The God of Small Things Chapters 9 - 14
Rahel looks back on the week preceding Sophie’s drowning. The twins got the opportunity to understand Sophie, as well as her disposition towards the rest of the family. Sophie informed Chacko that she loved her “real” father far more than him, she refused to engage with Baby Kochamma and established herself as a human being by appearing sad over her non-inclusion in their games. Rahel fondly recalls a time when all three of the children had donned sarees and visited Velutha’s home. He had welcomed them and joined them inside their pretend game by treating them like full-fledged Kochammas. Velutha had offered them tea, and sat alongside them, talking to them of the weather, and the river. Rahel realizes that Velutha had been a wonderful man who had understood the fragile nature of the stories that the children were carrying inside them. He appreciated how he had shed his role of an adult to play with them so earnestly. She recalled that he had allowed them to paint his fingernails and that his nails had still been painted when he was brought to the house in a horrid state by the police.
On the day of Margaret and Sophie’s arrival, Estha disappeared from the Welcome Play that his family was putting on for their guests. He made his way into the pickle factory, where the “illegal” banana jelly was bubbling away inside of a giant vat. He begins to stir the banana jelly, given his detailed understanding of the recipe since he had been given the honor of writing it down in his diary by his mother and Mammachi. Estha stirs the jelly and thinks about the drinks vendor from the theatre. He realises that the man can show up at the factory at any time, and he would probably welcomed by his mother. Estha decides that “anything can happen to anyone,” and “It’s best to be prepared.” Rahel joins him in the factory and quietly sits on the lid of one of the lids. They converse with one another using words as well as thoughts. Estha tells her that he intends to run away from the house and make his way to the history house across the river, which was said to be haunted. The solution for the ghosts comes easily to them as they realize that Communists don’t believe in Ghosts and so they would become communists. Rahel goes off for her nap with Ammu, but she pretends to sleep. As soon as Ammu drifts off to sleep, Rahel slips away to the river’s edge where Rahel is waiting for her near an old boat and a communist flag. They practice crossing the river, but find that it takes water so they make their towards Velutha’s house. They find Velutha’s disabled brother screaming at an overripe guava about to fall into his compound. The twins discuss the problem of their leaking boat with him, and he gives them instructions on fixing the leaks. They set about working on the boat when Velutha arrives and gives them more detailed instructions about their work. He also warns them about the deceptive nature of the river, which can become violent rather suddenly. Unbeknownst to the twins, Velutha has already begun to see Ammu differently, and he feels a thrill at interacting with her children.
After working on the boat with Velutha, the twins go to see their mother, who is still napping and experiencing a rather erotic dream. Ammu feels like she is swimming in a turbulent sea and trying to connect with a dark and handsome man, with bulging muscles. She isn’t quite able to hold on to the dream as her twins look at her with worry. They believe that she is experiencing an afternoon-mare, and attempt to rescue her by making noise around the room to rouse her. She comes out of her dream and brings her children to herself. They hold her, touch her stretch marks, and divide the responsibility for those marks amongst themselves. She realizes that they have been playing with Velutha, and warns them about associating too openly with an untouchable man. She takes her body back from them and goes into her bathroom. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and acknowledges that she had been dreaming about Velutha. She examines her aging body and mourns the future that she is doomed to live according to a patriarchal society that sees her as a divorced woman. Suddenly, Rahel realizes that she is standing in the same room, and watching Estha take a shower.
Rahel is called to the temple by the sound of music that signals the enactment of a Kathakali performance. She remembers how Mr. Pillai had spent whole nights teaching them the nuances of a Kathakali performance when they had been young children. Rahel reflects on the nature of Kathakali in the modern context, and how the tradition has begun to lose its purity in its attempt to better appeal to the masses. She thinks of the performers and the murky future of the craft when it can’t be passed on from parent to child. She watches the performance of famous tales and thinks about the sad fate of her own family. She feels more than sees Estha enter the temple and sit on a pillar parallel to where she sat herself. They watch the plays one after the other as the thoroughly stoned artists perform with deep enthusiasm. The twins leave the temple together several hours later, without ever exchanging a word with one another.
Sophie wakes up in Chacko’s room on the day of her arrival and observes Chacko walking past their room window. He had wished to check in on his ex-wife and daughter but had suddenly lost his nerve. The narrator takes the opportunity to explain Chacko’s history with Margaret, who had been working in a cafe when Chacko was reading at Oxford. On the day of their first meeting, Chacko came to the cafe as a customer and dressed extremely sloppily. He told her a ridiculous joke about a pessimist and an optimist, but Margaret was deeply affected by the quality of his laugh. Over the next few months, they grew closer to one another. Margaret was chiefly attracted to his grand yet personal view of the world, and he helped her look at it as a more complete unit. Chacko loved that she did not try to fix him or badger about being tidy. However, Chacko’s lack of an adult demeanor eventually drove Margaret away from him after their marriage. Chacko leaves her then and returns to India, where he works briefly as a professor before taking over the operations of his mother’s pickle factory. Margaret viewed Chacko as a friend, and so had accepted his invitation to Christmas, but she lived to regret that decision forever.
On the day of Sophie’s death, Chacko and Margaret traveled to Cochin to confirm the tickets for their return journey. They returned to find her body on the verandah after she had been fished out of the river by a fisherman. She had drowned and been feasted upon by some fish, and the twins were still missing. The previous night, Mammachi had received Velutha’s father during a storm while the family was preparing for dinner. He felt like he owed his family’s fortune to Mammachi’s family, and that his son was betraying the favor that had been granted by them. He confessed to having seen Ammu and Velutha together and offered to kill his son. Mammachi’s anger was stoked by Baby Kochamma who still harbored resentment against Velutha for the humiliation that she had suffered at the hands of communists during the rally. She helped Mammachi lock Ammu in her bedroom while they summoned Velutha. Baby Kochamma also reported Velutha as a rapist to the police and blamed the missing children on him the following morning. Ammu realized that she had shouted at her children when she had been locked in the room. She had told them that they were the reason for her suffering and that if they did not exist then she would be better off. Mammachi confronted Velutha with Baby Kochamma at her back and said horrid things to him. She ended his employment, hurled despicable curses at him, and ordered him to leave. Velutha listened to her silence and left to seek help from the local head of the communist Pillai.
The day after Sophie’s arrival, Chacko had gone to see Mr. Pillai to discover Velutha’s relationship with the Communist party on the pretext of ordering a new set of pickle labels. Mr. Pillai told him that Velutha was a cardholder but that it would be better for Chacko if he were to send Velutha away. He explained that the rest of the factory workers did not like how closely the management associated with an untouchable like Velutha. Chacko defends Velutha, explains how important he was in keeping the factory operational daily, and argues that Communism should not yield to Casteism. After Sophie’s death, Chacko abandoned the factory altogether and escaped his daughter’s memories by migrating to Canada.
After Velutha’s confrontation with Mammachi, he went to Mr. Pillai, but he did not receive any solace. Mr. Pillai told him that the party could not get involved in the personal matters of their party workers.
Analysis
The narrative structure of the novel takes a meandering path along the central plot of the novel. The story halts, pools, and revels in the small details of the character’s lives even though they have little relevance to actually advancing the plot line. True to its name, the novel is about the small things that seem to matter the most, more so than the large things, which are the forces that push the plot. In the buildup to the close of the novel, the author’s attention is inevitably brought to the Big Things, such as hate, bigotry, and greed that lead the Ipe family to destruction.
Roy highlights the destructive force of family in the novel and presents a similar effect for sex, both of which are traditionally associated with positive effects. The story of the Ipe family is colored by the destruction that is brought about by the sex between Ammu and Velutha. However, at the end of the novel, the twins shatter social and civil laws through their incestuous coupling. Roy underscores that their sex is not about desire and lust but rather about need and filling the emotional vacuums that exist inside the both of them.
