Movement in Time in God of Small Things - Essay Example

Movement in Time in God of Small Things Reading Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things is challenging as the continually moves back andforth through time ignoring the linear laws of space and not ignoring the traditional dimension of time and space, but rather to demonstrate the connection of these disrupted events. Individuals do not often remember past events in sequential order but rather in relevance to his or her own thought processes. By writing this novel through flashback of the key moments in Rahels’s life, the story becomes more realistic as to how and individual actually thinks, recalls, and reflects personal history.

By presenting this story in this unique non-sequential narrative style, Roy chooses themes and events are most important to reveal at that particular moment in the story even if the order is confusing to follow at first. To understand the Kochamma familys experience is, the author has chosen a non-chronological order to emphasize the importance of thoughts and recollections in a realistic fashion. As an example of this structure, the opening chapter provides an overview or an outline of the story of the family.

However, the remainder of the chapters are not written in chronological order. In fact, the concluding chapter, recounting the love scene, occurred in the middle of the chronological story but is not presented to the audience until the end. While this may appear confusing, this structure symbolizes the idea that here is no real end to the story itself as the story changes and is rewritten every day as new events occur. Because the story has not ended as the characters’ lives have not ended, the reader must guess and wonder what might happen in the future and they ever find happiness and how.

The author does not attempt to provide these unknown answers. Chapter two provides the first indication that the story will be alternating from the past to the present. In this section, the purpose of this structure is to foreshadow events by using Rahels segregated memories to provide hints of the tragedy about to be told. The author discreetly informs the reader of this intention by stating at the start of the chapter that “It was the kind of time in the life of a family when something happens to nudge its hidden morality from its resting place and make it bubble to the surface and float for awhile.

” (Roy 35). Roy is clearing demonstrating that memories appear as individuals need to face particular events or circumstances and this does not typically happen in a linear fashion. Memories are often jumbled and out of order and even incomplete at times. Roy’s writing reflects this. In reviewing chapter eleven titled the same as the book itself, there is a new characteristic of Ammu revealed displaying female desires and needs as well as her need to begin her own adventure in life. Yet, it is evident at this point her happiness cannot endure and that tragedy will unfold unbeknownst to her.

The man with her in the chapter of the novel intriguingly does not leave any footsteps in the sand, and leaves behind no ripples in the water. It is apparent that he is the God of Small Things. While Ammu could not forsee the future, it seems this man could as though he knew darkness loomed in “Shadows that only he could see.” (Roy 205). The purpose of this writing style is to present a realistic style in which people live not knowing the future and not always seeing the signs and foreshadowing symbols of the events about to unravel.

Even though people live chronologically, memories transcend space and time. Works Cited Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House, 2008. Print.