Loyalty and Love: The God of Small Things

In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy creates an elaborate binary opposition in her portrait of the lives of twins, Estha and Rahel, growing up in the complex social environment of castes and Syrian Christianity in post-colonial India. Wishing for one day, one moment, that is free from suffering, boundaries, and prejudice to last for a lifetime is a dream inverted and ultimately defeated throughout the novel (including the side story of Karna from the Mahabharata). The Oxford educated uncle, Chacko informs Rahel that anything is “possible in Human Nature[:] Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy” (112). On the surface, the story is of divided loyalty illustrating the predetermined torment of the “physics of power”, while at a deeper level, the stories invoke questions about the “Love Laws” and powerlessness in general. As the first chapter ends, the “Love Laws” are introduced as “[t]he laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much” (33).
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