The Trauma of Being a Woman: Oppression of Women in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things

Abstract

All around the world violence against women occurs daily. In India also women are subjected to oppression and humiliation in several ways day by day. Indian women are mainly oppressed because the country is built around a patriarchal mind set. Patriarchy is a social system in which each and everything in the family is controlled and decided by the males. They have the roles of political leadership, moral authority and property ownership. The patriarchal idea is that a woman’s only duty is to serve her father, brothers and her husband. Arunhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a novel which is set in a patriarchal society. Breaking laws, forbidden relationships, the changing social order, oppression of women etc. are its main themes. This novel shows how differently men and women are treated according to the unwritten social norms. Women who stand against men and society are considered as the other and they will be punished accordingly. The present article analyses how Roy portrays an unpleasantly difficult situation of Indian women against the setting of Ayemenam, a southern Indian state of Kerala where the chain of relationships are very complex which traps the female characters subjecting them to repeated suppression.