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’? Additionally, intergenerational trauma is seen to stem from post-colonialist values. Roy uses magical realism to demonstrate the effects of colonialist values on trauma, and how this impacts Rahel’s life. At Sophie Mol’s funeral, Rahel believes that Sophie Mol, while in her coffin, “screamed, and shredded satin with her teeth” (7). The absurdity of this occurrence highlights how Sophie Mol’s death, from Rahel’s perspective, is irrational. However, those around Rahel do not react to this absurdity, simply carrying on with the funeral as if nothing happened. Therefore, Roy implements magical realism to demonstrate how death has become normalised in Keralan society, as Rahel’s vision going unacknowledged parallels the treatment of death as the norm. The fact that this event occurs within the church invites the reader to view Christian funerals as having been normalised within Keralan society. Specifically, as Sophie Mol, throughout the novel, represents English people in Indian society, and therefore English colonialist values, Roy implies that the Christian funeral, and therefore the mourning of the dead, is an extension of colonialist values. Sophie Mol clearly represents English people in Indian society, as she is called by her full name, which is distinctly English, unlike every other character in the family, who are Syrian Christians. Roy links Sophie Mol’s death to intergenerational trauma, as the narrator states that the details of Sophie Mol’s death, “like the salvaged remains of a burned house… must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved.” (32). This simile alludes to the History House, “where dreams were captured and re-dreamed. Where an old Englishman ghost, sickled to a tree, was abrogated by a pair of two egg twins…”, yet “as the platoon of policemen minced past they didn’t hear him beg” (306). Through magical realism, Roy demonstrates how the memories of India’s colonial past, symbolised by the “old Englishman ghost”, haunt the twins, implying that the twins are traumatised by India’s colonial history, representative of intergenerational trauma. However, to society at large, represented by the police, this history has been forgotten, as they cannot see the ghost. Therefore, Roy explores how, while society has mostly forgotten the specifics of

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