24th Annual Student Research Conference
Dreams in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things
Jonathan D. Walton
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
In Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things (1997) we are introduced to a very vivid dream of Ammu, the mother of the twins Rahel and Estha. Her dream of a one-armed man, a recurrent motif in the novel, suggests the incompleteness of her relationship with the Untouchable Velutha. The device of the dream allows Roy to further illustrate and criticize the harsh caste system. In the dream, if he touched her he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win. The significance of this is that even though Ammu is in love with Velutha, their relationship can never have any future. This paper will show that Roy exploits the dream metaphor in order to show us Ammu's desire, by deciphering how Ammu's dream symbolically reinforces the criticism of the caste system.
Keywords: The, God, of, Small, Things, Dream, Ammu, Velutha
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 3-1
Location: VH 1408
Time: 8:00