the god of small things

1. Who is at the Margin, Ammu or
Valeutha?: Questioning Feminism in
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small
Things.
Presented by : Abdul Rashid
Ph.D English literature 1st semester
Roll NO:PDS 16-066

2. We have to study Ammu and Velutha
With reference to marginalization

3. Character of Ammu
• Ammu has kind of a rough upbringing.
• Pappachi runs Ammu and Mammachi out of the house
from time to time.
• One night, he tears up her rubber boots, her most prized
possession.
• Ammu's parents don't think it's necessary to send a
woman to college, so she spends her young adulthood
living at home and waiting for marriage proposals.
• One summer, Ammu's parents allow her to move to
Calcutta.
• She meets Baba, who proposes to her five days after they
meet. She accepts his proposal and they got married
against the will of her family.

4. Ammu continue………
• Ammu gives birth to Estha and Rahel in 1962.
• When the twins are 2 years old, Baba loses his job.
• He tells Ammu he can keep his job if she agrees to sleep
with his boss.
• He punches her when she says no. After this happens a
few times, she takes the kids and moves back to
Ayemenem.
• Ammu gets mad at the twins for misbehaving when Sophie
Mol comes to visit. She thinks they make a bad first
impression.
• Ammu sees Rahel run off to talk to Velutha.When Margaret
Kochamma makes an ignorant comment about the local
culture, Ammu gets angry and storms off.

5. Continue……..
• Ammu falls asleep and has a dream about a man she
calls "The God of Small Things" (actually Velutha).
• That night, Ammu goes out for a walk in the dark. She
encounters Velutha, and they make love.
• Ammu and Velutha meet every night for the next
thirteen nights.
• After Vellya Paapen rats Velutha and Ammu out, Baby
Kochamma locks Ammu in her bedroom.
• Ammu is forced to leave Ayemenem. She becomes
severely ill.
• Ammu dies alone in a hotel room. Chacko and Rahel
take her to be cremated.

6. Velutha – an untochable
• Velutha is a Paravan, the lowest kind of the
untouchable outcast.
• He lives with his father and brother in a small
laterite hut nearby the Ayemenem house.
• Velutha is extremely gifted with his hands-
makes boxes and little toys.
• Mammachi persuades velutha’s father to
send Velutha to the school of untouchables
to know how to read and write.

7. Velutha continue…….
• Velutha also manages to obtain some training
in carpentry through a workshop in nearby
kottayam held at Christian mission society by a
visiting German carpenter.
• He finishes school at sixteen and is by then
also a trained carpenter.
• Velutha works as a carpenter and mechanic in
the pickle factory and around the Ayemenem
house.

8. Velutha……
• Mammachi said that if only he had not been a
paravan, he might have become an
engineer.”(72).
• Chacko says that Velutha “ practically runs the
factory”(264).
• Velutha has achieved an extraordinary
position after all, despite being a paravan.

9. Marginalization
• Marginalization is to put or keep (someone) in a
powerless or unimportant position within a society or
group.
• In case of Velutha – marginalized and subordinated
being a paravan and untouchable.
• Society in which he lives still regards his kind as inferior
and unclean.
• Velutha appears in Ammu’s dream as
“ he left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no
image in mirrors” (206).
• Mammachi tells the Grandchildren “ paravans

10. Marginalization…..
• Were expected to crawl backward with a
broom, sweeping away their footprints so that
Brahmins or Syrian Christian would not defile
themselves by accidently stepping into a
paravan’s footprints.(71).
• Velutha is encouraged to go to school not
together with touchables but to a special
school for untouchable only.

11. Continue…..
• He is constantly in danger of “what’s the worst
thing that can happen. I could lose everything.
My Job, my family, my livelihood, everything”
(316).
But still he is a
• Trained carpenter.(professional skill)
• Actually runs the factory.(agency to exercise)
• An active member of the communist
party.(political membership and recognition)

12. Continue…..
• Transgress the social bounds i.e boundaries of
casteism. To love a touchable (Ammu)

13. Ammu….a princess without a state
• No access to education as compared to her brother
Chaku.
• Does not have any share of inheritance like her brother
Chaku.
• Denied to public access like any work outside her
home.
• Divorced and heartbroken.
• Regarded as parasite in her home after divorce.
• Lacks all what untouchable Velutha have i.e an access
to education, choice of profession and political
recognition

14. Conclusion
• Although Velutha and Ammu both are
marginalized characters in their own social
spheres yet the marginalization of Ammu
makes her more tragic character than Velutha.
• What can be more tragic for a touchable to be
treated on the level of an untouchable?