapter 10 as a metaphor for the children's mind. "The River in the Boat" obviously gives the impression that something is too big or important for the other, a river cannot enter a boat, we would be expecting the contrary. The boat is supposed to be on the river but here the river enters the boat, maybe because the boat is sinking? First we said that the river could represent the flow of thoughts and profusion of ideas and concerns of the children whereas the boat could be their mind, and what it is supposed to be able to carry and handle. The river is something too large and continuous to stay in a boat, and so are the thoughts and concerns of the children for their mind and age. Finally this title could be foreshadowing of the accident, the kids are not in the boat anymore but the river has taken the boat away.
ReplyDelete"He tried to hate her. [...] He couldn't. [...] always somewhere else." Madness here can be considered in two ways:
ReplyDeleteHere, madness is referring to the situation. Due to the stream of consciousness, we put ourselves in his shoes and we know that Velutha is by himself trying to avoid violating the rules. He realizes that he is mad because he has forbidden feelings, so he tries to hate her, and the only reason he has for that is the cast system.
Talking to oneself could be considered as a form of madness but this idea can also be seen in his consideration of Ammu with the repetition of "one of them", in order to hate her, he puts her in the same bag as all the people from upper classes that discriminate him for being an Untouchable.
Charlotte Marianne and I focused on a specific quotation from "he could do only one thing at the time" to " If he saw her he couldn't feel her"
ReplyDeleteWe argued that this completely represented Ammu and Velutha's relationship. Indeed the "he" is definetely Velutha and the fact that he is able to do only one thing can easily be related to the impossiblity of a future for Ammu and Velutha. They can see each other at night in secret places where nobody can see them, so there is only one thing they are able and allowed to do. Just like the man in Ammu's dream who is only able to do one thing at a time.
Page 202 : "It was a boat. A tiny wooden vallom. The boat that Estha sat on and Rahel found. The boat that Ammu would use to cross the river. To love by night the man her children loved by day."
ReplyDeleteWe brought this back to the question we discussed in chapter 8 : do the children make the relationship between Ammu and Velutha complicated?
It seems with this passage that the children help Ammu even if they are not aware of it. Therefore we get the impression that they are no longer a burden to their mother. Perhaps they can even be seen as a tool in the Ammu/Velutha relationship? We can reinforce this idea by saying that Ammu sees Velutha as a man for the first time (page 175) because of Rahel. Indeed she is the one who jumps in Velutha's arms thus attracting Ammu's attention on him.
We thought it was important to notice that both Ammu and the twins are, at the same time, with Velutha and none of them want the other to know it. Indeed, we could draw here a parallelism between Estha and Rahel and their mum. All of them know that they are not allowed to love Velutha and try to hide it to the rest of the family. The twins are physically with him and ask him to fix the boat whereas Ammu dreams of her “God of Small Things”. More over, when she tells her children not to go there anymore because it will only cause trouble, it is quite paradoxical with her own feelings. Perhaps then, we could draw a parallel between Ammu & Velutha and the Twins & Velutha.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the idea of madness is linked to the criticize of casts in India. Indeed, the character of Velutha feels powerless about his feelings about Ammu. He knows that they will never be anything between he and her, he is powerless about his feelings, because the cast system will never allow him to reach the woman he loves. Madness is here the state of rage in which Velutha is, but we can also enlarges it to Ammu's feelings, where the madness is represented in Ammu's dream, and in the form of powerlessness.
ReplyDeleteWe thought that one of the most important ideas explored in chapter 10 was the one that one event may trigger a complete change. Indeed, there is at first the idea that nothing is guaranteed, on the verge of exploding. We can see this with the repetition throughtout the chapter of the phrases « Annything can happen to anyone. » and « It’s best to be prepared. » (p.194,198). This point of view impacted Estha’s identity, and he is now referred to as « Estha-the-practical »(p.200). This may reinforce the idea that we discussed in class, that Estha has been in a way forced into adulthood and has now a more pragmatic vision of life, but at the same time cannot really grow because of what the Orangedrink Lemondrink man has done to him. That is that event which triggered the « decay » of Estha. That may be why aso the sentence « Things can change in a day » is often repeated. It’s only a matter of where you are or what you are doing at a moment of your life that could change everything. And I think that’s what happened to Kuttappen too. The event that triggered the fact that he stays forever in his corner is because his mother died.From now one, he’s grown up but like Estha, he is frozen in that corner.
ReplyDeleteDavid, Henrique and I thought of the river as a character itself. It is indeed personified as a monster devouring people who go through it. We also analyzed it as an iceberg (Henrique's initial idea), as if it were hiding deeper elements that neither the characters nor the reader can see. We can see this through the episode where Estha and Rahel learn how to swim and how to cross the river with Velutha teaching them. From Estha's point of view, we know that the first part of the river is an easy one to cross swimming but the other half is way more dangerous and hard to get through because of all the secrets ans mysteries it hides. Therefore, we can interpret it as a character, not revealing all of her emotions, thoughts, opinions.. It might be arguable to, to a certain extant, refer this aspect of the river to the characterization of the characters in the novel. All have secrets to hide and it only makes the situations even harder to resolve.
ReplyDeleteMarie P-G, David and I interpreted the title as an odd way for Roy to present one of the significant details that is present throughout the chapter : the river. As Marie said, the river truly becomes a character in this chapter. The lexical field of the river, the water & the boat is present when Estha & Rahel are in the factory and also when they go get the boat later on, of course. Although it might seem obvious, the title also foreshadows the death of Sophie : a breach in the boat which seems unsignificant, which is, in the end of the capther, repared, appears to be the one detail that is going to ruin it all for the kids. The title of the chapter also refers to the difference of importance adressed to small things as opposed to the one adressed to big things. When we read the title, we understand that the river is a big thing, it takes all the place within the boat : however, it's just stated the way it is without being developed more, almost ignored, even though it's going to bring the kids to their downfall.
ReplyDelete