Choice

The God of Small Things is a story of the walls that define the actions of their characters. The walls are many and the available response few. Roy's depiction of choice is interesting in that there is very little.

The God of Small Things as a charcter of Ammu's dream is limited to one action at a time and Ammu embraces him and his beauty. He is in a way relatable. She is trapped, hemmed in by her family and harried by the Love Laws. This trapped aspect of her, always waiting to lash out like some caged beast is perhaps more cognizant of its own walls than she would recognize. In other words, Ammu is more impotent than she realizes as she would come to know in the end when Velutha is more or less murdered and herself cast out. Nowhere left to go years later, she dies alone.

In turn, Baby Kochamma is deluded with choice. Fooling herself, she believes her love lost was her decision. She has the most mobility in terms of action and consequence within the narrative but is hemmed in by her views of who should be loved and how that love should behave, views which turn serpentine and deceitful in the end to the condemnation of an innocent man (clean of everything but caste).

Roy's is a hard novel in parts and as it wound down i had very little choice but to continue its tale. For much of the book the reader feels like they're drowning in the author's circular narrative. In the end, beautifully, I felt myself washed ashore.