19th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
"Exploring The Fear Motifs in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things"
Jake S. Beard
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
Arundhati Roy employs fear as a literary motif in her novel The God of Small Things (1997) to delve deeper into childhood and gender in modern India. Civilization’s fear of nature, men’s fear of women, and power’s fear of powerlessness are all sub-themes that occur throughout the novel and support its structure and story like architectural motifs to a building. Each sub-theme can be related to the main family’s histories and lives and highlight the complexity of the story. I employ a Formalistic theoretical approach to show how each of the main characters is affected by fear and how it underpins the major events of the novel. Furthermore, my analysis of The God of Small Things will be extended to show the ways in which fear is an underlying factor in the gender relationships of the characters and always a consistent element whenever power relationships are at stake.
Keywords: Motif, Gender, Power, Formalism
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 50-1
Location: VH 1320
Time: 2:45