"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy- Analysis

Here is the prompt: One of the many recurring motifs in The God of Small Things is the titular figure: that is, the God of Small Things. This figure appears throughout the text and by the end is explicitly associated with Velutha. The God of Small Things, the narrator tells us, is also “The God of Loss” (Roy 330) and, at least in Ammu’s dream, has “one arm” and “could only do one thing at a time” (215). In your essay, analyze the role of the God of Small Things in Roy’s novel. Some questions to consider: why is the God of Small Things described in the various ways in which he/she is described? What part does the God of Small Things play in the tragedies that unfold in Ayemenem? Why is the God of Small Things associated with—or equivalent to—Velutha? How might the God of Small Things relate to the Big God/Small God binary from the first chapter? And how does the God of Small Things relate to the questions of history and (post)colonialism that run through both the text and the course as a whole? While you do not have to answer all of these questions in your essay, this final one is particularly important: make sure that you are making tense, strong claims about the way in which The God of Small Things engages and complicates the theme. As a suggestion, examining Ammu’s dream of the God of Small Things (215) might be helpful for this prompt. If possible: For this prompt, place The God of Small Things in conversation with either Edward Said’s Orientalism or Frantz Fanon’s “On Violence.”