THE AUTHOR

ARUNDHATI ROY (born

24 November 1961) is an Indian

author and political activist who

was best known for the award-

winning novel The God of Small

Things (1997) and for her

involvement in environmental

and human rights causes. Roy’s

novel became the biggest-

selling book by a no expatriate

Indian author and won the 1998

Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND

Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, India, to Ranjit Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea planter and Mary Roy, a Malayali Syrian Christian women's rights activist.

She spent her childhood in Ayemenem in Kerala, and went to school at Corpus Christi, Kottayam, followed by the Lawrence School, Lovedale, in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. She then studied architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, where she met her first husband, architect Gerard da Cunha.

Roy met her second husband, filmmaker Pradip Krishen, in 1984, and played a village girl in his award-winning movie Massey Sahib. Until made financially secure by the success of her novel The God of Small Things, she worked various jobs, including running aerobics classes at five-star hotels in New Delhi. Roy is a cousin of prominent media personality Prannoy Roy, the head of the leading Indian TV media group NDTV. She lives in New Delhi.

W O R K S

A W A R D S

• Booker Prize – The God of Small Things

• National Film Award for Best Screenplay –

In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones

( screenplay)

• Special recognition as a Woman of Peace

• Sydney Peace Prize

• Sahitya Akademi Award - The Algebra of Infinite

Justice

• Norman Mailer Prize

THE GOD OF

SMALL THINGSA NOVEL

ARUNDHATI ROY

VOCABULARY

Ayemenem

An actual town in the Southern Indian state of Kerala, spelled "Aymanam." Arundhati Roy spent her childhood

there, and it is the main setting for The God of Small Things.

 

Caste system

A social system that grades society based on castes, or classes. In India, the class system is hereditary and

"stratified according to Hindu ritual purity." The highest caste are Brahmans and the lowest are Untouchables.

 

Cochin

A major city in the South Indian state of Kerala, which hosts the region's major airport. It is where the family

goes to greet Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma upon their arrival from England.

 History House

The abandoned house across the river, where Velutha lives with Vellya Paapen and Kuttappen. Estha and

Rahel become obsessed with the History House and use the shadowy area surrounding it as their haven

from the Ayemenem House.  

Kerala

One of the four states comprising Southern India, located on the southwest tip of India, bordered to the west by the Arabian Sea and on the east by the Ghat

Mountains. Save flashbacks, the entire story of The God of Small Things unfolds in Kerala.

 

Untouchables

Those in the caste system who are at the bottom. They are considered unclean, especially by the more "pure"

upper castes.

PLOT

SETTING

C H A R A C T E R S

• BABY KOCHAMMA

- selfish, self-centered, snippy, and just downright mean

- Pappachi’s sister

•PAPPACHI-is Estha and Rahel's grandfather, Ammu

and Chacko’s father -once an Imperial Entomologist, which is a frou-frou way of saying that he studied

bugs for the government. His biggest failure in life came from his biggest triumph: he discovered a rare breed of moth, but he didn't get credit or even naming rights for his discovery

-beats his wife regularly

•MAMMACHI

- Chacko and Ammu's mother and Estha and Rahel's grandmother

- nearly blind and plays a mean violin

•AMMU

- Pappachi amd Mammachi’s mother- Estha and Rahel’s mother

• BABA- Ammu's ex-husband - Estha and Rahel's dad- an alcoholic who tells a lot of lies

for apparently no reason

•RAHEL- Estha’s twin sister- who hides in the dirty airport

curtains when she doesn't want to say hi to Sophie Mol.

•ESTHA (Esthappen Yako)- Rahel’s twin brother- born eighteen minutes before his

twin

• CHACKO

- Ammu's brother, Mammachi's son, Rahel and Estha's uncle, and Sophie Mol's father

- a young man, got all the family's love and attention

•MARGARET KOCHAMMA

- Chacko's British ex-wife and Sophie Mol's mother

•JOE- Margaret Kochamma's second

husband

- Sophie Mol regards as her true dad and favorite person in the world

• SOPHIE MOL

- the daughter of Chacko and Margaret Kochama

.

•VELUTHA

- Vellya Paapen's younger son- Estha and Rahel's best friend

SYMBOLISM and IMAGERY

• The History House• Pappachi’s Moth• Sex

GENRE

Family Drama / Literary Fiction

THEME

Love Laws

QUOTES

“ Anything can happen to anyone, and it’s best to be

prepared.” - Estha

“…who should be loved, and how. And how

much.”

“Either way, change will come. It could be bloody, or

it could be beautiful. It depends on us.”