The God of Small Things Essay
Updated: Nov 14th, 2018
Introduction
The novel The God of Small Things was written by Roy Arundhati. It features the story of two Indian twins that happened during their childhood, and how ‘love laws’ destroyed their lives. The rules state how one ought to love, how much one should love as well as people who they ought to fall in love with.
Generally, the book describes how people’s lives and behavior may be affected by some minor things. This paper discusses the novel The God of Small Things, which mainly focuses on love laws people apply to, thus they are responsible for their enforcement. The guilty as well as punishment for breaking them are the main issues described in the story.
Love is a force that cannot be controlled by law. It is so powerful that it cannot be influenced or adhere to some social code of conduct. The book highlights different love stories that can be said to touch the biological, family, erotic spheres as well as issue of hope. However, the novel mainly focuses on taboo and forbidden love.
Writer of the novel considers breaking the laws of love a taboo in the Indian Community. Such an action leads to serious punishment to those who break it. Generally, according to the novel, love laws are rules and traditions set in the Indian community that are aimed at restoring Indian love culture despite increasing globalization. It also focuses on ensuring that the community restores its culture and traditions.
These laws were established to guide children and young adults according to the expectations of the society and with whom they ought to have fallen in love, how much they were expected to love such people and how they should have loved the people they claimed to be in love with ( Kline 370).
These rules or laws of love were applicable to all the people in the society irrespective of sex or age. However, it mainly focused on young adults and teenagers who had a dream of marrying and/or were in search for a marriage spouse. It was applicable to people with blood relations.
These laws aimed at controlling marriage between people of the same biological parents. Laws are adopted to control certain aspects, but adherence to these rules depends on the law enforcers. Love laws were concerned in family matters and enforced by the elders in the society, especially by elderly family members, such as parents, among others. Parents were to ensure that their children were not allowed to love each other because it was considered a taboo in the Indian community (Batra and Messier 112).
Love laws were applicable to biological relatives, such as a brother and a sister. Therefore, biological partners were guilty of breaking love laws in case they married each other or engaged in intimate activities. The laws were observed in the society, and those found guilty of breaking the rules were severely punished because it was considered a taboo in the Indian community (Kline 370). Breaking of the love laws is one of the worst taboos, and its punishment is severe.
For instance, Velutha was banished because of breaking the love law, while Ammu was locked up in her room. Furthermore, in another incident from the book, Vellya was willing to kill his biological son because he discovered that he had been associating with the touchable class yet they belonged to the untouchable class in the society. Therefore, breaking the love laws could lead to death penalty or banishment (Batra and Messier 118).
Works Cited
Batra, Nandita and Vartan P Messier. Transgression and Taboo Critical Essays. Puerto Rico: Caribbean Chapter Publications. 2005, Print.
Kline, Donna C. The Laws of Love: A Legal Guide for Couples. Blue House Press, 2007. Print.
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