2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

How does Arundhati Roy explore the impacts of cultural values on the lives of individuals in ‘The God of Small Things’? system values. The fact that the police have to enforce adherence to the caste system implies that the system itself is unnatural, and the corrupt nature of the police demonstrates how these values can be used to restrict freedoms. As such, in support of Bose’s interpretation, Roy implies that Velutha’s death was not a natural consequence of his defiance of the Love Laws, but rather a result of the corrupt nature of the police force, as a symbol for authority. Overall, Roy uses the Love Laws and the police force to elucidate how traditional caste values are imposed by authority figures, preventing meaningful love between individuals within Keralan society. Due to the detrimental effects of the Love Laws, salvation is only found through defiance of these societal norms. Roy utilises Velutha and Ammu’s sexual relationship to exemplify how love can lead to salvation from restrictive caste values. When Ammu is dreaming about Velutha, she questions whether he is “The God of Loss? The God of Small Things? The God of Goose Bumps and Sudden Smiles?” (217). As Ammu calls Velutha ‘The God of Small Things’, Roy links the motif of the ‘Small Things’ to Ammu’s love for Velutha. Roy purposefully places the epithet that titles the novel in the middle of two other names to suggest to the reader that Ammu believes the ‘Small Things’ are relatively unimportant. This juxtaposes the title of the novel, which emphasises the importance of the ‘Small Things’ to the novel’s message. Therefore, while Ammu deems love as relatively inconsequential, representing the views of members of Keralan society, it is clear that love is important to the novel. This is specifically explored through the nature of Velutha and Ammu’s relationship, as Ammu obsesses over every detail of Velutha when having sex with him: “His neck. His nipples. His chocolate stomach” (336). Within the caste system, dark skin is seen as a negative quality, as it is representative of lower caste divisions. Despite this, the positive connotation of ‘chocolate’ as an indulgence implies that Ammu does not see Velutha’s ethnicity as inferior,

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