'Complicity and resistance: Women in Arundhati Roy's The - JPCS

Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies
ISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)
Ammu, craving to take control of her life that is so much suppressed by a social order, is
faced against a system where her “Marxist” brother Chacko exploits the poor women
labourers in his factory, both financially and sexually, and goes unchecked. She sees
characters like Mammachi, being appropriated by patriarchy and be asphyxiated and
distorted by it. She sees Velutha being accused of the accidental drowning of Sophie Mol.
Ammu‟s father is incredulous of the fact that her Bengali Hindu husband wanted to
prostitute her in order to please his white boss. The colonial rulers‟ authority is
challenged by a subaltern woman in the novel who is economically and socially
marginalized. Smothered by social injustice, Ammu rebels against the very social norms
that constitute the Syrian Christian community in Kerala. This rebellion is an act of
resistance against the very foundations of this society. Her most significant act of
becoming sexually involved with the “Untouchable”, lower class Velutha, cannot be
taken at its face value as an act of sexual transgression only.
This is an act of resistance aimed at bringing about change in and around her. That is why
she goes to the police station and argues against the detention of this lower caste, lower
class subaltern, denying supposed “womanly” qualities typical of an Indian woman. This
prefigures Roy‟s proffered post-colonial Indian woman, who has regained her right to be
an “Indian woman”, with the end of colonialism. Amitabh Roy‟s words thus do have
strong evidential basis: “Ammu, on the other hand, is the rebel who represents the
defiance of the present [neo-colonial] state of society from educated[though marginalized
and proleterianized], passionate and thinking women. She stands for those women who
are aspiring for freedom and equality. This section of women is challenging traditional
[pre-colonial] ideas and conventions. The hopes for the [post-colonial] future lie with this
section only.”(2005, p.77-78) In short Ammu as a subaltern/woman resists oppressive
and repressive social and political structures. She does not succeed in bringing about any
tangible change but puts up a brave fight for realizing her dreams. Although she may not
consciously have worked for other subalterns, her actions contribute to the emancipation
of different kinds of subalterns and there lies her exceptionality.
‘Complicity and resistance: Women in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things,’ Golam Gaus Al-
Quaderi and Muhammad Saiful Islam
JPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 2011
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