The God of Small things is a novel by Arundhati Roy ,published in 1996 and was awarded the Man Booker prize in the teat 1997.

1. By Dr Parul Mishra

2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Arundhati Roy
 Indian author, born in Shillong in 1961
 Full name Susanna Arundhati Roy
 Student of Architecture
 Married a film maker, Pradeep Krishen
 Shocked into fame by her debut novel, “The God Of Small
Things”
 The novel was awarded Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1998
 A political activist involved in human rights and environmental
causes.
 Bold woman of the post modern era, who criticized Shekhar
Kapur’s “Bandit Queen”, on staging the rape scene of a living
woman, without her permission

3. About the Novel
 The novel was published in 1996
 The semiautobiographical work departed from the
conventional plots and light prose that had been
typical among best-sellers.
 Composed in a lyrical language about South Asian
themes and characters in a narrative that wandered
through time.
 became the biggest-selling book by a non-expatriate
Indian author and won the 1997 Man Booker Prize for
Fiction.

4.  Works depicts the global capitalism, where money is
supreme power
 Among her publications were Power Politics (2001), The
Algebra of Infinite Justice (2002), War
Talk (2003), Public Power in the Age of
Empire (2004), Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to
Grasshoppers (2009), Broken Republic: Three
Essays (2011), and Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014).

5. Summary
 Two time period to be noticed- 1969 and 1993
 The story starts from a place, named Ayemenem,
 Here lives a family headed by Pappachi, the grand
father and Mammachi, the grand mother
 They had two children Ammu, the daughter and
Chacko, the son

6.  Chacko has gone to England for higher education
 In the foreign country he finds a girl(an English
woman), named Margaret and marries him
 They are blessed with a beautiful girl child ; they name
her Sophie
 Margaret falls in love with an English man Joe

7.  As a result of this Chacko and Margaret get divorced
and Maragaret marries Joe and takes the daughter
Sophie along with her
 Chacko returns to Ayemenem
 Ammu does not live in Ayemenem; she lives with one
of her relative
 Ammu falls in love with a man named Baba

8.  Ammu and Baba have two children- A daughter and a
son
 Daughter – Rahel
 Son- Esthappen yako (Estha)
 Baba turns to be an alcoholic and a brutal husband
who torchers Ammu physically and mentally too. He is
a lier, cheater, a monster
 Having such a lose character he is thrown out of his
job

9.  His English Boss demands his wife, Ammu
 Baba keeps this proposal in front of Ammu to which
she straightly denies
 Baba torchers his wife, he beats her hard
 Ammu after this incident returns too Ayemenem with
her two children- Rahel and Estha(autobiographical
element)
 All are together in one house- Pappachi, Mammachi,
Ammu, Chacko,

10.  There are two new members to the family –Rahel and Estha
 This is the time when the children were of 7 years of age,
and the year is 1969
 Baby Kochamma, sister of Pappachi also lives with the
family. Since she also had a wrong relationship. She was in
love with a wrong person, therefore, on knowing the truth
she breaks her relationship with the man and decides to
live with her brother.

11.  Another twist in the family- Chacko comes to know
that Joe died in a car accident and that Margaret is
alone now, he invites Maragret and Sophie to
Ayemenem
 The family members- Chacko, Ammu, Rahel, Estha,
Baby Kochamma, plan to go together to the airport to
receive Maragaret and Sophie

12.  When the family is on its way to airport to receive
Maragret and Sophie, two incidents take place
 They plan to watch movie –The sound of Music( A
favorite movie of Rahel and Estha)
 Velutha is introduced by the writer- An untouchable
working in the factory of Pappachi. He has great skills
of designing, and works with loyalty to the family

13.  There was a march of Communist party, waving red
flags; Velutha was waving the red flag
 Rahel gets excited to see Velutha and the family shouts
his name in order to get noticed, but Velutha did not
hear and moves forward with the party people and
disappears from their sight

14.  At the same place Baby Kochamma was forced out of
the car and wave the flag with reciting the slogan of
the Communist party. She develops a hatred for the
Communist people.
 The behavior of Velutha also upsets the family
 Another incident happens with Estha. When EStha
moves out of the theatre and goes to sit in the lobby to
sing. There he is molested by a man, which makes him
feel terrible and scared

15.  After this they spent a night in a hotel and in the
morning they drive to get airport to get Margaret and
Sophie
 Now the family consists of – Pappachi, Mammachi,
Ammu, Chacko, Estha , Rahel, Baby Kochamma,
Margaret and Sophie.
 They all live together in one house at Ayemenem

16.  The inclusion of Sophie in family is not liked by Rahel, she
is jealous of her as she feels that she is been neglected
because of Sophie’s arrival. Every one in the family was
taking extra care of Sophie
 Rahel shares all this with Velutha, who is her friend; she
also tells him that he was sen by the family when he was for
his communist party march and that he ignored the
callings of the family

17.  Estha is still scared of the nightmare happened to him
at the theatre lobby ; he is afraid that the man will
come again and do harm to him
 Estha decides to leave the place and even Ammu
agrees to accompany him as she is also nit happy with
the family
 They take help from Velutha, who fixes a boat for them

18.  At the same moment Affair of Ammu and Velutha is
exposed in front of the whole family
 The children and Velutha are unaware of the
happenings going on in the house; the exposure of
Ammu and Velutha relationship
 Sophie comes to know about the plan of Rahel , Estha
and Velutha. She also requests them to accompany
them. They started fighting

19.  The boat does not work properly and is not reday to
sail,so they decide to swim and cross the place
 When the three reach the shore they notice that
Sophie is not with them. They make a guess that
Sophie is drowned and dead.
 Now the the trio- Velutha, Rahel and Estha hid
themselves in a place named, ‘History House’

20.  The other part of the novel show as the exposure of the
relationship of Ammu and Velutha. The class
difference is portrayed by the author.
 The family gets infuriated by the deed of Ammu, who
falls in love with an untouchabe.
 Baby Kochamma goes to the police station and lodges
a comoplain that Velutha has kidnapped the children
and raped Ammu

21.  The police successfully reaches the place, History House,
where Velutha is with children
 Velutha is beaten brutally by the police, which leads to his
death
 The police is in need of witness of the deed which is
actually not done by Velutha
 Baby Kochamma forcefully makes the children agree to be
witness against Velutha.She threatens to disclose the death
mystery of Sophi

22.  The whole family puts each and every blame on
Velutha
 The family attends Sophie’s funeral
 Ammu after this goes to police station and meets the
inspector, mr Thomas Mathew,to make the things
clear
 She tells that velutha is innocent and has no role in any
of the consequences .

23.  The inspector concludes that its too late to make
things clear as Velutha is already dead
 When Baby Kochamma comes to know about Ammu’s
going to police station regarding Velutha’s case, she
shouts and insults her. She blames Ammu that she is
least bothered about the condition of his brother, who
lost his daughter Sophie

24.  Baby Kochamma asks Ammu to leave the house . Now
Ammu has to make her livelihood on her own.
 Estha returns back to his father Baba
 Rahel stays back with the family at Ayemenem
 The story moves in a way that shows that Rahel and Estha
saw their mother Ammu when they were 11 years old. After
sometime it is known that Ammu died of some lung
disease.

25.  They(Chacko and Rahel) attend funeral of Ammu and
after this Rahel leaves for America to study
 Rahel marries Larry Mccaselin in America, but after
sometime they get divorced
 The year is 1993. Estha finds that her brother is going
back to Ayemenem. To meet his brother she also
comes to Ayemenem

26.  Flashback, memories are depicted by the writer. They
spend a good time there and end up having sex and
holding each other
 According to rhe writers point of view it sa sign of
maturity. The maturity they felt living with each other
and each other’s company.
 They say that no body in the world understands them
the way they understand each other.

27.  They say that they are destroyed because of the love
laws.
 It shows caste system also