ABSTRACT
Various critics contend that the “small” aspects of Arundhati Roy’s novel, The God of Small Things, are histories otherwise silenced by History, an argument clearly sensitive to the power dynamics of postcolonial situations.1 What many of these interpretations have in common is an investment in some formulation of history that does not rely on metanarratives of progress and liberation, two telos the novel renders unsatisfactory through Pillai’s compromised Marxism and Baby Kochamma’s hyperindulgence in globalization via satellite TV. Of more importance to such interpretations of Roy’s novel is, however, the uncovering of hidden or marginalized histories. I propose a view of The God of Small Things that is less preoccupied with validating alternative or suppressed versions of the tragic events in the novel’s past. My sights are on the future.
