Responsibility

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Responsibility
“The God of small things” by Arundhati Roy is a set of events that happened in a small
town of India known as Kerala. One of the various themes covered in the book is responsibility,
which this paper delineates on. Roy projects his message by focusing on different scenes
through physical description of her characters. The description of Kerela’s tropical landscape is
also lush and vivid, adding flavor on the themes.
As quoted from Mullaney earlier, Roy displays women in her novel with various options
and choices; whether resistant, complicit or both to the dominant order. She does not idealize
women but rather exposes them as human beings that are complex in character, with the
possibility of responsibility and agency towards their own actions. Various characters in the
novel are portrayed as responsible, while others as irresponsible. For instance, Ammu could have
been depicted as the good suffering hero with a cruel father, a drunken husband and a lover that
gets killed. Roy luckily does not stereotype. An illustration where responsibility is exhibited is
when Ammu quarrels with her husband when divorcing. What takes precedent in their quarrels
is who would take responsibility of the children. Ammu demands her husband to take care of one
of the children – Estha, but he refuses. Because of the guilty, Ammu hugs him and says “He
mustn’t imagine things” (81).
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The memory is painful to her and does not wish to remember it, leading her to the extent
of telling lies. Likewise, Ammu’s husband is irresponsible. As a father, he has the responsibility
of taking good care of his family and remaining a responsible father.
 Ammu’s regret is connected to an episode she experienced when Mammachi and Baby
Kochamma locked her in a room. She expressed her pain “incoherent with range and disbelief at
what was happening to her at being locked away like the family lunatic in a medieval household”
(239). Depiction of her anguish is manifest through her screams towards her children when they
inquire the reason why she is locked inside the room “…should have dumped you in an
orphanage” (240). This housing makes the children run away and causes the premature death of
her cousin Sophie. She is also chased away. Therefore, Roy brings out the consequences of an
irresponsible person.
 Apart from rejection from her children, Ammu is also guilty for the death of her lover
Velutha. When she hears about his death, she whispers to the bus conductor when traveling back
to Ayemenem “I’ve killed him”. This happens after her efforts to solve the issue with the police
become futile. One may ask why Ammu feels guilty about this death and seek to understand how
she killed Velutha. The reason for feeling guilty is the fact that she had an affair with Velutha.
There is also a social class difference between Velutha and Ammu. Velutha is more vulnerable
and exposed owing to his status in society. He comes from a lower castle compared to Ammu
who comes from an upper castle. The fears and concerns of Velutha are depicted from the way
he becomes hesitant and scared to enter the relationship with Ammu. Velutha is more concerned
about his job, family and livelihood. Even as Velutha is concerned about this, Ammu seems less
concerned about the risks of her relationship as she knows that it happens with secrecy under the
cover of night. Ammu’s dreams of the cheerful man with one arm” but unfortunately in reality,
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Velutha cannot fight the shadows but could only see them (205). Therefore, if Ammu had not
dared to enter in the relationship, Velutha would not have died and would have no perception as
the cause of his death. To most of the readers, Ammu’s utterances that “I ve killed him” is a
clear insight of the burden or the responsibility that she believes she need to carry for the demise
of Velutha.
Responsibility of Mammachi is quite clear in the novel. Mammachi is a woman who
acts openly according to her values and beliefs if told about the affair. Despite being described as
submissive, she is equally portrayed as a victim of unawareness of her beliefs and values. She is
also a woman that understands her responsibility as she runs a business. Therefore, she is a
woman who to some extent is depicted as taking a responsibility of her actions.
Baby Kochamma is one of the characters depicted as cunning, vicious and energetic,
even though she thinks that she is an innocent sufferer. The novel reads “in her mind she kept
and organized, careful account of things she’d done for people, and things people hadn’t done for
her” (93). The quote depicts Baby Kochamma as a self-pitying mindset and self-righteous
woman, which makes her deny her participation in the responsibility in various situations. For
instance, she persuades Estha to betray Velutha to save Ammu from being taken to jail at the
police station. The case of deat