McCoy's Life Journey曉風

The New Colonizer: Haunts of Imperialism and Caste System in The God of Small Things
Ryan Hsieh


Ryan’s biography:
Ryan Hsieh got his Bachelor degree in Chung Hua University. Now he is the graduate school student in National Chung Hsing University as well. He takes great interest in the postcolonial literature and feminism. The paper he is going to present today focuses on the work of the Asian Indian writer Arundhati Roy, a winner of Booker Prize, 1997. He utilizes Edward Said’s concept on imperialism to show how the colonized people become imperialistic and Anne Anlin Cheng’s concept of racial melancholia to elaborate the colonized people’s identification crisis in the postcolonial India in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.



The New Colonizer: Haunts of Imperialism and Caste System in The God of Small Things

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is a novel about a tragic and traumatic experience in an Anglophile family in the postcolonial India. These Anglophile characters behave as the new colonizer in India. They treat people based on imperialism and caste system. Even though India is an independent and modernized country in the story, it is subjected to the forces of imperialism and caste system. The two forces are like two ghosts haunting them. In this proposed research, I would like to explore how imperialism and the caste system haunt them and elaborate the colonized people’s identification crisis is a symptom of racial melancholia. The paper will be divided into two sections including the haunting of imperialism and caste system and the colonized people’s recognition based on racial melancholia.
In the first section of this paper, I would like to explore how imperialism and the caste system are portrayed and revealing their impact on postcolonial India. At first, I would like to talk about the imperialism constructed by the education and its influences. According to Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, “Imperialism means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory; colonialism, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory” (Said 9). India is an independent country but there are three people still loving their colonizer and their imperialistic ideology. These people also teach their younger generation to behave as they do. The protagonist’s maternal grandaunt, grandfather, and uncle all have the connections to the colonizer. For example, the protagonist’s grandaunt, Baby Kochamma gets the diploma in Ornamental Gardening from the University of Rochester in America. And the protagonist’s uncle, Chacko is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. As Chacko portrays that their family are a family of Anglophiles means “their minds had been brought into a state which made them like the English” (Roy 52). Baby Kochamma and Chacko teach the protagonists, the twins, Estha and Rahel English. For instance, Baby Kochamma forces the twins to speak in English, learns the pronunciation, and establishes a rule about speaking in English. If Baby Kochamma catches the twins speaking in Malayalam in their private conversation, the twins will write this lines “I will always speak in English, I will always speak in English” in a hundred times (Roy 36). In my view, the colonized people must face their identification crisis of language and customs. And their younger generation will forget their language in the future. In this story, Baby Kochamma demands her offspring to learn the other’s language, the colonizer’s language rather than learning their own language. This case is different from other stories. In other story, the older generation always tells their younger generation about keeping their customs. But Roy handles this case in a different and satiric way. The older generation tells their younger generation about keeping the imperial customs but losing their tradition. Rajeev. G argues that the impact of imperialism is the reason why the postcolonial people prefer to keep imperialistic ideology rather than their own tradition:
The history, culture, language, customs and beliefs of the white colonizers are imposed on the colonized and they are eventually coaxed to consider them as universal, normative and superior to their own local indigenous culture. This creates a strong sense of inferiority in the colonized subject and leads to an adoption of the language, culture and customs of the colonizers by the colonized as a way of compensating for these feelings of inferiority in their self-identity. This creates a divided sense of self in the subject formation of the colonized. (2)
I would like to portray the situation of postcolonial India as the banana jams—“according to their specifications it was neither jam nor jelly. Too thin for jelly and too thick for jam” — a product, produced by the Mammachi’s factory, Paradise Pickles & Preserves (Roy 30). In my own interpretation, the situation of this Anglophile family is like the banana jam. No matter how they try to behave like the colonizer, the British, they won’t become the British forever because of their Asian-Indian cultural roots. The colonized people have been affected by the colonizer; they can’t categorize them as the traditional Asian Indians.
Secondly, I would like to mention that there are latent imperialistic ideologies pervade in their daily lives through English novels, English films, TV programs, English cars, and western costumes rather than Indian goods. I would like to apply into Said’s theory on the process of imperialism and explore how the latent imperialistic ideology works in the daily lives:
The process of imperialism occurred beyond the level of economic laws and political decisions, and—by predisposition, by the authority of recognizable cultural formations, by continuing consolidation within education, literature, and the visual and musical arts— were manifested at another very significant level, that of the national culture, which we have tended to sanitize as a realm of unchanging intellectual monuments, free from worldly affiliations. (12)
The postcolonial people behave as the colonizer, the English people do. There are many imperialistic products in their lives. For instance, Baby Kochamma watches American NBA league games on satellite TV. The twins, Estha and Rahel go to Abhilash Talkies and watch the film, Sound of Music with their grandaunt, Baby Kochamma, and their mother, Ammu even though they have watched this film many times. Susan Strehle argues that “The Abhilash Talkies, another space for escaping from history into mass- produced Western fantasies” (Strehle 135). In my own interpretation, postcolonial people live in the world constituted by the imperialistic products and its ideology. The latent imperialistic ideology shows through the media, literature, and so on. Strehle also blames that “the United States in particular of conducting a New Imperialism” waged through economic sanction (Strehle 128). In my view, America’s New Imperialism reinforces the postcolonial people’s imperialistic fancy on the colonizer. Hence, it revives the haunting of imperialism. According to Strehle’s Transnational Women's Fiction: Unsettling Home And Homeland, “As Roy tells one strand of the national story, the characters in the Ayemenem family experience the doubled forms of identification typical of diasporic subjects, ironically looking to English models, more than to India, for their sense of custom” (Strehle 130). It shows that the postcolonial people look like the diasporic subjects. The postcolonial people live in India, but they behave as the British people.
What’s more, I would like to portray the colonized people’s fantasy for the colonizer: their fascination with Sophie Mol and the death of Sophie Mol is the haunting of imperialism. At first, I would like to talk about the colonized people’s fascination with the half-breed, Sophie Mol. Sophie Mol is born to Chacko and his English ex-wife, Margaret Kochamma. Before Sophie Mol comes to the Ayemenem house, Mammachi, and Baby Kochamma all behave “as though they already knew her” (Roy 36). When Sophie Mol comes, the townspeople come to see her but ignore the twins, Estha and Rahel. The townspeople found that “Mammachi draw Sophie Mol close to her eyes to look at her. To read her like a cheque. To check her like a bank note”; that is, Roy portrays Sophie Mol is a precious treasure (Roy 174). The colonized people’s fascination is ironic. Because the English girl, Sophie Mol is a symbol as the colonizer, the colonized people would rather respect the colonizer than themselves. Roy portrays that the colonized people’s fond smiles on Sophie Mol looks like a spotlight. Even if Sophie Mol is the only child getting the love from this family, she still neglects their fascination with her. For instance, Sophie Mol tells her biological father, Chacko that “she loves him less than Joe” (Roy 189). It reveals that the colonized people’s love for Sophie Mol is failed because no matter how Chacko expresses his love to his daughter, Sophie Mol, she doesn’t love him more than Joe. However, Ammu shows her anger and say that “Must we behave like some damn godforsaken tribe that’s just been discovered” after the Anglophile families express their love for Sophie Mol (Roy 180). In my own interpretation, Ammu is the only person who doesn’t have the identification crisis in the Anglophile family. Ammu is the person who tries to get rid of the haunting of imperialism constituted by the colonizer and the modern products. As Strehle’s observes “Family members become split between pride and self-hatred—for their near- British but not- British status—in their love for the nation that conquered and colonized them” (Strehle 133). According to Strehle’s perspective, Ammu is the only one who is despised by her family because she is situated as the ‘not- British status’. Besides, I would like to mention that Sophie Mol’s death is the haunting of imperialism. The twin, Estha and Rahel never forget this traumatic experience due to Sophie Mol’s death. Roy portrays the death of Sophie Mol as “a quiet thing in socks” and “the loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. It was always there. Like a fruit in season. Every season. As permanent as a Government job. It ushered Rahel through childhood . . . into womanhood” (Roy 16). Roy portrays that Sophie Mol’s death is an unforgettable traumatic experience by using these vivid accounts. By plotting the death of Sophie Mol in this traumatic narrative, Roy shows that the situation of postcolonial India, imperialism never disappears.
On the other hand, I would like to talk about the haunting of the caste system and how the untouchable people are categorized. Roy portrays the caste system as love law. Love law stipulates that what kinds of people should be loved. According to Sandra Almeida’s “Untouchable Bodies: Arundhati Roy's Corporeal Transgressions”, “Love Law to be transgressed is a cultural, social, and historical one that lies deeply ingrained in Indian customs” (Almeida 263). The untouchable person, Velutha is an intelligent, kind and diligent carpenter. Although he is good at being a carpenter, the caste system stipulates that Paravans can’t be hired as a carpenter. The fact that Velutha can work as a carpenter in Mammachi’s factory makes other workers angry with him. In India, the problem of the caste system is severe. Even if Mammachi is willing to hire Velutha, she still regards him is an untouchable person and pays him money less than the touchable person. For Mammachi, Velutha must be grateful to be a carpenter because he can do the job which belongs to the touchable person. Velutha joins the march of Marxist to change his tragic fate as an untouchable person. It is ironical because the leader of Marxist, Comrade Pillai betrays him. For me, the caste system totally overthrows what the God said that “All men are created equal”. In the caste system, the untouchable people are miserable, hopeless and treated as nonhuman beings.
Secondly, I would like to talk about the love between Velutha and Ammu and the symbolic meaning of their relationship. In the caste system, their love is forbidden. Ammu is locked into her room after Mammachi and Baby Kochamma hear about their forbidden love between Velutha and her from Velutha’s father, Vellya Paapen. For Mammachi and Baby Kochamma, their forbidden love makes their family shameful. For Vellya, their love is forbidden because Velutha is an untouchable person; he can’t love the upper caste. In my view, Velutha’s love with Ammu may be regarded as a rebellion against the caste system. As Strehle observes “With the lovemaking between Ammu and Velutha, the text violates the very core of caste prohibitions, which erect rigid separations between polluting and upper caste bodies” (Strehle 152).
In addition, I would like to talk about Velutha’s sacrifice and its impacts. Velutha’s love affair with Ammu results in the fact that Velutha must be responsible to Sophie Mol’s death. After learning of the love between Velutha and Ammu from Vellya, Baby Kochamma lies to the inspector Thomas Matthew that Velutha has planned to violate them. After listening to Baby Kochamma’s and Comrade Pillai’s lies, the police go to the History House and arrest Velutha. The police are cruel and inhuman to Velutha even though Velutha is innocent. Roy emphasizes the brutality of the Indian police. Before they found the truth, they punish Velutha. The police system is failed. Roy portrays the odor of Velutha’s torture as “Like old roses on a breeze”, and this phrase repeats many times in this novel. Joanne Lipson Freed suggests that “Phrases likes ‘the scent of old roses on a breeze’ appear and recur many times before readers are able to recognize them as the twins’ sensory impressions of Velutha’s brutal beating” (Freed 232). In my own interpretation, Roy’s repetitive use of the phrase reveals that Velutha’s death is the twins’ traumatic experience. The sinner Estha who is unable to forget his crime and his sense of guilt will haunt him for the rest of his life because Velutha is a scapegoat for his crime. Sandra Almeida suggests “Velutha becomes the scapegoat for a series of incidents that occurs in the novel fabricated to incriminate him: the drowning of Sophie Mol, the disappearance of the twins, and the attempted rape of Ammu” (Almeida 266).
In the second section of this paper, I would like to discuss how the colonized people’s identification crisis is a symptom of racial melancholia. Racial melancholia is a theory from Anne Anlin Cheng. The term, “Racial melancholia denotes a complex process of racial rejection and desire on the part of nonwhites that expresses itself in abject and manic forms” (Cheng xi). Cheng suggests that the process of the racial melancholia works on the nonwhites:
The racial other (the so-called melancholic object) suffers from racial melancholia whereby his or her racial identity is imaginatively reinforced through the introjections of a lost, never- possible perfection, an inarticulable loss that comes to inform the individual’s sense of his or her own subjectivity. (xi)
The symptom of racial melancholia which is the cause of the colonized people’s imperialistic fantasy and the reason that the untouchable person internalizes himself is untouchable takes place.
Firstly, I would like to reveal the fact that the twins’ maternal grand aunt and their uncle are the melancholic subjects. For Cheng, “The melancholic eats the lost object—feeds on it” (Cheng 8). The Anglophile people are the melancholic; they always “eat” the lost object, the imperialistic ideas, and feed them and become the Anglophile. For Cheng, “By taking in the other-made-ghostly, the melancholic subject fortifies him- or herself and grows rich in impoverishment” (Cheng 8). In my own interpretation on this passage, the impoverishment denotes Asian Indian people idealize the others’ characteristics which they lack. For Cheng, “The melancholic ego is a haunted ego, at once made ghostly and embodied in its ghostliness, but the ‘object’ is also ghostly” (Cheng 9). The imperialistic fantasy is a shadow because it doesn’t exist; it exists through the ideal formation. For Cheng, “The melancholic ego is formed and fortified by a spectral drama, whereby the subject sustains itself through the ghostly emptiness of a lost other” (Cheng 10). Cheng also suggests the racial other are assimilated. In my view, the Anglophile people are assimilated by the British colonizer because they all get the education from the western country. For Cheng, “Assimilation in fact denotes a form of internalized so intense as to be almost a bodily incorporation of an other . . . because it augments a psychical condition of susceptibility” (Cheng 78).
Besides, I would like to reveal the fact that Velutha’s father, Vellya is a melancholia subject. For Cheng, “Melancholia gets more potently at the notion of constitutive loss that expresses itself in both violent and muted ways, producing confirmation as well as crisis, knowledge as well as aporia” (Cheng 12). Vellya internalizes the caste system and he internalizes himself is an untouchable person so he can’t do what the caste system stipulates. For Cheng, “The internalization, far from denoting a condition of surrender, embodies a web of negotiation that expresses agency as well as abjection” (Cheng 17).
To sum up, the impacts of imperialism and the caste system still haunt the postcolonial India. Not only the new colonizer, the Anglophile people but the untouchable person’s identification based on the racial melancholia.








Works Cited
Almeida, Sandra Regina Goulart. “Untouchable Bodies: Arundhati Roy's Corporeal Transgressions.” Ilha Do Desterro: A Journal Of Language And Literature 42.(2002): 257-274. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 22 Jan. 2013.
Cheng, Anne Anlin. The Melancholy of Race. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.
---. Preface. The Melancholy of Race. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.
Freed, Joanne Lipson. “The Ethics Of Identification: The Global Circulation of Traumatic Narrative in Silko's Ceremony and Roy's The God Of Small Things.” Comparative Literature Studies 48.2 (2011): 219-240. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.
G, Rajeev. “Arundati Rai’s The God of Small Things – A Post-
Colonial Reading.” The Indian Review of World Literature in English 7.2 (2011): 1-7. July 2011.Web. 10 Jan. 2013.(http://worldlitonline.net/arundhati-rai-s-the.pdf).
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997. Print.
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.
Strehle, Susan. Transnational Women's Fiction: Unsettling Home and Homeland. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 15 Jan. 2013.