Deconstructing the Language Laws: Arundhati Roy’s Linguistic Strategies in The God of Small Things

Abstract

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997) is a story which portrays how things deemed to be the smallest are connected to, shaped, and constructed by the bigger discourses of history, colonialism, gender, caste, and religion which define the subject. With her linguistic strategies aiming at deconstruction of the language, Roy unveils how the voice of the subaltern is located on the margins of the dominant discourses, and therefore, listening to the subaltern’s voice requires dwelling on the alternative spaces of existence constructed by the subaltern. Estha’s refusal to speak, Ammu, Velutha and Rahel’s resistance to the laws that determine interpersonal relations and their use of the language of the body are among the significant examples of the mechanisms used by the subaltern to resist domination. By exploring Roy’s linguistic strategies through close reading and textual analysis of the silences and alternative linguistic positions of the postcolonial subject, who is further marginalised by gender, caste and religion, from a position that combines postcolonial theory with a Lacanian perspective, this study aims to highlight how Roy creates a unique linguistic expression through the subversive strategies she utilizes to disrupt hegemonic power structures and challenge the established norms of society, culture and language. Designing, constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing, as in the architectural profession in which she was trained, Roy transforms standard English into an effective tool of communicating the postcolonial subject’s experiences of subalternity.