In The God of Small Things Indian author Arundhati Roy tells the story of what happened in 1969 to a particular land and factory-owning family in the southwestern state of Kerala; the Ipes. In doing so she explores themes dealing with different forms of oppression such as the subjugation of women and the idealization of the colonial center Britain at the expense of domestic culture. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how structural oppression impacts and conditions the lives and actions of the two female characters Ammu and Baby Kochamma. Using primarily feminist and post-colonial theory to aid my research, I look at the specific factors involved in the victimization of the two women. Thereafter I trace the processes that make one of them internalize the dominant values and the other rebel against them, which are also the reasons why one becomes the principal agent of the other’s destruction.

In The God of Small Things Indian author Arundhati Roy tells the story of what happened in 1969 to a particular land and factory-owning family in the southwestern state of Kerala; the Ipes. In doing so she explores themes dealing with different forms of oppression such as the subjugation of women and the idealization of the colonial center Britain at the expense of domestic culture. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how structural oppression impacts and conditions the lives and actions of the two female characters Ammu and Baby Kochamma. Using primarily feminist and post-colonial theory to aid my research, I look at the specific factors involved in the victimization of the two women. Thereafter I trace the processes that make one of them internalize the dominant values and the other rebel against them, which are also the reasons why one becomes the principal agent of the other’s destruction.