In The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy notifies the reader that her novel makes people upset because the way I see the world does not allow people to let themselves off the hook, it leaves little space for pleading innocence.

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Laura Pandiani

Professor Lang

4/7/2012

Paper Three

Belonging to Neither Culture

In The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy notifies the reader that her novel makes people upset “because the way I see the world does not allow people to let themselves off the hook, it leaves little space for pleading innocence. And it’s uncomfortable to face the fact that all of us are complicit in what’s going on-victims as well as perpetrators” (Roy 330). The novel centers around the Ipe family and the main characters, Estha and Rahel’s grandaunt, Baby Kochamma. She is a persistent, manipulative, and bitter Indian woman who lives in a town in India called Ayemenem. Baby Kochamma is important to show Roy’s idea of being a “victim” of her Indian culture as well as “perpetrator” of the British culture. Baby Kochamma doesn’t openly admit the fact that she is “complicit” about being caught between cultures but her actions reveal how she belong finds herself belonging to neither culture. Baby Kochamma has a double consciousness of being a victim of her Indian culture but also a perpetrator of gaining the British culture. This double consciousness Tyson defines as “a consciousness or a way of perceiving the world that is divided between two antagonistic cultures” (Tyson 421). Baby Kochamma’s Indian culture has her stuck between that and the British culture through falling in love with Father Mulligan, arrogantly talking about Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and ditching her garden for a television. She hopes these will allow her to become part of the British culture as well, but she often has the feeling of “belonging to neither rather than both,” and by the time she is thought to gain belongingness it’s too late in her life (Tyson 421).

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When Baby Kochamma is 18 years old she falls in love with Father Mulligan, an Irish priest but she does not gain his affection back. She figures that if she shows him how charitable she is, he will fall in love with her. She thinks of them together and “that was all she wanted. All she ever dared to hope for. Just to be near him” (25). Baby Kochamma longs for Father Mulligan to accept her love but because he’s a priest, he cannot marry. Through her ongoing love for him she shows her double consciousness taking hold of her ...

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