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International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume III, Issue XII, December 2019|ISSN 2454-6186
www.rsisinternational.org Page 231
Resonating the Unheard Voice through Ammu in
Arundhati Roy‟s The God of Small Things: A
Postcolonial Feminist Study
Tasnia Talukder1, Md. Aminul Haque2
1Lecturer, Department of English, Uttara University, Bangladesh
2Department of English, Uttara University, Bangladesh
Abstract – This paper focuses on the mechanism of patriarchy -
the cultural mindset of society as a barrier to female and social
identity formation in society in Arundhati Roy’s The God of
Small Things through Ammu. The author from postcolonial
contexts portrays female character Ammu who struggles with the
normative gender identity and eventually eliminates the
traditions and conventions of Victorian stereotype ‘angel’ woman
to provide voices to the silenced women in her contemporary
society. Roy’s protagonist Ammu suffers through the strictly
rigid patriarchal norms for female power and social identity
formation. Based on the postcolonial feminist perspective, this
study analyzes how Ammu breaks the double –bind of patriarchy
and colonial legacy by voicing up her desires against all the odds
of a male-dominated society and try to form her own identity
according to her preferences. Nevertheless, Ammu finally tries to
confront the existing social inequalities to bring about a social
change despite the post-colonial power structure of the society
merely by her involvement in different issues. It further exposes
the universal parameters of highly conventional society which
Ammu faces as a subaltern and compels her to resonate with
her unheard voice.
Keywords – Patriarchy, Feminism, Subaltern, Postcolonial,
Power, Identity
I. INTRODUCTION
n the post-colonial context, society has adapted many
colonial constructs. Among them marginalizing the
subaltern women as others are one of the vital issues to discuss
and draw the substantial picture of women's position through
our different oppressive constructs. Through ideological and
cultural manipulation and control such as through the
hegemony of family, school, church, factory, police, etc.,
women adapt themselves to the prevailing system of
assumption and values of society. thus women being
subjugated and subordinated overages and ended up being a
„subaltern other‟. The aim of this paper to expose the social,
political, economic and cultural factors through Ammu as a
„subaltern other‟ in Arundhati Roy‟s novel A God of Small
Things()and to depict the unheard voices as well as to reclaim
Ammu‟s social identity as an individual being.
To achieve the goal, I have organized my paper into four main
sections such as literary theoretical knowledge of subaltern
based on different post-colonial and feminist critics namely
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre
Macherry‟s point of view. Then in the second section, I have
analyzed the position of subaltern Ammu through two grand
narratives colonial legacy and patriarchy. The colonial legacy
underlines the sexism and patriarchy points out gender bias,
lack of education, refusal of women‟s need for sexual urges. I
conclude my paper with the exploration of the question‟s
answer to the two grand narratives poses. I also include the
Works Cited that contains the list of handbooks I examined.
II. LITERARY THEORITICAL CONCEPT OF SUBALTERN
In A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H.Abrams mentions about
its Latin origin and meanings: subaltern is a combination of
two Latin terms for „under(sub)‟ and „other(alter)‟. It is a
British word for someone of inferior rank. The „subaltern‟
owes its origin to Antonio Gramsci‟s (1971) note on „History
of the Subaltern Classes: Methodological Criteria‟ and it refers
to classes such as the peasantry and the working class- social
classes other than the ruling class. Gramsci‟s theoretical
groundwork has significance in the field of post-colonial
studies.
The term „subaltern‟ was popularized by Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak in her essay titled, “Can the subaltern
speak?” (1988:35) she says: “The subaltern cannot speak.”
Subaltern means the colonized and oppressed subject
whose voice has been silenced-what Edward Said has termed
„the permission to narrate‟(286). She deals with the
consciousness of the oppressed, marginal and subordinate
groups based on Pierre Machery‟s suggestion to „measure up
the silences(286)‟. For Spivak women are doubly oppressed in
a colonial context: „in the context of colonial production, the
subaltern ... cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more
deeply in shadow‟(287). The main aim of subaltern studies is
to retrieve the mute, erased or shadowy voices of the
subaltern. In A Glossary of Contemporary Literary
Theory Hawthorne mentions her drawing attention to the
paradoxical situation that „measuring silences can involve
speaking for the subaltern and continuing her
voicelessness‟(346).
III. COLONIAL LEGACY
Sexism is another socio-political factor and is often linked to
the practice of patriarchy. It involves not just a form of insult
I
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume III, Issue XII, December 2019|ISSN 2454-6186
www.rsisinternational.org Page 232
but a means of repression. To save the job, Ammu‟s alcoholic
husband asks her to sleep with his boss Mr. Hollick, then she
realized that the ugly, chauvinistic nature of male society. She
protested against the physical assault and she divorced her
husband. After returning to Ayemenem, she told her father the
attempted assaulting proposal of Englishmen, her father
refused to believe that „any Englishmen would covet another
man‟s wife‟(p-42). Inspector Thomas Mathew‟s tapping of
Ammu‟s breast with his police baton is a postcolonial
perversion of sex perpetuated by an Englishman – a colonizer
Mr. Hollick does it with the native Indian women; Mathew‟s
physical assault on Ammu and addressing her a „Veshya‟ is a
sign of seeing women as a spectacle or sexual object comes
from colonial concept of consumerism of objects or products
in global market. Michel Foucault (1980) in his concept of
„discourse‟ shows how people use different discourses to
execute power in the society by using their knowledge. He
states that power controls sexuality and uses knowledge to rule
over society. Mr. Hollick and Mathew know that the
powerless have no voice to rise. So Mr. Hollick uses his
colonial status and Inspector Mathew his knowledge of
criminology to harass Ammu. Roy delineates how the colonial
concept of sexism adapted by post-colonial people.
IV. PATRIARCHY
Patriarchy marginalizes females' experience and subjugates
females to such a degree that women consolidate with the
patriarchal power through domesticity thus invalidate their
experiences. Its functions are double-edged-on the basis of
gender or culture or both.
As Spivak in her work entitled In Other Worlds: Essays in
Cultural Politics(1987)demonstrated that subaltern or
proletarian woman(women with an inferior position, rank or
caste and non-wage earning women whose material conditions
are substantially inferior to those we associate with working-
class life), who may end up worse off than they were under
colonial rule. In the socio-economic system, industrialization
plays a significant role in progression in society. But in reality,
the industrial factories never brings hope for the proletariate or
powerless people in society. The Paradise, Pickle and
Preserves factory stands a lesser chance for Ammu as always
being lacked any position in the factory.
Gender biases have always been the major factor for the
suppression of women in society. Chacko misses no chance of
showing his sense of belongingness to his father‟s property.
Though Ammu does as much work in the factory as Chacko,
whenever he was dealing with food inspectors or sanitary
engineers, he always referred to it as „my factory‟, „my
pineapples‟, „my pickles‟.(57) Chacko‟s assertion of
possessing reminds Ammu as a daughter has no claim of
property in that post-colonial Indian society. She becomes a
gendered subaltern in her family and a marginalized other in
the factory. Her position in Paradise Pickles as a business
partner illustrates the status of corporate women in India.
Justice Bradley wrote,
the natural and proper timidity and delicacy which
belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for
many of the occupations of civil life.
and protested against Mary Bradwell‟s practicing law in
Illinois and insisted upon playing the role of wife and mother
as a part of „civil law‟ and nature herself.
Deprivation of women‟s education is another tool of
dominance and promoting the agenda of the subjugation of
women in patriarchy. Ammu never gets the same opportunity
to educate herself while her brother Chacko gets to study in
Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Since her father Pappachi being
an orthodox patriarch, he thinks that college education is an
unnecessary expense for a girl (38). Pappachi‟s discriminating
attitude towards her since childhood makes her feel „subaltern
other‟ in her own family.
Moreover, Ammu‟s position becomes more vulnerable after
her divorce. Her aunt Baby Kochamma resented her presence
and said:
“She subscribed wholeheartedly to the commonly
held view that a married daughter had no position in
her parent‟s home. As for a divorced daughter –
according to baby Kochamma, she had no position
anywhere at all.” (45-46).
After her separation from her husband, Ammu was compelled
to come back to Ayemenem, her father‟s house, her brother‟s
house only to live like a colonized subject and an exile in her
land (Kundu, 2001: 43). Here, Roy exposes all these beliefs
and assumptions of RSA(Regressive State Apparatus) and
masculine prerogatives which seems to shape up Ammu‟s
identity in a complex web of oppressive post-colonial society.
In a patriarchal society, women‟s choice of sexual desire over
chastity is often considered taboo. In a caste system, if the
choices are being made from a lower caste community, then it
is forbidden to make such violations of the social system. One
who chooses the man-made taboo over societal norms and
regulations of „who should be loved. And how and how
much.‟; she or he has to pay the price of it. Ammu‟s relation
with Velutha is such a case where she defies all the social
rules, struggles to emerge as an individual being in her own
right and death is only compensation she and Velutha could
make up. On the other side, Mammachi and Baby Kochamma
easily accept her brother Chacko‟s illegitimate sexual
relationships with women working in his factory. They call it
„man‟s need‟ for sexual desires. While Ammu‟s urge for
Velutha is absurd for them. In spite of having an already
vulnerable position in her life as a divorcee, she tries to follow
her desires and makes a relationship with a person who
belongs to lower caste is the main transgression of social laws
which both of them did consciously:
“Even later, on the thirteen nights that followed this
one, instinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The
Big Things ever lurked inside.Theyknew that there
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume III, Issue XII, December 2019|ISSN 2454-6186
www.rsisinternational.org Page 233
was nowhere for them to go.Theyhad nothing.No
future.So they stuck to the small things.”(338)
The only price she could make up for violating social norms is
living her rest of life like an isolated, marginalized being or an
exile and miserably dies. Death may seem the ultimate penalty
for lawbreakers or „subaltern other‟ or „marginalized other‟ by
social lawmakers but their love lives up to the emblematic
figure of courageous love.
V. CONCLUSION
Ammu is one of the vital characters in The God of Small
Things through which Roy portrays the marginalized,
suppressed and subjugated soul of a woman who resonates its
voiceless outcry for social, political, economic and cultural
independence and identity. Based on analyses from Spivak,
Gramsci, Althusser, Machareys‟ point of views I think it
seems in every sector, women more or less encounter different
social or cultural manipulations from different Repressive or
Ideological State Apparatuses such as patriarchy, social
discrimination, gender bias, sexism, caste system and so on.
Through Ammu Roy tries to show woman despite being
„subaltern other‟, she struggles against all odds, stands up as
an individual being instead opting for consolidation of people
and reclaims her position in society. Thus by promoting
unheard, peripheral voices even through death and Ammu‟s
offsprings Rahel and Estha‟s incestuous lovemaking acts as an
outlet to their psychological trauma and gives the potent force
to subaltern to reecho their suppressed voices for their social
identity. Roy shows how the powerless other being caught up
in a web of ideologies resist all the pervasive social systems of
hegemony to reclaim her position in the society.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We cordially thank our colleagues of Uttara University who
provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the
research, although they may not agree with all of the
interpretations of this paper. We highly show our heartfelt
gratitude to Professor Fayez M. Serajul Hoque, Adviser,
Uttara University, and Professor Haspia Bashirullah, Dean,
School of Arts and Social Science, Uttara University for
sharing their pearls of wisdom with us during this research
although any errors are our own and should not defile the
reputations of this esteemed persons.
REFERENCES
[1]. Abrams, M. H. (1988). A Glossary of Literary Terms. 1957. Fort
Worth: Holt.
[2]. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected Interviews and
Other Writings, 1972-1977.
[3]. Gramsci, A., Hoare, Q., & Nowell-Smith, G. (1971). Selections
from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci.
[4]. Hawthorn, J. (2000). Intertextualiiy. A Glossary of Contemporary
Literary Theory, London: Arnold, 183.
[5]. Roy, A. (2017). The God of Small Things. London: Fourth Estate.
[6]. Spivak, G. C. (1998). Can the subaltern speak? Colbert B.
[7]. Nelson, C., & Grossberg, L. (Eds.). (1988). Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture. University of Illinois Press.
[8]. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts//democrac/62.htm