19th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
Completion and Twin-Egg Cohesion: an Analysis of Estha and Rahel's Relationship in Roy's God of Small Things
Clare M. Martin - West
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
The God of Small Things (1997), set in Kerala after India’s emancipation from the British Empire, portrays a precarious time for the formation of both communal and individual identity. In this post-colonial novel, which comments on the destruction of self caused by colonization, Roy’s protagonists exhibit a hybridization of traditional Indian and British cultures. Consequently, pursuit of completion, a prominent theme within the novel, constitutes the crux of various relationships, as depicted by Estha and Rahel’s bond in adolescence and maturity. Rahel and Estha, as fraternal twins, emphasize the perfect whole, an ideal existence virtually unattainable for the other characters within the novel. Estha and Rahel’s inevitable sexual union, consistently foreshadowed throughout the text, is the supreme symbolic manifestation of Roy’s theme. Elements of style and structure are utilized to demonstrate the importance of the twins’ unity, as children and adults, to the entirety of the novel.
Keywords: Post-colonialism, Completion, Sexual unity
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 50-3
Location: VH 1320
Time: 3:15