Identity under Cross-Cultural Influences in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997)

Abstract

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a renowned postcolonial literary narrative that provides valuable insights into the Indian postcolonial spectrum that is complex and multilayered. The novel vividly and delicately portrays the fine kitting and interweaving of various cross-cultural aspects, their complexities and their influence of the experiences of individuals and on the construction of their identity in postcolonial India.

In that order, Roy’s narrative generally presents the diversity and assortment of the Indian culture with all its variations in terms of races, languages, religions and the like. Through the lives and life events of its characters—more particularly Ammu’s children Estha and Rahel—the novel describes the elaborate and complicated aspects of the Indian context. By extension, the novel’s narrative exhibits the workings and particulars of the characters personal dealings as a demonstration of such cultural complexities.