The Themes And Narrative Strategies Of The God Of Small Things

Arundhati Roy is the first Indian female writer who won the Booker Prize in 1998.Her first and only novel The God of Small Things won her the prize and has brought her so much acclaim. In China, there is not so much research on this fiction but some comments on internet.There are three parts in my thesis. The first part mainly introduces The God of Small Things and the author. In the second part ,there are three chapters. In Chapter One, I analyse the name of the book."Small Things"are the ordinary things in our world. The Big God is Hinduism and Christianism. The small god which belongs to the ordinary people is Atman which is a concept from ancient Indian philosophy. Chapter two is concerned with the analysis of the fiction's themes which are transgression, identification and return. The characters in The God of Small Things transgress not only the moral boarder but also the sexual and ethical boarders. And it is a process of identifying themselves and resisting the Big God. It's also a process of finding subjectivity. The characters of this fiction are homeless mentally .Aymanam is the only place they can return to. Their journey home represents the attempt to come to the spiritual world. Most of the characters are homeless and disappointed after all their attempts. The third chapter is based on narrative theory. The God of Small Things begins with the return of Rahel, who is also the narrator of the story and tells it as a child and an adult. This technique also influences the narrative time. The book is not written in a sequential narrative way , instead, it is a patchwork of flashbacks and lengthy sidetracks that weave together to tell a tragedy. As English is one of the official languages in India, Roy uses language as a tool to resist The Big God, the big power. The fiction is full of hybrid English. Now, Roy as a activist in reality to defend small things and resist the big power. The God of Small Things let the world know Roy, the female Indian writer, and what Roy has been doing after that also let the world know her writings.