Parody as a Postmodernist Technique to Reinterpret Fictional

Forms: A Case Study of Arundhati Roy’s The God o f Small Things

By Supervisor

Dr- Muhammad Safeer Awan

106-FLL/MSENG/F08

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MS in English

To

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD
2011
 ^^ssionNo..

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 PARODY AS A POSTMODERNIST TECHNIQUE TO
REINTERPRET FICTIONAL FORMS: A CASE STUDY OF
ARUNDHATI ROY’S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

By Supervisor

Maria Farooq Dr. Muhammad Safeer Awan

106-FLL/MSENG/F08 Assistant Professor

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE
INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD
Ill
 Acceptance by the Viva Voce Committee

Title of the thesis: Parody as a Postmodernist Technique to Reinterpret Fictional Forms: A

Case Study of Arundhati Roy’s The God o f Small Things.

Name of student: Maria Farooq

Registration No: 106-FLL/MSENG/F08

Accepted by the Department of EngUsh, FacuUy of Languages & Literature, International

Islamic University, Islamabad, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of
Philosophy degree in English.

Viva Voce Committee

External Examiner Prof. Dr. Rasheed Amjad

Dr. Wasima Shehzad Dean
Professor (Linguistics) Faculty of Languages & Literature
Department of Humanities
Air University, Islamabad

Interna] Examiner Dr. Munawar Iqbal Ahmad

Dr. Munawar Iqbal Ahmad Chairman
Associate Professor Department of English
Department of English, IIUI

Assistant Professor
Department of English, IIUI

December 16,2011
 A thesis submitted to Department of English,
International Islamic University, Islamabad as a partial
fulfilment of requirement for the award of the
degree of MS English.

IV
T o my Parents
 DECLARATION

I, Maria Farooq daughter of M. Siddiq U1 Farooq, Registration # 106-FLL/MSENG/

F08, student of MS, in the discipline of English Literature, do hereby declare that the

matter printed in the thesis “Parody as a Postmodernist Technique to Reinterpret

Fictional Forms: A Case Study of Arundhati Roy’s The God o f Small Things^^

submitted by me in partial fulfilment of MS degree, is my original work, and has not

been submitted or published earlier. I also solemnly declare that it shall not, in future,

be submitted by me for obtaining any other degree from this or any other university or

institution.

I also understand that if evidence of plagiarism is found in my

thesis/dissertation at any stage, even after the award of a degree, the work may be

cancelled and the degree revoked.

This work was carried out and completed at International Islamic University

Islamabad, Pakistan.

Signatures of Deponent
Dated: 28* October, 2011 MARIA FAROOQ

VI
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

D E D IC A T IO N ............................................................ ERROR! BO O K M AR K N O T DEFINED.

D E C L A R A T IO N ................................................................................................................................... V I

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S ...........................................................................................................V III

A B S T R A C T ...............................................................................................................................................X

C H A P T E R 1 ................................................................................................................................................ 1

IN T R O D U C T IO N .................................................................................................................................... 1

1.1. Intr o d uc tio n to the S t u d y ............................................................................................... 1

1.2. S tatem ent of the P r o b l e m ............................................................................................... 3
1.3. R esearch Q u e st io n s : ...........................................................................................................3
1.4. T heoretical F ram ew ork / M e th o d o l o g y ..................................................................4
1.5. C hapter D iv is io n ................................................................................................................. 12
1.6. S ignificance / R a t io n a l e ..................................................................................................13

C H A P T E R 2 ..............................................................................................................................................17

L IT E R A T U R E R E V I E W ................................................................................................................... 17

2.1. H u tc h e o n ’s D efinition of P a r o d y A pplied by D ifferent C ritics ...................... 17

2.2. A v a i l a b l e L i t e r a t u r e o n Th e G o d o f Small Th in g s ................................................. 19
2.3. P aro dy in M etafiction / U nique F ictional M o d e l s ..................................................24

C H A P T E R S ..............................................................................................................................................30

H IS T O R IC A L S U R V E Y O F F IC T IO N A L F O R M S .............................................................. 30

3.1. R ealist N arrative T e c h n iq u e s .......................................................................................... 31

3.2. B ritish M odernist F ictional F orms /M odernist E xperim entation in

N arr ativ e ..............................................................................................................................................32

3.3. P ostm odernist F ictional T h eo r y ............................................................................... 35
3.4. A merican P ostm odernist F ictio n ............................................................................... 38
3.5. F rench (n o u v e a u ro m a n ) Postm odernist F iction ...............................................41
3.6. S pa n ish -A m erican P ostm odernist F iction ............................................................. 45

C H A P T E R 4 ..............................................................................................................................................49

T H E G O D O F S M A L L T H IN G S A S A P O S T M O D E R N P A R O D Y O F
F IC T IO N A L F O R M S ..........................................................................................................................49

4.1. K a th a k a li: R e d e fin in g t h e Form o f The G o d o f S mall Th in g s ......................51

4.2. R e c o n t e x t u a l i z a t io n o f M acbeth in Th e G o d o f S mall Th in g s ..........................62
4.3. H e a r t o f D a r k n e s s a s C u l t u r a l C r itiq u e in Th e G o d of S mall Things ...69

C O N C L U S IO N ........................................................................................................................................82

W O R K S C IT E D L I S T ......................................................................................................................... 87

vii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, thanks to Allah Ahnighty for giving me strength and courage to

take up and complete this project despite the tough time I have had throughout this

program. Thanks to his Benevolence, Compassion, and for everything He has blessed

me with.

I acknowledge and appreciate the commitment, unwavering patience, and

constant guidance of my supervisor Dr. Muhammad Safeer Awan. This research

project surely would not have materialised without his invaluable support; whether it

was provision of study material or intellectual support during the whole process of

this research project.

Thanks to all my friends and colleagues for their support who helped me go

through the whole process. Thanks to Neelam Jabeen for always being available for

telephonic conversations regarding discussion on the whole process of research.

Special thanks to Saira Shafiq for offering me valued feedback on my drafts; helping

at the right time, and steering me in the right direction. Thanks to Muneeba Rehman

for reading my unfinished drafts and giving remarks that always served as ice­

breakers whenever 1 was undergoing writer’s block. Thanks to Dr. Abid Masood for

reading a few of chapters and for having a discussion on the process.

Most importantly, words of profound gratitude to my Apiya, for nourishing

my mind, encouraging me for work in her own distinct ways. Without her critique,

not on the work but on my approach toward academics, I would not have been able to

tread such long a path.

Last but not the least, thanks to my parents for their unconditional love and

support. My mother, who tolerated piles of my books in bedroom and drawing room;

viii
who constantly encouraged me to finish my work whenever I seemed wavering; and

my father, having strong background not only in poUtics but also in literature, who

supported me intellectually as well as materially culling the study material from

Pakistan and abroad. He also kept continuous check on my work on daily-basis.

Maria Farooq

IX
 ABSTRACT

Anmdhati Roy’s novel The God o f Small Things received a great amount of critical

appreciation as regards its unique narrative structure and overall form. However, the

critics missed on the cardinal aspect of its “formalistic inventiveness” which is

grounded in Kathakali dance-drama theory of narration despite the fact that Roy

herself posits the fictional theory of her novel within it. This gap in the existing

critical literature has been picked up in this dissertation and studied in the framework

developed through Linda Hutcheon’s theory of parody. This research claims that Roy

uses parody, as defined by Hutcheon, as a tool to challenge, question previous

forms/conventions of fiction writing and redefine novel as a genre. In so doing, she

invents forms o f narration by parodic inversions of previous, whether Indian or

Western, literary conventions of writing fiction. Considering the scope of this

dissertation, three intertexts have been chosen to explicate the thesis statement which

are: Kathakali dance-drama, Macbeth, and Heart o f Darkness. The findings of this

research cast light on the parodic inversion and reinterpretation of previous literary

conventions to come up with a new, ethnic postmodern model of novel.

XI
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1,1. Introduction to the Study

This dissertation undertakes the task of reading The God o f Small Things as a

reinterpretation of the novel as a genre. This attempt is made by studying the role of

parody as a postmodernist device in redefining the form of novel. It will also be an

attempt to show through questioning the previous fictional forms it creates new forms

and hence comes forward as a new postmodern model of novel. In contemporary terms,

postmodernist fiction is essentially metafictional in its nature in terms of the use of

formal strategies it employs to expose self-reflexivity of all the structures including itself

Metafiction is an elastic term but generally defmed as a fiction that self-consciously

draws attention toward itself and the process of narration. Although the term

“metafiction” has been coined by William H. Gass, in a chapter entitled “Philosophy and

the Form of Fiction” in his book Fiction and the F ib res o f Life (1970), Patricia Waugh

in her book Metafiction: The Theory and Practice o f Self-Conscious Fiction (1984)

expounds complete theory of metafiction; defining its characteristics, elaborating the

formal strategies it puts to work and theorizing the metafiction keeping in view its

emergence as an excessively recurrent form of novel in contemporary era. John Barth,

another prominent theorist, comments on the “used-upness” of literary form in his essay

“The Literature of Exhaustion” (1967) in order to contemplate as to which strategies will

renew the fictional form. Barth also ascertains that it is the ironic or satiric repetition of

the earlier works that helps create a new fictional form.

 Among many postmodernist literary formal devices like non-sequentiality of the

plot, fragmentation of the narrative, use of pastiche and myth - the ones excessively and

predominantly used in discourse - parody is one that serves as one of the cardinal

characteristics that make up a metafictional work. Postmodernist theorist, Waugh, like

Linda Hutcheon, is also convinced of the constructive role of parody in renewing

postmodernist fiction and thus considers it as a rejuvenating tool. Hutcheon considers

parody both as a ridiculing device and giving respectful tribute to what has been

parodied. She thinks that parody has been excessively used in postmodern times, which is

why its role is very significant in the contemporary discourse. It has been used to place

“past” in a “transcontextual” relationship with present to reinterpret both and/or any one

of them.

Against this background, this study seeks to investigate where and how Arundhati

Roy’s The God o f Small Things is positioned in the postmodernist narrative. Keeping it in

view, the first question, I raise, is which forms and practices of fiction writings (of past),

in a postmodernist sense, have been employed by Roy in The God o f Small Things? Or, in

other words, to what extent the novel can be taken and interpreted as parodic metafiction?

The second question is an extension of the first one but works on a broader level to

recognize how the novel as a genre is being challenged and redefined employing parody

as a tool by Roy in The God o f Small Things? In short, parody being rampantly employed

holds a special position as a motif in postmodern fiction. This study undertakes the task

of reinterpreting novel as a genre by inculcating intertextual reference of the past using

parody as a marker; using the fictional forms explicitly or implicitly in order to create a

new form and yet falling prey to the same form. Considering the fact that no research has
2
been done on Roy’s The God o f Small Things (1997) from the above mentioned

standpoint, my research finds its way to the literary critical discourse. However, the

indication of the excessive use of intertextual references by Alex Tickle in his book titled

Roys The God o f Small Things{2^01) and Richard Lane in The Postcolonial Novel

(2006) has been appropriately done. The intertextual references identified are: William

Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-11) and Romeo and Juliet (1591-1595), Joseph

Conrad’s Heart o f Darkness (1902), Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894),

Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), and Robert Wise’s The Sound o f Music (1965)

cinematic venture.

In addition to this, the critical framework used is based on the theories of parody,

intertexuality, and postmodernist fiction. In my dissertation I have only focused on The

God o f Small Things as it is the first and only, until now, novel written by Roy.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

Roy has employed parody as a postmodernist technique to reinterpret fictional forms, or

novel as a genre, in her novel The God o f Small Things.

1.3. Research Questions:

1. Which forms and practices o f fiction writing, in a postmodernist sense, have been

parodically employed by Arundhati Roy in the novel The God o f Small Things?

2. How far can the novel be interpreted as a metafiction using parody technique?

3. How is the fictional form being challenged and redefined by Arundhati Roy in her

novel?
1.4. Theoretical Framework/ Methodology

This dissertation is a qualitative study of The God o f Small Things. Through an analysis

of literary intertexts that (re)appear, it is an attempt to show how the fictional form is

being challenged and reinterpreted by Roy through the use of parody. The main

theoretical framework of the study is based on Hutcheon’s exposition of parody as a

postmodernist literary technique. However, since parody comes under the framework of

intertextuality due to its excessive use of past literary references, among other

postmodernist literaiy techniques such as pastiche and mosaic, a general framework has

been developed from intertextual theory in order to analyse the intertexts exploited in The

God o f Small Things by Roy.

The primary sources are the novel, The God o f Small Things, by Roy and Linda

Hutcheon’s ^ Theory o f Parody: The Teachings o f Twentieth-Century Art Forms (2000).

The secondary sources include the books/articles/reviews written on and about The God

o f Small Things on the said topic.

Hutcheon has developed a model of postmodemismV One of the important

features of Hutcheon’s postmodernist theory is that it contextualizes art in past and

therefore never disposes it off, unlike other theorists who are engaged in the discussions

of “Death of History”. Hutcheon, in her ground-breaking work A Poetics o f

Postmodernism, mainly concerns herself with the inquiry of disciplines of aesthetics,

narrative and history. She sees postmodernism as an "attempt to re-historicize — not de-

historicize — art and theory" (1988: 225). Her main emphasis, as a postmodern theorist,

lies on the viewpoint that there is a transcontextual relationship between present and past.
She defines postmodernism as “fundamentally contradictory, resolutely historical, and

inescapably political” (1988: 4) against the backdrop of it being ahistorical or nostalgic^.

The idea of postmodernism as an inherently paradoxical and self-reflexive phenomenon

has been carried forward by Hutcheon as the “one that uses and abuses, installs and

subverts, the very concepts it challenges — be it in philosophy, aesthetics theory,

psychoanalysis, linguistics, or historiography” (1988: 3), Hutcheon believes that

postmodernism challenges both artistic subjectivity and historical objectivity without

rejecting either one. It also contests binary oppositions between art and life with the aim

of framing a flexible and open discourse that emphasises the constructedness of art as

well as life. She believes in the dissolution of the binaries and distinctions to offer a more

open approach to critical discourse. For her, postmodernism is not nostalgic; it is

ironically critical of the past and in order to do so it does not destroy or undermine past

but reinterprets it by (re)contextualizing it in the present. However, the past is available to

us only in the form of texts (1988: 128),

Hutcheon also asserts that postmodernism functions an important part by

problematizing the idea of subjectivity. According to her, the subject cannot exist to be a

coherent discrete meaning-generating entity. In her view.

...the decentered perspective, the "marginal" and ... the "ex-centric" . . .

take on new significance in the light of the implied recognition that our
culture is not really the homogeneous monolith (that is middle class, male,
hetero- sexual, white, western) we might have assumed. The concept of
alienated otherness . . . gives way ... to that of differences, that is to the
assertion of, not centralized sameness, but of decentralized community-
another post-modem paradox (1988: 12).
In her version of postmodernism, the above-discussed thought finds expression in

postmodernist fiction as what has come to be knovm as historiographic metafiction. This

particular genre takes into account self-reflexivity of fiction as well as history, and in so

doing, it not only challenges but also reinserts the already established truths about fiction

and history both. This rewriting of history and fiction takes place through ‘ironic parody’

technique, which is at the heart of postmodern aesthetics.

Parody^ has sporadically either been associated or equated with other techniques

such as burlesque, allusion, quotation, travesty, plagiarism, pastiche, and satire. In all

forms, with a little difference in focus, its main function was thought to be a critical one.

It is here that Hutcheon’s conception of parody takes a leap forward and differentiates

parody from all the other techniques mentioned-above and at the same time, broadens the

scope of its definition. Hutcheon asserts that it is precisely the “difference” that

distinguishes parody from other techniques and it is not only the critical function that it

performs in critical sense but a “combination of respectful homage and ironically

thumbed nose that often characterises the particular kind of parody” (2000: 33).

Hutcheon’s main standpoint from which she constructs this theory is that there is

no denying the fact that earlier forms of parody have ridiculed the backgrounded text (for

example. Pope’s mock epic) (2000: 57) but modem art forms in general do not

necessarily ridicule or mock it. Modem art uses the background text as a “weapon” to

position “contemporary under scrutiny” rather than exercise it as a “target”. On this

foundation, she constructs her theoretical model of (post)modem art which is incessantly

parodic but of a different nature. Hutcheon carries out a detailed analysis of the history of

parody, its function and its relation with other forms. She emphasizes that “parody ...is
6
related to burlesque, travesty, pastiche, quotation and allusion but remains distinct from

them” (2000: 43). She elucidates these differences, in her book entitled A Theory o f

Parody: The Teachings o f Twentieth-Century Art Forms (2000), one by one to theorize

the concept of modem parody.

The difference between parody and pastiche has been of significant importance in

critical literary discourse. Hutcheon and Jameson"^ have contrastive definitions of both. It

is significant to note that their expositions of parody and pastiche depend on their

contrastive stances of postmodernism. Hutcheon repudiates the earlier differentiation

between the two on the grounds of parody being associated with mockery or ridicule

asserting, at the same time, that parody works more by difference whereas pastiche

fimctions by similarity with its intertexts (2000: 38). Hutcheon concedes that both parody

and pastiche are “acknowledged borrowings” (2000: 38) elucidates the difference

between pastiche and parody and this is what differentiates parody from plagiarism. On

the other hand, Jameson defines pastiche in total contrast to Hutcheon’s conception of

parody. For Jameson, pastiche is,

.. .like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the

wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral
practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives,
amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter. (1991: 17)

For him, then, postmodern representation is "blank," a mere imitation of an imitation and

pastiche is “blank parody” (1991: 17). In other words, pastiche is the reproduction of past

styles without any meaning and offers nothing but fragmentation. It may be nostalgic and

reminiscent but in complete break with the past.

 Another technique plagiarism seeks to “conceal” (Hutcheon 2000: 39) the

intertexts whereas parody involves the reader to interpret the background of the parodied

text. Furthermore, travesty and burlesque are differentiated on account of the “issues of

intention” with parody; because parody, according to Hutcheon, may not only “ridicule”

(2000: 40) but also give a respectful tribute to the parodied text. Furthermore, the

characteristics which determine the difference between parody and quotation are two: one

is “difference of intent” and the other is trans-contextualization repetition of parodic text

in contrast to absence of “critical distancing” (Hutcheon 2000: 41) in quotation.

However, quotation is “structurally and pragmatically” near to parody which is why it

becomes a “form of parody in modem art” (Hutcheon 2000: 41). In general, allusion has

also been confused with parody but, for Hutcheon, it stimulates the two texts

concurrently “through correspondence - not difference, as is the case with parody”

(2000: 43). In other words, simply put, what parody shares with all the above-mentioned

techniques or genres is that “its repetition is always of another discursive text” and “its

‘target’ is always intramural in this sense” (Hutcheon 2000: 43). The fact that parody is

“intramural” in nature is in contrast to satire’s extramural (social and cultural) nature

highlights the difference between the two. She explains that both parody and satire use

irony as a rhetorical strategy or trope; however, if satire derives itself from the "pragmatic

function o f irony... one of signalling evaluation, most frequently of a pejorative nature"

(2000: 53), parody depends rather on irony's "semantic" function - equivalent to

“semantic inversion” or “anti-phrastic” (2000: 53). She further discusses a complex chart

of overlapping between satire and parody and their dependence on irony which

complicates their relationship manifesting, at times, satire as “parodic satire” where

8
respectful parody has been used as a vehicle for “satiric ends” (2000: 58) and satiric

parody where parody at times confirms the traditional role as a ridiculing tool that

further confirms Hutcheon’s own definition that parody may work as a “critically

constructive as well as destructive” tool as Richard Horwich affirmed as well (1988:

220).

The theory of metafiction is also significant as far as the methodology of this

r
dissertation is concerned. Therefore, its theory presented by Hutcheon, Barth and Waugh

is presented in Chapter 3. Its application also by different novelists the world over is psirt

of the same chapter.

Intertextuality is a part of indirect methodology of this dissertation since the

framework of parody is based on it. The theory of intertextuality claims that every text

has a relationship with other texts, and on account of this relationship multiple meanings

can be deduced. It is a complex network that forms relationships with past and future

texts. Graham Allen in his book Intertextuality explains this relationship as:

Texts, whether they are literary or non-literary, as viewed by modem

theorists, as lacking in any kind of independent meaning. They are what
theorists now call intertextual. The act of reading plunges us into a
network of textual relations. To interpret a text, to discover its meaning, or
meanings, is to trace those relation . . . Meaning becomes something
which exists between a text and all other texts to v ^ c h it refers and relates
(2000: 1).

It is clear the meaning evolves as a result of communication between a text and intertext.

The term “intertextuality” was coined by Julia Kristeva in 1966 in a series of articles on

Bakhtin written in “7e/ Quel"" However, the original concept has been propounded by
Mikhail Bakhtin under a different name called “Dialogism”. Bakhtin defines “any text as

an utterance” (as cited in Morson & Emerson1990: 2). He argued that all the texts are in

dialogue with the previous social or political texts and thereby register their responses to

them. According to Bakhtin,

“any utterance—the finished, written utterance not excepted—^makes

response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but
one link in a continuous chain of speech performances. Each monument
[written utterance] carries on the work of its predecessors, polemicizing
with them, expecting active, responsive understanding, and anticipating
such understanding in return." (1984;72).

The other major theorist besides Kristeva is Roland Barthes. As a matter of fact, the

value or interpretation both ascribe to the concept of intertextuality differ a great deal

from Bakhtinian dialogism. Barthes maintains that “any text is an intertext” (1981: 39).

He also suggests that previous texts are always present in the present ones. He further

posits his theory of “death of the author” and ‘writerly text’ on the theory of

intertextuality. On the other hand, Julia Kristeva considers an inter-text a mosaic of the

previous codes and intertextuality as the transposition of an entire system of signs and

codes to the other (1980: 60).

Insofar as this dissertation is concerned, intertextuality provides a foundational

concept for the further development of theoretical framework of parody. It neither deals

with the theoretical and critical debate of intertextuality nor with what

meanings/interpretations are ascribed by various theorists of intertextuality. It simply

confines itself to the intertextual relationship of the texts with the intertexts. I take into

account the explicit intertextual literary references mentioned by Roy for the purpose of

10
parodic relations. She mentions names of novels/plays/movies as well as the respective

characters which come into a contrast/comparison with The God o f Small Things. She

mentions Kathakali, Heart o f Darkness, The Jungle 5oo^and The Great Gatsby,

Shakespearean plays The Tempest, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Sound o f Music, and

Modern Times (Charlie). Considering the scope of this dissertation, I will analyse

Kathakali, Heart o f Darkness and Macbeth only. This selection has been made on the

criteria that since the overarching structure of The God o f Small Things forms intertextual

relationship with conventions of Kathakali tradition that has a harmonious combination

of literature, music (Sangeetham), painting (Chithram), acting (Natyam) and dance

(Nritham)^, it is important to keep variety of intertexts a part of this analysis. Therefore,

the selection I have made corresponds to the inclusion of various genres: drama, fiction,

theatre.

Further criteria for the selection of various intertexts are mentioned below:

• Kathakali - theatrical play, has been chosen as representative of Indian tradition

against which Roy constructs her own model, and also because it represents

theatre, a different genre.

• Macbeth - a classical play has been chosen on the basis that, of the four

Shakespearean plays, it is the most pertinent for this study because of its formal

similarities/differences.

• Heart o f Darkness - a modernist novel, has been chosen on the basis that it has

been massively quoted in Roy’s novel, and also because it is representative of

modernist fiction.

11
To sum up the theoretical framework and the objective, it can be observed that this study

seeks to investigate role of parody in reinterpreting The God o f Small Things as a

reinterpretation of the novel as a genre. In order to carry out the task, this study takes into

consideration the manifest intertextual references (movies, plays, and novels in English)

in the said novel. So in a nutshell, this study analyses how through parodic self-

consciousness of literary conventions, Arundhati Roy has come to reinterpret the novel as

a genre by presenting another model finding its place into the broader scheme of fictional

theory.

1.5. Chapter Division

In the first chapter the background and rationale of the study, theoretical framework,

and significance of the study is presented. The second chapter called “Literature

Review” consists of a critical analysis of the available material on parody in general and

postmodernist parody, in particular, with special reference to Linda Hutcheon’s concept.

Furthermore, it incorporates an analysis of existing critical work carried so far on The

God o f Small Things in relation to the above-mentioned theoretical framework in order to

locate the gap which the present study seeks to fill. The third chapter, “Historical

Overview of Fictional Forms”, carries out a survey of fiction in general and

postmodernist fiction in particular to determine the overall context of the postmodernist

fiction and the literary techniques that it employs to construct metafiction. The fourth

chapter called “Analysis of The God o f Small Things'^ includes a detailed textual

analysis of The God o f Small Things to understand the role of parody in order to reveal

the history, and reinterpretation of genre. The final chapter includes the outcomes of the

study along with suggestions.

12
1.6. Significance/Rationale

The contemporary fiction in English has defined and redefined itself time and again in the

wake of experimentalism in literature. This study seeks to explore one such

experimentation with the form of fiction which challenges and redefines formal

techniques of novel. It is an appropriation of traditional genre from Indian culture, yet

defining and reinventing it at many points. In this area of studies, Gabriel Garcia

Marquez also experimented with the fictional form and came up with model of magic

realism which is clearly embedded in the his own cultural foundations. His own fiction is

the explication of his model of Magic realism* Similarly, Toni Morrison also

experimented with the form of fiction and appropriated the model of jazz (music) in her

most celebrated novel Jazz. This is another example of experimenting with form and

appropriating it to one’s own tradition. In this context, the present study holds a special

significance. There has been a lot of critical debate on the structure of Roy’s The God o f

Small Things, but none so far has explored the appropriation of KathakalVs model.

This study is a significant endeavor in highlighting the role of form in South-Asian

fiction. This study will also be beneficial to the students and instructors in South-Asian Literature

in English. It emphasizes the importance of studying formal aspects of this literature which is

seen to be playing significant role in shaping or representing writer’s identity as a South-Asian.

Moreover, it will also be helpful to future researchers, in Pakistan, as it breaks their long-held

inclination to work on thematic aspects of literature and will enable them to think of research

works differently. In other words, it presents a new possibility to them to look at work from

formal perspective.
13
Notes

^Postmodernism is a highly debatable term in contemporary critical theory. Its

characteristics and key features cannot be underpinned under an imibrelia term since

postmodernism itself rejects any such totalizing narratives. In the Beginning

Postmodernism, Tim Woods articulates that “the origins of postmodernism appear to be

completely confused and underdetermined; and perhaps appropriately so, since

postmodernism denies the idea of knowable origins” (2007: 03). Not only the origins of

postmodernism are intractable but its definition also experiences the same crisis that it

seeks to install into every structure and metanarrative of society, politics, religion and art

and so on. Among many critics Ihab Hasan also expresses the difficulty of not being able

to nail down postmodernism as: “... what is postmodernism? I could propose no rigorous

definition of it [postmodernism]..... for the term has become a current signal of tendencies

in theatre, dance, music, art and architecture; in literature and criticism; in philosophy,

psychoanalysis, and historiography; in cybernetic technologies and even in the sciences”

(503). Nevertheless, there have been attempts at defining or ironically speaking

‘totalizing’ the essence of postmodernism by various critical theorists. Jean Francois

Lyotard, Linda Hutcheon, and Fredric Jameson, are regarded as doyens of postmodern

critical theory and are relevant to the theoretical framework of my research study. In this

study, only their positions will be discussed for these are considered the dominant ones.

^See Jameson’s Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic o f Late Capitalism.

^Parody as a technique has been a recurrent feature of literature since ancient times.

Margaret A. Rose informs that parody, in ancient times, used to be considered as “comic

14
imitation and transformation of an epic verse work” (1993: 280) as in the case of

Aristophanes who parodied the plays of Euripides. She traces a thorough perusal of the

uses and definitions of parody from ancient times through modem to postmodern in the

book Parody: Ancient, Modern and Postmodern. Traditionally, parody has also been

considered parasitic of “individuality, originality and genius” (Slethaugl993: 603).

Literary theorists, nevertheless, kept (re)defining parody throughout the ages. Dryden

characterizes parody as the ridiculing tool; Swift ascribes it to stylistic mockery. In

modem times parody further took on many different connotations and fomis. Ben

Johnson equated parody with the imitation of verses making it appear absurd (Rose,

1993: 281), it was further paralleled to burlesque as in the case of Cervantes's Don

Quixote who parodied chivalric romances. Generally, ridicule and humour have been

regarded the constant in the functioning of parody in works of literature/art. It was

regarded a low form which was never dealt with a seriousness of purpose, however, in

postmodem times, parody took a positive tum. The earlier negative lens has now been

changed with a positive one to view the function and role played by parody in

regeneration of literature. Rose is of the view that traditional definition of function, as

defined by literary critics, has failed to analyse the broader scope of parody as a dominant

tool/structure in works like Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy. Therefore modem

commentators redefined the role of parody. For formalists parody has been serving as

“laying bare” device (Rose 1993: 105). Bakhtin characterized parody as a “transgressive

and subversive” tool - a double-voice tool (Rose 1993: 126).

15
"^Fredric Jameson, another instrumental figure of postmodern theory, presents another

perspective on the theory of postmodernism which has come be known as “The Cultural

Logic of Late Capitalism” in his own words. He offers an analysis of postmodern

condition in the areas of politics, history and economy. He is immensely critical of the

current historical situation. He presents a very pessimistic view of present owing to the

loss of connection with history. Jameson believes that postmodemity has changed the

historical past into a series of “blank” stylizations that can then be commodified and

consumed. He asserts that the logic of late capitalism advances the effect of

commodification into all areas of society and culture thereby destroying meaningfulness

as a general idea. For Jameson, death of the center is equal to death of subject and it

causes a crisis indicating the death of history, meaning, aesthetic inquiry, and

temporality. This perspective reflects itself in many ways in key terms of Jameson’s

critique — simulacrum, schizophrenia, pastiche (as cited in Shirvanil994: 292).

^This information has been taken from website http://www.spiderkerala.com/.

16
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

I have divided literature review chapter into three sections. One part reviews the existing

literature that appHes Hutcheon’s model of parody in various contexts; the second,

reviews the existing literature on The God o f Small Things relevant to the formal aspect

of the novel; and the third, as part of broader aspect of novel as a genre, discusses various

attempts from different regions at redefining the form and fictional techniques of novel

through parody.

2.1. Hutcheon’s Model of Parody in Different Contexts

A number of scholars have carried out studies on Hutcheon’s model of parody. Most of

them have affirmed its critical stance, broadening of the definition and the revolutionary

role that parody plays in creating new forms of writing. Hutcheon’s definition provided

critics with framework that enabled them to view parody as a creative tool instead of

destructive or mocking.

Dermot Kelly in his article “Joycean Parody and the Good Friday Accord” discusses

that Hutcheon’s “definition uncannily applies to the disputed territory of Joycean style in

the later episodes of Ulysses where a series of public discourses - journalism, science,

the law, the English novel, political orations - is relentlessly and often ambiguously

spoofed” (1998: 91). Joyce is one of the most celebrated modem novelists who
17
extensively experimented with the form at all levels. Kelly demonstrates that with the

help of so “undiscriminatingly” parodic (1998: 91) style, Joyce discusses the political

discourses in Ulysses. Declan Kiberd also affirming Hutcheon theory of parody, suggests

that Ulysses exemplifies that every distinguished piece of art/literature destroys one genre

to create another. For him, “radical parody of this kind has the effect of speeding up this

natural development of literary form ... a further proof that (in literature, as in politics)

the urge to destroy may also be a creative urge” (1995: 324). Similarly, Douglass in his

article, “Machado de Assis's ‘A Cartomante’: Modem Parody and the Making of a

’Brazilian’ Text,” articulates the view o f parody as “ridiculing imitation” or “mockery”

(1998: 1036) lost its significance for 20^*^ century literature while adhering to Hutcheon’s

redefinition of parody. Douglass demonstrates, in this article, how the parody of

Shakespearean tragedy Hamlet operates not only to rework the style of Machado De

Assis’s “A Cartomante” but the whole tradition of Brazilian literature, which is being

constructively challenged and redefined by appropriating Shakespearean formal structure

into the Brazilian literary tradition. He asserts that it is not a plain copying, on the

contrary, it is adapting Shakespearean model to suit Brazilian literary tradition thereby

implanting a fresh impulse into the 19^century Brazilian literature. Similarly, Allan J.

Ryan in the article, “Postmodern Parody: A Political Strategy in contemporary Canadian

Art” discusses the role that postmodern parody has played in contemporary Canadian art

by turning it into a political strategy to represent “self-identity and self-representation”

(1992: 59). The artists have critically reproduced images to question the historical

representations of the native peoples and also to “acknowledge the aboriginal

contribution to the national character” (1992: 64). So with the help of postmodern parody

18
what Canadian artists have attempted is to re-present the original and national cultural

images to show their national identity.

2.2. Available Literature on The God o f Small Things

A lot has been written on Roy’s so far only fictional work since its publication (1997) due

to its unique style and structure and also the controversial themes like corruption,

injustice, child molestation, caste differences and deprivation of oppressed (women cind

minorities) from the social and human rights. Not only that, this novel is also a part of

broader spectrum of postcolonial debate of Indian English literature. This is the reason

that it has been in the spotlight up till now. The researchers have critiqued the novel from

almost all major theoretical perspectives including postcolonial, feminist, psychoanalyst,

Marxist, and new historic but since my concern is with the form and techniques of novel

rather than theme, I discuss the perspectives from which the critics have interpreted

Roy’s master piece from formal perspectives.

Roy’s use of linguistic devices has been appreciated much by literary critics at

home as well as abroad. Gillian Beer, one of the judges of the Booker Prize, refers to it as

“extraordinary linguistic inventiveness”*. Nevertheless, critics abroad have written full-

length articles placing Roy’s genius in different contexts. Prayaq Tripathi in his article

“Material, Mode/Manner, Musicality with Metaphorics Multiplicity: The God of Small

Things” focuses on the creative “folklorist” use of language. He also asserts that

postcolonial non-native Indian writers in English like Salman Rushdie, and Anita Desai

have also made a very innovative use of language. He asserts that this technique also

exists in modernist writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Tripathi seems to be

19
defending Roy by praising the novel because of its inventive use of language, suggesting

to devalue the criticism lodged against Roy on account of the novel being anti­

communist. Similarly, Cynthia Dreisen in her article, “When Language Dance: The

Subversive Power of Roy’s Text in The God O f Small Things*" maintains that Roy rejects

conventional form with the musical structure of novel with its repeated motifs, flowing

images and counterpoint techniques suggesting that her novel “presents us with a mode

of female ecriture” (1999: 366). She also argues that though Roy makes use of cultural

motifs like Kathakali performances, she stresses the need of cosmopolitanism by creating

and showing hybrid identities as well as images which show that she is against national

boundaries and even preservation of Indian culture as she selects Kerala as the setting of

novel which symbolises a feel of cosmopolitanism.

The narrative structure surrounding time has been explained in Madhu Benoita’s

“Circular time: A Study of Narrative Techniques in Arundhati Roy's The God o f Small

Things'', who argues that Roy fractures the chronological sequence of time to bring the

narrative in sync with the political markings of the book (1998: 98). Her main argument

is that the novel’s “fragmentary form both softens and highlights the violent contours of

Roy’s [didactic novel]” (1998: 106).

The role and importance of omniscient narrator and its relevance with

autobiographic point of view have been highlighted by Pier Paolo Piciucco in his article

“The Goddess of Small Things: Observations on the Fictional Technique of Arundhati

Roy’s First Novel”. He elucidates that Roy, “the goddess”, creates a unique and original

narratorial mode of narration. He maintains that although she makes use of omniscient

20
narrator, it sounds like first person’s view which is quite objective despite the novel being

an autobiographical one. She manages to detach the reader from the emotional scenes by

mixing of narratorial comments tint of cynicism and at times irony. For Piciucco, Roy is

a master of small fictional techniques which in turn generate artistic impact of the whole

structure of the novel.

The disruption and redefinition of tragedy has also been achieved by Roy, as

David Myers suggests. He asserts that fi-om a formal perspective Roy’s novel realizes

main constituents of a “true tragedy” (2005: 357). However, being a postmodernist

tragedy it deviates from Greek form of tragedy but at times seems close to the concept of

Shakespearean tragedy which “emanat[es] from characters and emotions that are larger

and more passionate than life” (2005: 357). Myers suggests The God o f Small Things is a

postmodernist tragedy on account of the variance “from the classical Greek concept of

fate” (2005: 357), having “postmodern sense of inevitability ... produced by compulsive

passions or by fatal character-flaws and their clash with the prevailing social system,

rather than by any interaction with absconded gods” (2005: 358), and also by “mixing the

genres and alternates scenes of ahnost unbearable tragedy with calculated play with

parody, black humour, and farce” (2005: 358).

Another very important formal aspect is “spatial form” (Cavell 1993: 629). Susan

Stanford Friedman argues, in context of Foucault’s concept of “heterotopic spaces”, in

her article “Spatial Poetics and Arundhati Roy’s The God o f Small Things'''* that Roy

foregrounds space over time in the novel. She argues that “77?^ God o f Small Things

narrativizes story as a spatial practice, one that doesn’t erase time, but rather constitutes

21
space as the container of history and the generator of story” (2005: 203). Friedman

evinces special troupes are presented as “description”, “setting” or “scene” which

function as heterotopical “generators of the story” (2005: 200). Being a political allegory,

through these “heterotopic spaces” Roy transgresses borders and demonstrates that how

gender/caste/class need to be interrogated in order to get a free nation-state (2005: 197).

Hence she proves that space has been given importance over time but nevertheless has

been connected to time.

Another interesting aspect of form expounded by Elsa Sacksick is aesthetics of

interlacing. She deliberates upon this in her article “The Aesthetics of Interlacing in The

God o f Small Things’^ from the perspective presented by Jean-Pierre Richard. She

examines how the principle of interlacing/crisscrossing evokes confusion and blurs

boundaries of not only the form but also theme of the novel. It is maintained that, on a

formal level, “several layers of time are superimposed on the same page or within a

single chapter submerging the reader in a mesh of stories” to create confijsion. Similarly,

the interlacing of sexual relationship of Velutha and Ammu shatters “the distinction

between social categories” and Rahel and Estha reveals “confusion of identities” (2005:

66). So Roy creates a tapestry; where she makes the time structure of the narrative like a

fabric is interweaved, and with the help of “holes”/gaps (2005: 71) in the novel, she

creates a structure like lace whereby the interlacing of form and theme occurs throughout

the novel.

The most prominent aspect of postmodernist fiction is mixing of genres within one.

Hari Padma Rani in her very brief note called “The Structural Ambiguity of The God o f

22
Small Things'" suggests that following postmodernist style The God o f Small Things

crosses the boundaries of a genre. Though it has been written like a novel, if analysed at

deeper levels it is revealed that through the extensive usage of “alliteration, rhythm,

repetition, figures of speech like similes, metaphors, paradoxes, and the juxtaposition of

antithetical images, poetic license compel us to discern the structure” (1999: 338) of

novel as poetry. She claims that self reflexively status of the novel that being a novel it

also takes on the qualities of poetry which creates “structural ambiguity to the novel”

(1999: 341).

On the other hand, Marta Davorak severely criticises Roy in her article “Translating

the Foreign into Familiar: Arundhati Roy’s Postmodern Sleight of Hand” for cleverly

using stylistic motifs/techniques to make her novel marketable in the global market. She

asserts that Roy has not come up with something new or unique. Rather she has

mimicked Rushdie’s style to a great extent in incorporating stylistic features like “...

compound neologisms, extravagant capitalisation, sentence fragments and excessive

paragraph breaks, intrusive parenthesis, copious metaphoric transference, Joycean

“sedation and graphic” juxtaposition and heterosemiotic intertextuality” (2002: 46) in the

novel. She also maintains that in order to appeal to western readership, Roy resorted to

the techniques of modernist classics and also injected the element of Said’s exoticism

through the Indian myths. Marta also accuses Roy of appropriating the regional “Great

stories” to commercialise her novel. She maintains that the themes Roy dilates upon are

also worn out. It is only the posh style that helped Roy win Booker Prize and that is also

because the Booker prize jury encourages and supports the efforts of the marginal and

minority belonging to British former colonies (2002: 44). Similarly, Alex Tickle in his
23
article “The Epic Side of Truth: Storytelling and Performance in The God o f Small

Things'’ argues that Roy’s use of premodem form of storytelling is a technique to appeal

international market and is a marketing strategy. Tickle presumes that it is also a part of

cultural politics played by Indian English novelists.

To sum up the discussion it is clear the critics have analysed the novel from different

formal perspectives including its narrative techniques, use of folklore as a mode of

storytelling, use of cultural motifs like Kathakali to make her novel more marketable in

the international market, borrowing and deviating from traditional concept of tragedy,

interlacing o f structure o f novel, and also spatial poetics from a formal perspective.

However, it leaves a gap for this novel to be analysed as a reinterpretation of novel as a

genre through the use of parody as a postmodernist device. This dissertation attempts to

fill this gap.

2.3. Parody in Metafiction/ Unique Fictional Models

The contemporary fiction in English has (re)defined itself time and again in wake of the

movement of experimentalism in literature. Fiction in English has been the most diverse

area where novelists have tirelessly experimented with the form. The most important fact

about experimentation is they employ parody as a tool to recreate new forms of

writings/fiction. The function of parody has been creative one in the regeneration and

continuous development of the fictional forms. Owing to this, most of the major theorists

have affirmed the constructive role of parody in redefining form of the novel. Among the

prominent ones are Patricia Waugh, John Barth, and Linda Hutcheon.

24
 Waugh considers that parody in metafiction is a tool of positive literary evolution

rather than a sign of exhaustion (1984: 63-67). Parody in itself combines two functions

that of criticism and creativity; however, its former function has always been dominant in

the eyes of critics. Contrastingly, contemporary theorists realise that parody has played an

instrumental role in the development of novel. “It appears again and again at points of

crisis in the development of novel” (Waugh 1984: 71). Jane Austen parodies the gothic

novel whereby she creates a new form that is comedy of manners in Northanger Abbey.

She explains how metafiction through parody reflects on the processes of writing which

creates a new form of novel. Waugh refers to B. S. Johnson’s novel See the Old Lady,

Decently which self-consciously parodies “the conventions of history textbook and the

tourist guide at a stylistics level” (1984: 72) to come up with a new form of novel that

flaunts the notion o f objectivity which the textbooks and guides seemed to offer.

Similarly, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook that parodically and self-consciously

deliberated on the process of writing subjectively thereby coming up with a new form of

novel.

John Barth, another literary critic appreciates the space for parody in fiction

writing, critically remarks on the “usedupness” (1984: 53) of literary form in his essay

“The Literature of Exhaustion” (1967) in order to reflect on the possibilities of using this

“usedupness” against itself to give birth to a new form. In other words, it means the

fiction which ironically reflects on the process of writing fiction. For Barth, the technique

of writing fiction is more important than the content. Keeping in mind this he pronounces

that if any piece of art is rewritten with ‘ironic intent’, it equals the original work of art.

This is where Barth highlights the importance of parody/satire in redefining fiction or

25
creating new forms of fiction. For him, his own works ''The Sot-Weed Factor or Giles

Goat-Boy: novels which imitate the form of the Novel, by an author who imitates the role

of Author” (1984: 58) are the kind of new models of fiction. He further appreciates Luis

Borges’ fiction because it demonstrates composition of previous works of art (Like

Cervantes’ Don Quixote) in farcical mode rather than plainly copying or imitating it to

create a new work of art. So Barth considers metafictional strategies with a flavor of

irony or satire a possibility of regeneration or recreation of art/fiction.

In contemporary debate of preserving cultural values and traditions, form of the

novel took another dimension. In the wake of the emergence of postcolonial studies,

English novel has gained much importance in the third-world countries. Gayatri Spivak

has consciously selected the complex style to represent Third-world identity in writing.

She asserts that “one needs to be vigilant against simple notions of identity which overlap

neatly with language or location. I'm deeply suspicious of any determinist or positivist

defmition of identity, and this is echoed in my attitude to writing styles” (1990: 38). The

complexity of style has been emphasised so as to be used as a rhetorical strategy to

represent the complex identity of the Third-world. As a matter of fact, writers from all

over the world have chosen novel as a medium of expression and response to debates

surrounding different issues. In order to deal with this, novelists have often come up with

distinct forms of fiction writing. In this regard, works by Toni Morrison, Gabreil Garcia

Marquez, Salman Rushdie are of significant importance. The fiction peimed by these

writers is unique in their own ways as they have followed their cultural models,

specifically borrowed from music or folklores, to redefine the shapes and form of their

fiction to tell their personal stories.

26
 In this area of studies, Toni Morrison also experimented with the form of fiction

and appropriated the model of jazz (music) in almost all of her fiction but especially Jazz.

Morrison’s purpose of appropriating is also a part of preservation of Afro-American

cultural elements by moulding them into cultural motifs of her fiction. Being third-world

representative, like other postcolonial writers participating actively in the debates, she

introduced new ways of expression. The narrative techniques and organisational structure

of Jazz is based on the principle of “improvisation” that is fundamental to jazz music. As

Morrison "was very deliberately trying to rest on what could be called generally agreed

upon characteristics of Jazz"? This is a remarkable example of experimentation with

form and appropriation to one’s own cultural tradition.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, representing Spanish literature, also experimented with

the fictional form and came up with a remarkable model of magic realism which is

clearly embedded in his cultural foundations. His own fiction is the explication of his

model of Magic realism. Homi Bhabha also remarks that magical realism has become

“the literary language of the emergent postcolonial world” (1995: 6-7). The narrative

strategies, structure, use of myth and parody are all basic devices through which magical

realists create their fictional worlds. Owing to magical realism’s inventiveness, it can also

be identified as a postmodernist technique. However, magical realism is generally

believed to be an amalgamation of reality and fantasy. It has been defined by different

theorists, for instance, according to Luis Leal, “... magic realism is the effort put forth by

the authors to confront reality and to discover the mystery of life, especially the

mysterious relationships that exist between man and his circumstances..."... “an attitude

toward reality..” (as cited in Salgado 1978: 24). It is owing to the presence of ‘reality’ the
27
Spanish-American fiction employing this technique cannot be divorced from the

representation o f politics, society, and culture. The reason why it became so artistic and

fresh is because the novelists got preoccupied with the transformation of “style and also

the same transformation of the common and the everyday into the awe-some and the

unreal” (Flores 1955: 190). The pioneers of this fictional model in Spanish literature are

thought to be Marquez, and in Indian English literature Salman Rushdie.

To sum up the whole discussion, it c ^ be stated that this study of The God o f

Small Things involves delving into the strategies that Roy employs to question and

redefine traditions of fiction writing; thus, coming up with a new fictional model. It can

be seen that there has been a lot of critical debate not only on the thematic but also on the

formalistic aspect of Roy’s novel, but none so far has explored into parodic significance

of appropriating both Western and Indian traditions shaping form of the novel. This study

seeks to explore the aspects of experimentation in The God o f Small Things with form of

the fiction writing which challenges and redefines formal techniques of the novel.

28
 Notes

^ It was remarked in Booker prize Jury. Retrieved from

http://www.sawnet.org/newsMews22Q.html
^ It has been mentioned in a discussion of the Novel Jazz by Toni Morrison herself.
Retrieved from rhttp://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/nec/pici73.htm

29
 CHAPTERS

fflSTORICAL SURVEY OF FICTIONAL FORMS

The overview o f fiction as a genre, and specifically in terms of its narrative

techniques with reference to the concept of time, holds a direct relevance to the current

research study. The drastic socio-religious changes in the late 19^ and early 20* century

had a profound effect not only on philosophical and intellectual thought but also a

stimulating effect on the art forms. Hence, the form of the novel has been in intense flux

from eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction to Modernism and then to Postmodernism.

This overview will take into account only the dominant positions in the theory as well as

literature, considering the element of ‘fluidity’ in the narratives of modernist literature

taking an extreme form in postmodernist narrative techniques. The focus predominantly

remains on the postmodernist literature as a metafiction; however, a short overview of

modernist fiction cannot be avoided as postmodernist fiction evolved out of the former

which is why a few parallels can also be drawn with reference to narrative techniques of

the both. Furthermore, this brief survey of formal strategies employed in the fiction

revolves around the most notably renowned novelists such as Virginia Woolf, John

Fowles, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Claude Simon, Jorge

Luis Borges and Robert Coover.

30
 The most common techniques employed by modernists and postmodernists with

varying intensity and different perspectives respectively include: inverted, rotating,

circular, repetitive and displaced and discontinuous plots; intertextual references from

past culminating into pastiche, parody, and myth as the literary devices; inclusion of

multiple narrative point of views, and several narrators juxtaposed in one story, and

intervention of the author into the stoiy. These formal techniques will be elaborated in the

following discussion with reference to corresponding theorists/critics and novelists which

will develop the understanding of novel as a form being experimented with in order to

come up with new formal interpretations and models of novel.

3.1. Realist Narrative Techniques

The form of the traditional narrative has based itself on the well-made plot,

chronological sequence, and the authoritative omniscient narrator. According to David

Daiches (1970), for eighteenth century novel, the expectations from the form of novel

were fixed and ‘the standard ...was public and agreed” (1152). So the writer had to meet

the expectations of the public; therefore, subsequently, their art forms had a realistic

concept of plots: a proper beginning, middle and an end as expounded by Aristotle in

Poetics. The chronological order of time, which is at the same time ‘logical’, had been

the governing rule for fictional forms during eighteenth and nineteenth century. This

view derives itself from the concept of ‘singularity of meaning’. The eighteenth and

nineteenth century believed in order, decorum and totalizing structures having a complete

hold over the form and structure of the society as well as art forms.

31
 Contrary to the beliefs and artistic practices of eighteenth and nineteenth century,

the onset of twentieth century saw a change in fictional forms due to the impact of

philosophical thought. William James and Henri Bergson have been very influential in

this regard. David Daiches, in highly acclaimed book A Critical History o f English

Literature, traces the influence of both the philosophers on the plot structure of the novel:

New concepts of time, influenced by or at least akin to William James’

view of the “specious present” which does not really exist but which
represents the continuous flow of the “already” into the “not yet,” of
retrospect into anticipation, and Henri Bergson’s concept of duree, of time
as flow and duration rather than as a series of points moving
chronologically forward, also influenced the twentieth-century novelist,
particularly in his handling of plot structure.” (1970: 1153)

This impact made modernist novelists question the logical sequential structure, linear

narrative and logical and progressive order of the series of events in a novel. Hence,

experimentation with the form of the novel started off and gave birth to variously

different movements within the genre and outside the genre in the form of techniques.

Imagism, symbolism, expressionism, and vorticism are among few of the literary

techniques which serve as a tool to modernists to redefine the novel as genre and

experiment with its form.

3.2. British M odernist Fictional Forms/Modernist Experimentation in Narrative

On a broader level, Brian McHale elucidates the differences between modernist

and postmodernist fiction in his book Postmodernist Fiction (1987). Theoretically, he

says, "postmodernist fiction differs from modernist fiction just as a poetics dominated by
32
ontological issues differs from one dominated by epistemological issues" (xii).

According to McHale, modernist fiction, despite questioning Victorian form and focus of

themes, still exhibits the representation of different interpretations harmonized into a

totality (as cited in Mepham 1991:144) whereas postmodernist fiction offers a complete

denial of it. For instance, McHale, while analysing Ulysses states: ‘the world is stable

and reconstructible, forming an ontologically unproblematic backdrop against which the

movements of characters’ minds may be displayed” (1987: 234), Therefore, modernist

fiction offers an incomplete break with the past as it seeks “recontextualization of the

fragments” (1991: 142) as Mepham puts it. Corresponding to this, Patricia Waugh is also

of the view that modernist fiction rejects outside reality and synthesizes itself into the

reality of mind. She writes, “Modernist concerns with the mind as itself the basis of an

aesthetic, ordered at a profound level and revealed to consciousness at isolated

‘epiphanic’ moments” (1980: 23). So, despite the fact that modernist fiction exploits

metafictional strategies, it nevertheless represents the notion of the real which is akin to

the eighteenth and nineteenth century worldview of a “unified whole”.

One form which modernist novel took has come to be knovm as “the introverted

novel” or in the form of technique called “narratorial introversion” as suggested by

Fletcher and Bradbury in their article “The Introverted Novel”. This form of novel is

‘self-aware’ of its fictive creation and turns its attention toward itself - toward the art of

narration and the form and shape of the novel in order to reflect upon the process of

storytelling. For instance, the modernist writer creates its fictive world with the help of

“point of view” technique to exhibit ‘the theme of the art of novel itself (1976: 396). In

this technique, novelists introduce two narrators: one is the author itself and the other is
33
the character in the novel that acts as ‘a surrogate author’, writing and creating the story.

So the focus falls on the art o f creating the fiction rather than creating a story about the

outside world. Here the art of writing novel becomes the content itself (1976: 401). This

technique has been widely employed by a number of writers, for example, by Joseph

Conrad in Under Western Eyes (1911), Heart o f Darkness (1902) and The Secret Agent

(1907); by Marcel Proust in Remembrance o f Things Past (1913-27); and by James Joyce

in Ulysses (1922) and Finnegans Wake (1939).

Another modernist form that novel took has been theorized by Virginia Woolf,

who introduced the stream o f consciousness technique, as she could not convince her

artistic genius to follow the convention of novel writing. In her famous essay, “Modem

Fiction” (1919), she discusses the nature of novel and the role of a novelist in the

following words:

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous

halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of
consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this
varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or
complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external
as possible? (229: 2006)

From this concept of time as a “luminous halo”, stream of consciousness technique took

its birth on account of the fact that the modernist novelists were strongly influenced by

Bergsonian concept of time. Woolf herself remarkably epitomised this technique into her

fiction. Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927) are the cases in point. She is

believed to have freed modem novel of the traditional realist structures and situated it in

the human consciousness which is more real and ‘true to life’ (Fletcher & Bradbury 1976:

34
408). This notion has affected all features of the novel: plot, characterisation and

symbolism. Fletcher and Bradbury sum up this technique as: “We experience [in stream

of consciousness] an exploration both of the aesthetics of consciousness and the

aesthetics of art” (1976: 409). Randall Stevenson, in his article “Postmodernism and

Contemporary Fiction in Britain” (1991), carries forward the view of postmodernism as

an extension of modernism which is why the techniques employed by modernist novelists

are similar to postmodernist. Some of the most prominent features rurming parallel in

both modernist and postmodernist fiction are: fiction about the art of fiction, non-linear

development of narrative structure, and fragmented form and shape of the novel. On

account of this, both Virginia Woolf and James Joyce are considered as modernist cum

postmodernist British novelists.

3.3. Postmodernist Fictional Theory

It is generally agreed that postmodernist “metafiction” extends modernist formal

strategies to an extreme form but the point where it goes against modernist scheme is the

synthesis of meaning along the line of consciousness. Postmodernist spirit is against any

kind of synthesis in terms o f theme or content which is why postmodernist metafiction is

devoid of any final meaning manifesting itself in any form. Although the term

“metafiction” has been coined by William H. Gass, in an article entitled “Philosophy and

the Form of Fiction” in his book Fiction and the Figures o f Life (1970), Patricia Waugh,

in her book Metafiction: The Theory and Practice o f Self-Conscious Fiction (1984),

expounds a complete theory of metafiction; defining its characteristics, elaborating the

formal strategies it puts to work and theorizing the metafiction. It is a kind of “fictional

writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an

35
artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality"

(1984: 02). It is a form of novel which self-reflexively reflects on “fictionality as a theme

to be explored” (1984: 19) as a result of which we come across fiction such as Robert

Coover’s Pricksongs and Descants (1969) in which we see author intruding in the

narrative and commenting on the process of writing itself, interacting with the characters

and readers; writing stories wdthin a story.

John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse (1968), Chimera (1972) and LETTERS (1979)

are also emblematic of the kind of fiction Waugh and Barth theorized. John Barth, who is

not only a novelist but also a critic, critically remarks, as stated above, on the “used-

upness” of literary form in his essay “The Literature of Exhaustion” (1967) in order to

reflect on the possibilities of using this “usedupness” against itself to give birth to a new

form, hi other words, produce “literature of replenishment” as Barth puts it. Barth also

ascertains that it is the ironic or satiric repetition or revisiting of the earlier works with

awareness of the present which will help create a new form. It is interesting to note that a

number of titles of Barth’s critical essays are also very ironic in their tone. For example,

the title of the essay "Some Reasons Why I Tell the Stories I Tell the Way I Tell Them

Rather Than Some Other Sort of Stories Some Other Way", and the title of the non­

fiction book itself The Friday Book: Or, Book-Titles Should Be Straightforward and

Subtitles Avoided.

The discussion of metafictional theory of novel will be incomplete without the

mention of Hutcheon’s Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox (1980). It is a

comprehensive study of the novel as a genre for it makes a case for the evolution and

36
continuous flux of novel with the use of various forms, modes and strategies to redefine

the shape and form of novel. This book treats narcissistic narrative as a modem form of

novel writing instead of postmodern. However, this form has been generally recognised

as postmodern form of fiction writing. The model presented in this book will be used in

the current study. Therefore, here I attempt to explain the model and the aspect which

will be taken from it. Hutcheon’s book is systematic study of the novel as a genre.

Hutcheon proposes a model of modem metafiction that she coins as “narcissistic

narrative” due to the fact that it has tumed its attention toward itself, that is, toward the

processes of writing fiction. Hutcheon speaks of two aims of the Narcissistic Narrative:

The Metafictional Paradox. The first aim is to “investigate the modes, forms and

techniques of narrative narcissism.” The second aim is “to study the implications of these

formal observations both for the theory of the novel as a representational genre and also

for the theory of interpretative and creative fimctions of the act of reading” (1984: 155).

The narcissistic narrative is highly self-conscious and self-reflective in its nature. Both

Waugh and Hutcheon agree on the point that metafictional strategies have been part of

novel genre since ever; however, the difference is that of “explicity” and “degree” of

intensity. Hutcheon adds to this distinction the changed role and status of the reader that

sets modem metafiction apart from traditional narrative. Generally, the self-

consciousness and self-reflectiveness is visible at all levels whether diegetic or mimetic

in modem novel, Hutcheon has come up with a very complex model of narcissistic

narrative. She has claimed that there are two modes of metafiction: diegetic and

linguistic, which can be further distinguished into overt and covert forms since both

modes can be found in either form “explicitly thematized or even allegorized within the

37
“fiction” (1984: 23). Overt form of self-consciousness works through explicit

thematization of plot allegory, narrative metaphor or narratorial commentary whereas

covert form operates through implicit internalization, structuralization, and actualization

(1984: 23), In overt diegetic narcissism there are three main strategies that convert

fictional strategies into the theme, namely: parody, allegory, and the Mise En Ahyme, The

three levels at which parody functions are: “authorial” narration, narrative conventions

(“takes the form of parodic awareness of literary conventions”), and creative process

(1984: 51-53). At the broader level, according to Hutcheon, there are four

models/paradigms that are found in metafiction at overt diegetic level: fantasy, the

detective story, game structure, and the erotic. Hutcheon further suggests that another

paradigm could be parodic model but this can be considered a generic model

encompassing the four explicitly observed in modem metafiction (1984: 31-33).

Hutcheon asserts that John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant's Woman can be taken to be

the most representative of modem metafiction. It exhibits almost all the characteristics of

narcissistic narrative.

3.4. American Postmodernist Fiction

It is generally believed that John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and Ronald Sukenick,

among others, are the doyens of postmodernist American fiction. The postmodernist

American fiction has been dealing with the ontological problems and hence used this

subject-matter as a shaping force of the narrative. The chaos and anarchy of the chaotic

self became reflected in the structure, plot, and characterisation of the narrative. In doing

so, narrative writing drew attention towards the “art of writing fiction itself’; thus a

radical change in narrative strategies took place from realist to modernist and then
38
postmodernist mode of expression. According to Manfred Putz, “subject matter and

thematic concerns [of postmodernist American fiction] are transposed from problems of

fictional characters to problems of the character of fiction and from there to problems of

the reader's attitude towards and participation in the act of fictional communication”

(1979: 293) . David Seed, in the article, “In Pursuit of the Receding Plot: Some American

Postmodernists”, concedes that postmodernism is related to modernism as it is “complex”

continuation of the later. He quotes Peter Brooks who affirms this notion that “[the

postmodernist novel reflects] a greater explicitness in the abandonment of mimetic

claims, a more overt stagmg of narrative’s arbitrariness and lack of authority, a more

open playfulness about fictionality” (as cited in Seed 1991: 36). This notion is one of the

most important features of the postmodernist fiction for it opens the vistas for the free

play of voice and open structure in the novel.

Seed asserts that American postmodernists have employed metafictional

techniques in such a way that they consider “narration as process” which is a continuous

process; never leading to synthesis of structure, plot or character. The nonsequential plot

is one of the most conspicuous formal techniques in both modernist as well as

postmodernist fiction. But its thrust is so strong in postmodernist fiction that it never

leads to any final interpretation or meaning wdth respect to any feature of the novel. As

Seed found out that Raymond Federman arranges his fiction in such a way that every

aspect and instance of it questions its own fictionality and the “only reliable sequence

becomes the narrative voice which is constantly shifting in person and tone” (1991: 40).

The same structure is at work in Sukenick, Pynchon, and Barth as elaborated by Seed.

39
 Another most important feature of postmodernist fiction is the use of parody and

pastiche. John Barth’s fiction is the most exemplary of this technique. According to Seed,

Barth’s LETTERS (1979), “must be his most complexly self-referential work to date. It is

an attempt to reuse the fictional form [used up forms] ... that of epistolary novel” (1991:

47). The analysis of Z£'7T£i?5'proceeds in Seed’s words as:

Barth introduces seven correspondents, or rather reintroduces them since

they are all figures from his earlier works, and Barth himself is projected
into the diction as an updated form of ‘Mr. B.’, Pamela’s seducer in
Richardson’s novel. LETTERS then is a “2"^^ cycle” isomorphic with the “
”... Barth plays with multiple notions of plot: love intrigue, a character
trying to find historical pattern in his family’s lives; and textual ordering
... Barth simultaneously reworks texts and multiplies the dimensions to
resemblances. At one point it parodies Richardson, at another it seems to
realize the ambition to compose a satirical work called The Marlandiad o f
Ehenezer Cook, the author of another of Barth’s proto-texts, the poem
‘The Sot-Weed Factor’. (Seed 1991: 47)

The above analysis makes it clear that Barth engages almost all of the features of

postmodernist fiction i.e., non-sequential plot, mixing of genres (epistolary novel and

history), multiple point of views, and element of parody and pastiche which makes the

text typically postmodern in spirit leading no other end than to ‘radical undecidability’.

Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse also exhibits the story within the story techniques, ironical

rewriting of the fairytales (a kind of parody), intervention of the author into the plot,

distinction between the author and the reader while writing story. This is typical of Barth

critical stance on the postmodern fiction visibly pronounced through the critical essay

‘The Literature of Exhaustion” (Nicol 2009: 76).

40
 Since the essence of postmodernism is against erecting any kind of boundaries,

another related aspect of postmodernist metafictional writing is blurring the boundaries. It

comes into play in Pynchon, Federman, and Sukenick’s fiction when comic element is

induced into their writing to blur the boundaries between high art and low art (Seed 1991:

43). It is also observed in Federman’s fiction where “the sections which resemble realistic

narrative are either mocked through parenthetical comments, which reduce the passages

to pastiche, or are phrased as hypotheses...” (Seed 1991: 40). This is how Federman

achieves what Seed pronounces as blurring “the boundaries between criticism and

fiction” (1991: 41), hence, marks mixing of genres. In conclusion, it can be witnessed

that all the postmodernist self-reflexive and metafictional techniques are overtly present

in the postmodernist American fiction.

3.5. French (nouveau roman) Postmodernist Fiction

The term nouveau roman or "anti-novel” has a vital position in French literary

tradition with particular reference to novelistic forms. It is representative of the

transitional phase of the “inception, development and maturity” of the novelistic forms.

In this regard, the research work of Edmund Smyth and Bruce Morrissette is very

significant. Edmund Smyth, in the essay titled “The Nouveau Roman: Modernity and

Postmodemity” traces the historical development of nouvea roman movement in terms of

questioning and modifying form and shape of the novel. He also authenticates, as a

matter of fact, that postmodernist self-reflexive literary techniques and strategies have

emerged out of modernist experimentalism (whether it was an outside influence or

inside). Smyth (1991), like Morrissette (1970), informs that Nathalie Sarraute’s and

Claude Simon, custodians of nouvea roman movement, both stressed the need to shift
41
from a classical realist structure to modernist and then postmodernist structure. As it was

felt classical realist structure was unable to represent the complex realities and

experiences of the modem age. For romanciers, sticking to the mimetic realism was

considered to be “perpetuating as a misrepresentation of reality” (Smyth 1991: 56).

Resultantly, a change emerged into the thinking pattern of French intelligentsia, including

critical theorists and novelists alike, which led to employing variously different narrative

strategies in nouveau roman fiction.

The advancement and impact of the critical tradition and modification of the

novelist’s style were running parallel in French literary tradition, according to Smyth

(1991). As critics such as Roland Barthes and Jean Ricardou from Tel Quel group

influenced the movement with their philosophical and theoretical notions of and about

language. Ricardou’s belief that “materiality of the text should replace the evocations of

the workings of consciousness” (Smyth 1991; 66) incited a change in the language

strategies of romanciers ’ writings. They shifted from modernist to postmodernist vein of

thought.

As a matter of fact, history has a very significant relationship with postmodernist

theoretical underpinnings. Smyth believes that Ricardou’s theoretical notions converted

postmodernist fiction into an ahistorical movement focusing solely on “the productivity

of the language”. He not only expounded a theory but also practiced it in his most

original work La Prise de Constantinople (1965), “in which everything — characters,

plot, descriptive developments, the order of events, repetitions, variations-arises from

language alone” (Morrissette 1970: 166). However, Simon vehemently repudiated this

42
notion in his fiction. His fiction integrated textual materiality as theorized by Ricardou

with ‘autobiographical/historical truth’. It depicted a “return to ‘History” “in simonian

terms”, as Smyth puts it. Simon’s Les Georgiques (1981) and L ’Acacia (1989) are

appropriate representative instances.

Another related element is the use of myth as a literary technique. Morrissette in

his article “International Aspects of the ‘Nouveau Roman’” authenticates Joyce’s

influence on the nauvaeux romanciers with respect to “the structuring of the plot on the

basis of a myth, usually classical, whether hidden within the work (as in Ulysses or

Robbe-Grillet's Les Gommes) and thus tacit or unacknowledged, or openly identified by

the author or his characters (as in Butor'sUEmploi du tempsy" (157). Romanciers use this

technique for “inner duplication” to enable the character or situations to offer multiple

interpretations. In postmodernist literature, however, myth functions as parody and

pastiche. But nevertheless for Smyth the use of myth amounts to parody and pastiche

which “place[s] the nouveau roman firmly within postmodernism” (Smyth 73).

Therefore, navveau roman is not an exclusively ahistorical literary movement, but also a

historical one in Linda Hutcheon’s postmodernist theoretical footing.

So far as the narrative strategies of the novel are concerned, the most important

factor remains the non-linearity of the plot due to the change in concept of time as

“organic whole” as proposed by Bergson (1910). In the nouveau roman, the plot of the

novel has undergone transformations due to the impact of not only the philosophical and

critical thought but also the foreign influence of ‘modernist canon’. Through an analysis

of Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute and Michel Butor’s fiction, Smyth (1991) tries

43
to show that the transformation of the fictional forms started from ‘non-linear’ but

psychological narrative. Morrissette and Smyth both accede to the presence of stream o f

consciousness or “inner voice” technique, which also reflects foreign influence received

from James Joyce in the French fiction authored by Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor,

Claude Mauriac, and Claude Simon. Since stream of consciousness is a modernist

technique for the reason that it still advocates the synthesis of meaning in psychological

narrative. Therefore, we see that while mapping down the modernist canon, Smyth shows

that “many of the Simon’s novels dramatize the attempts to impose order and meaning on

the chaos of reality and history ... His work is intimately concerned with epistemological

questions” (1991: 63). This analysis also confirms McHale’s thesis that postmodernist

and modernist fiction differ on the philosophical plane. The former is concerned with

ontological questions and the later addresses the epistemological concerns. So, the

modernist French fiction still orchestrated itself on “singularity” of doctrine, despite,

according to Smyth, the styHstic innovations of style such as “... the long and digressive

sentences, the accumulation of parentheses, the sustained use of the present participle, the

increasing lack of conventional paragraphing and punctuation are all deployed in order to

convey simultaneity of perception, in a manner reminiscent of both Proust and Faulkner”

(1991:63).

Another shift from modernist to postmodernist narrative strategies has also been

witnessed in the nouveau roman fiction. The most celebrated novelists, Nathalie Sarraute

and Robbe-Gillet, incorporated this shift in their later fiction. For instance, Gillet’s novel

Dans le labyrinth (1959) “presents permutations and combinations of a set of elements

subject to revision, repetition, and repetition with variation” (1991: 66). Further novels

44
including La Maison de rendez-vous (1965) and Projet pour une revolution a New York

(1970) exhibited radical and drastic change in terms of their language and structure as in

these novels “the linear and temporal progression of the narrative is disrupted by the non­

stratified discourse o f the text” (1991: 67). In conclusion, it can be observed that the

nouveau roman explicitly exhibits the shift fi-om realist to modernist and then

postmodernist structure of the plot.

3.6. Spanisb-American Postmodernist Fiction

The contemporary Spanish-American fiction is of a very rich character insofar as

the narrative strategies are concerned. It can be equated to ‘postmodernist’ fiction on

account of the novel and dynamic narrative strategies present in it; however, this term has

not been employed by the critics for Spanish American fiction. James Higgins (1991), in

his article “Spanish America’s New Narrative”, terms Spanish-American contemporary

experimentalist fiction as “the new narrative” instead of postmodernist fiction and

narrative. Maria A. Salgado (1978) also terms it as characteristic of “international” or

“global” fiction. In Spanish-American fiction “the craft” was felt missing in the

regionalist fiction because, according to Salgado (1978), it served as a didactic tool for

the reform of the society. The narrative devices — composition, form, and stylistic

trends, were compromised at the expense of conveying the ‘moral’ lesson to the readers.

As a result of which the fiction was read “as socio-political documents under the

assumption that they reflected with great "authenticity" a variety of problems

symptomatic of backward societies” (1978: 20). But this absence was immensely felt by

the new generation of Spanish American writers wherefore without compromising the

45
socio-political and ideological relevance of the fiction, they carved out a “new narrative”

which quenched the thirst of “art for the sake of art” mood. There is variety of strategies

adopted by Spanish American writers which may be termed as postmodernist in nature,

despite the hesitation of critics to be labelled as such.

The most important factor repeatedly emphasized is contemporary Spanish-

American fiction is deeply ingrained in tradition because it registers the quest for creating

“an autochthonous expression” (1978: 23), as Salgado (1978) puts it. Spanish-American

fiction has a history of its own like English, French or American. It is partly reliant on

and has emerged in reaction to its “regionalist” fiction and partly influenced by European

and North-American fiction (Higgins 1991: 92). The new novelists absorbed and

assimilated foreign influences and came up with their own original contribution to the

literature of the world. Their literature is intrinsically bound up with their own cultural

history for their agenda is to represent Spanish-American identity (Higgins 1991: 92).

Therefore, the desire to represent their own identity is explicitly evident in their fiction,

despite having received influence firom Western canon due to the impact of colonisation

as well as the encounter with globalisation era.

As already pointed out that Spanish American fiction does not divorce “meaning”

from its subject matter, we turn to magic realism as a major technique which synthesizes

this essence. Magical realism has been the constant of Spanish American fiction on

account of the fact that it is a home-bred technique in Hispanic literature. Owing to

magical realism’s inventiveness, it can also be identified as a postmodernist technique.

However, magical realism is generally believed to be an amalgamation of reality and

fantasy. It has been defined by different theorists, for instance, according to Luis Leal,

46
“...magic realism is the effort put forth by the authors to confront reality and to discover

the mystery of life, especially the mysterious relationships that exist between man and his

circumstances..."... “an attitude toward reality..” (Salgado 1978: 24). It is owing to the

presence of ‘reality’ the Spanish-American fiction employing this technique cannot be

divorced from the representation of poHtics, society, and culture. The reason why it

became so artistic and fresh is because the novelists got preoccupied with the

transformation of “style and also the same transformation of the common and the

everyday into the awe-some and the unreal” (Angel 1955: 1905). Therefore, a change in

perspective took place to make the work of art pleasurable artistically and imaginatively.

This change can be seen in the fiction most notably authored by Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis

Borges, Carpentier, Miguel Angel Asturias, J. M. Coetzee and Gabreil Garcia Marquez.

Spanish-American writers make rampant use of (post)modem techniques with

respect to the form and structure of the fiction. Jorge Luis Borges is one of the most

exemplary of this new (post)modemist style. The questioning of the nonlinearity of the

plot and mimetic realism and distrust in the “unity” of genre’ is remarkably echoed in

Borges’ short-story “Death and the Compass”. It also reflects “ontological uncertainty of

contemporary man” (1991: 92). In Higgins’ words the analysis of this short-stoiy

proceeds as:

“Death and the Compass” parodies the detective story to satirize the faith
in reason which that genre epitomizes. The story may in fact be read as an
allegory in which the detective’s attempt to solve a series of crimes by the
use of logic represents man’s efforts to decipher the meaning of the
universe, but he himself ends up as the final victim, undone by his
misplaced confidence in his intellect and baffled by a confusing world that
makes a mockery of his pretensions to explain it. (1991: 92-93)

47
Just as Borges’ narrative, Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years o f Solitude, Mario

Llosa’s The Green House, and Jose Donoso’s the Obscene Bird o f Night register ttie

nonlinear and disruptive narrative and the questioning of mimetic realism of the

traditional novel (Higgins 1991: 93).

Myth is another figurative technique employed by the new novelists which signals

the fact that the relation with the past has not yet fallen apart. Use of myth and

reinterpretation of myth into the contemporary narrative refers to another tendency within

the postmodernist narrative known as use of pastiche and parody in Hutcheoneon terms.

Asturia’s The President, Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, and Gabreil Garcia Marquez’s One

Hundred Years o f Solitude are the best examples of this technique. To sum up this

discussion, it can be observed that postmodernist tendencies are visibly recognizable in

Spanish American fiction.

To sum up this discixssion, it is a fact that the form of novel kept moulding itself

due to the different perspectives and functions that it sought to operate on in different

periods. Due to an overwhelming change in the society and its worldview, the form and

shape of the novel persistently underwent changes by using "the same tools but different

patterning and arrangement of the formal techniques to create a particular effect. Hence,

this survey will provide a background to my original study in such a way that considering

the presence of these forms I will be able to examine Roy’s novel as to how she creates

new techniques and model of fiction writing by using some of the techniques discussed

above.

48
 CHAPTER 4

THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS AS A POSTMODERN PARODY OF

FICTIONAL FORMS

This chapter deals with the analysis of Arundhati Roy’s novel as a reinterpretation of

novel as a genre. I propose to analyse that Roy employs postmodern parody as a tool to

construct new fictional forms. The formal structure of The God o f Small Things attracted

world-wide attention. It has been internationally acclaimed due to its powerfully

reverberating formal structure, which includes the use of language, myth, metaphors,

nonlinear plot, parody and pastiche. Roy herself claims, in one of her interviews, that

form of the novel was of ample importance to her. She took almost five (5) years to

meticulously create the subtleties of the overall structure of The God o f Small Things. She

says:

To me, the design o f the book was really important... I thought why a book shouldn’t be
cylindrical. Why shouldn’t it go round and round? Why shouldn’t you be able to open it
and enter it anywhere? And so the story almost breaks the physical object o f what a book
is supposed to be. And the way it strolled it mattered.
(Interview with Roy, June 16, 1997)

So from the beginning it is clear that the “design” of The God o f Small Things has been

carefully chiselled out. In this dissertation, I claim that reappearance of literary references

have a special effect on the form of the novel considering Hutcheon’s concept of parody.

It is generally believed that form of the novel is as forceful and influential as the theme in

The God o f Small Things. Like the characters are breaking the “laws” at thematic level in

The God o f Small Things, the breaking of rules of fiction writing also takes place. In a
49
metafictional tradition. The God o f Small Things draws attention toward the process of

writing in various ways. Therefore, whenever Roy quotes a literary text, she enables

readers to contextualise the literary past into the present {The God o f Small Things). This

warrants the analysis of the story of The God o f Small Things through the lens of literary

conventions of the past. Whether it is a movie, drama, or a novel. Roy rehandles the

parodic functions of literary intertexts at thematic and structural level. This study

attempts to show the significance of selected intertextual literary references of The God

o f Small Things.

Roy exploits parody as a tool to intensively play with the form of The God o f

Small Things. Both Hutcheon and Waugh, as discussed in theoretical framework and

introduction of the study, assert that parody is a tool to renew the form. It has been

grossly employed by contemporary writers especially novelists to break free with the

traditional form of the narrative. In The God o f Small Things, the major change in form is

informed by the use of parodic intertextual references from various movies, songs, plays,

and novels. Throughout the novel there is a continuous foregrounding of the literaiy

references so looking closely at the text reveals the complex intertextual relationships

between The God o f Small Things and other literary intertexts. Every formal intervention

is an inducement of a complexity of the form that is designed according to Kathakali's

(translated as story play) narrative techniques. Every story’s intersection with the story of

The God o f Small Things is symbolic of metafictionality of the novel and its parodic

semblance with the past where past characters come to live in the present and in turn

leave an impression on the form of the novel. This invocation is lying bare of the artifice

of the novel. She has used many literary intertextual references. However, for the purpose

50
of this study, I have chosen three intertexts, namely: Kathakali, Macbeth, and Heart o f

Darkness.

4.1. Kathakali: Redefining the Form of The God o f Small Things

It is an attempt to retheorise Kathakali into fiction. She pulls it out from its original

concept and transfers it into fiction in order to establish worth of local patterns of story­

telling. The God o f Small Things is also a part of metafiction tradition of the Western

postmodern novel. She refers to the metafictionality of the novel when she refers to the

“Great Stories” (1997: 2 3 9 ) Kathakali stories and the way they are patterned. Her

comment attracts attention toward the process of writing the story of The God o f Small

Things; toward the techniques that it employs to narrate the story; and toward the

grandeur of such “Great stories”. Roy self-consciously glorifies her novel (story) as one

of the “Great” Kathakali stories. She parodically and self-consciously appropriates model

of Kathakali narrative through which penetration of the local traditional model into the

tradition of fiction in English is achieved. By juxtaposing the two traditions, she

harmoniously creates a new form, more often through a critique of both.

In a metafictional tradition, Roy as an author of The God o f Small Things intervenes into

the story and posits fictional theory of her own novel. She says,

It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because Kathakali discovered long ago tiiat the
secret o f the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you
have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit
comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise
you with the unforeseen... You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t.
In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you
won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t.
And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic. (239)

51
She disrupts the linear progression of the novel by inverting the rules of mystery fiction.
i
She parodically but constructively reverses the principle of mystery. As a writer of

mystery story usually withholds the plot exposition until later in the novel. Contrastingly,

in The God o f Small Things the story is revealed in the first chapter. Eventually there are

no tricks or deceptions in the plot of The God o f Small Things. No proper beginnings, no

proper middles, no multiple or confused endings. However, Roy maintains the mystery

by leaving one question unanswered that is How it all happens? This is the only mystery

in the story of The God o f Small Things and the rest of the novel is about unfolding the

horrors of the death of Sophie Viol, Velutha, and Ammu; catastrophic events of the lives

of Rahel and Estha that change and drive both of them into irreparable loss of their lives

as well as Sophie Mol’s life, Velutha’s life and Ammu’s life.

The overarching narrative structure of The God o f Small Things conforms to the

Kathakali narrative techniques. Roy disturbs the linear progression of the narrative, also

defying realist tradition of narrative structure - exposition, complication, climax and then

resolution - by sparingly distributing it throughout the novel. The first chapter is also a

kind of exposition of the story but it is more than that (it is further discussed in the

following pages). There is a forward movement of the complication — Vellya Paapen’s

discloses Velutha's affair with Ammu to Mammachi and Baby Kochamma; Baby

Kochamma locks Ammu into the room and falsely reports Velutha as a rapist in the

police station; Ammu blames children for this situation (happens in chapter 13) and

Twins run away to river to row to the History House but their boat capsizes and Sophie

Mol drowns (happens in chapter 16). The complication is succeeded by climax of the

story - the Kottayam police finds Velutha in “Histoiy House” and beats him up till death
52
(happens in chapter 18); however. Inspector Mathew discovers Velutha is innocent

(happens in chapter 19) Baby Kochamma tricks children to name Velutha as an abductor

of the children (happens in chapter 19). However, the outcomes of climax are dispersed

throughout the novel - Estha returned to his father and Ammu made to leave the house

(happens in chapter 17); Chacko emigrates to Canada in chapter 1; Ammu dies in chapter

7 and Estha loses track with the reality and Rahel marries goes to America, but returns to

Estha after divorce again in chapter 1. Traditionally, the story resolves in the outcomes

but these incidents further complicate it by creating a huge mess in the lives of all the

characters. It is a tragedy in which death doesn’t lead to the resolution but further

complication which has drastic effects on the lives of Ammu and her twins, Maragret

Kochanmia and Chacko. This kind of plot violates the convention of not only English

traditional structure but also KathakalVs. In Kathakali narratives, the hero “always

emerges victorious at the conc usion of a play, the path toward that glorious resolution is

always fraught with severe tria s and tribulations” (Zairilli 2005: 113). It is clear that Roy

challenges the traditional structure of Kathakali as well as English traditional fiction

writing thereby creating a new postmodern form of tragedy in which people die and

remain unloved; in which poetic justice is never achieved rather “end of living” happens

to those who survive the physical death.

Roy employs narrative technique offamiliarization to parodically mvert the technique of

defamiliarization, which is a dominant concept of 20^ century art. Victor Shklovsky

coined this term in an essay entitled “Art as Technique”. He says.

53
 The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms

difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the

process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.

(1917: 12)

Where Shklovsky stressed the importance of making objects/symbols/techniques

unfamiliar, Roy followed the convention of familiarity of tales based on the fundamental

principles of Kathakali. Tlie popularity of Kathakali dance-drama is based on the

portrayal of familiar stories from Indian mythology for the audience (Zarrilli 2002:6).

This is the basic premise of the model of Kathakali. Since the story of The God o f Small

Things is not based on the Indian mythology, Roy invents this technique to constantly

familiarize the reader with incidents that are going to be narrated in the succeeding

chapter(s). Roy introduces this premise parodically into The God o f Small Things by

summarizing the whole story in the first chapter, “Paradise Pickles and Preserves”, hence

“familiarizing” the reader. She begins the novel by summing up the core of the story,

introducing every character of the novel informing beforehand and informing “who lives,

who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t” (239). In The God o f Small Things, Anmiu,

Velutha, Mammachi, Pappachi and Sophie Mol die, Estha, Rahel, Baby Kochamma,

Pillai, and Chacko continue to live. We learn that Sophie and Margaret (Chacho’s ex-

wife) come to India and Sophie Mol drowns in the river because their [Estha, Rahel and

Sophie’s] boat capsizes. Therefore Estha and Rahel are held responsible for this by

Papachi’s family. On account of this, Ammu has been asked to ‘pack her bags and leave’

and return Estha to her father. We also learn that Ammu married a Hindu out of her own

volition but returns back to her father’s along with twins after divorcing her husband. The
54
relationship of Papachi and Mammachi is also related. We also come to know that

Chacko was a Rhodes Scholar, who returns to India after divorcing Margaret and after

the fateful event of her daughter’s death he emigrated to Canada. We also learn that

Velutha is a Paravan, who falls in love with Ammu and is killed on that basis. It is a

tremendous way to identify wi h the overarching structure of Kathakali and at the same

time creating a new form of fic ional writing. Through this technique, Roy pays tribute to

the Kathakali tradition of narra :ive as Hutcheon puts forth that similarity or difference is

paying homage to it.

Roy persistently exploits this new form of narrative technique throughout the

novel. She incorporates the technique of foreshadowing and repetition to invent this

technique. In the first chapter o ' the novel, Roy exploits foreshadowing to indicate ftiture

events. Afterwards, she employs repetition technique to inject the effect of familiarity by

providing the crux of the succeeding event. For instance, the decisive event of Velutha’s

murder, on account of the cross-caste affair with Ammu, is foreshadowed in the first

chapter of the novel. It is narrated in a form of memory and metaphor when Rahel recalls

standing in Sophie’s funeral she imagines “someone like Velutha, barebodied and

shining... dropping like a dark star out of the sky that he had made. Lying broken on the

hot church floor, dark blood spilling from his skull like a secret” (6) and also in a sudden

shift of time and thought in Chapter 1 recalling that “even before Sophie Mol’s funeral,

the police found Velutha” (31). It is repeated with concrete details in Chapter 17 o f the

novel before the enactment of the actual incident in chapter 18 “the history house”. In

chapter 17, we are informed that the news of Velutha’s murder has been reported in the

newspaper as “police “Encounter” with a Paravan charged with kidnapping and murder”
55
(303). It is also informed that “a posse of Touchable Policemen crossed the Meenachal

River, sluggish and swollen with recent rain, and picked their way through the wet

undergrowth, clumping into the Heart of Darkness” (303). And then the actual scene of

the murder takes place in chapter 18 “History House.” This is how Roy achieves the

desired effect of familiarity which also accentuates the trauma and tragedy of the story.

Knowing that Velutha has been killed by police “y^^ you to know again” (239).

Similarly, the minor and major indications and details appear in the form of

memory and foreshadowing of the central event of Sophie Mol’s drowning and the

people responsible for it have repeatedly occurred in the novel. In the first chapter, a very

elaborate hint has been given through Sophie’s flmeral ceremony where Estha, Rahel and

Ammu are allowed to attend the funeral but ‘‘they were made to stand separately, not with

the rest of the family. Nobody would look at them” (5). It was a clear indication, which

appeared in the form of memory (as Rahel recalls this incident when she returns from

America), that Ammu and the twins are somehow responsible for the death of Sophie

which is why they are being treated with coldness at the funeral. It is also revealed in the

form of foreshadowing that it is Sophie’s death that has caused worst things to happen in

lives of all the characters. Roy relates in chapter 1 that “it all began when Sophie Mol

came to Ayemenem. Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen

hours can affect the outcome o f whole lifetimes” (32). The ‘mystery’ of the known is

intensified in chapter 14, when Roy familiarizes the reader that although Margaret didn’t

know that Estha is responsible for Sophie’s death, she slapped Estha three four times.

Roy again relates the crux of the actual event that will take place in chapter 16. She

informs that Estha was somehow responsible for Sophie Mol’s death... Estha who had

56
broken rules and rowed Sophie Mol and Rahel across the river in the afternoons in a little

boat...” (264). And then the final enactment is narrated in the form of complete scene in

chapter 16 Sophie Mol drowns. Hence, with the help of foreshadowing and continuous

repetition Roy achieves the effect of familiarization technique.

There is yet another similarity at plot level with Kathakali tradition that in

Kathakali performances, “at the conclusion of the main dramatic narrative, usually at

dawn, there is a final dance piece, the dhanasi, that marks the end of the whole

performance” (as cited in Tickle 2007: 42). In a similar fashion, Roy concludes The God

o f the Small Things with a love scene of Ammu and Velutha. Like the song in

performance, the last chapter also leaves an impact of celebration of love but it actually

accentuates the tragic effect of the story.

Traditionally, in Kathakali “gods and demons” are the characters because the

stories of drama are borrowed from traditional Indian epics. Roy parodically challenges

this traditional convention of Kathakali and redefines rules of characterisation in the

novel. As a result, all of her characters are human beings. Not only this, this ironic

inversion which is at once fierce goes one level further. She brings Velutha, an

untouchable, at the centre of the plot of The God o f Small Things. Roy reconstructs the

theory of characterisation by defying Kathakali conventions. As modem novelists defied

Aristotelian dramatic theory thereby creating a new genre, Roy, by challenging and

questioning, also redefmes the characterisation norms of Kathakali. Here I will analyse

only those characters that question the conventions of Kathakali in a significant way.

Velutha is “the God of Small Things” and the “God of Loss” (265). He has been

identified with the Kathakali character type “Pacca” (green) - “divine [heroic]
57
figures..... they are the most refined among the male character, being upright, moral...”

(Zarrilli 2000: 53). In Kathakali plays Vishnu/Krishna, and Rugmamgada fall under this

character type. Roy has made intense reversal of this in the form of the character of

Velutha, He is moral and upright but unlike Krishna he is “god of small things”. He is a

devoted lover, sincere and accomplished carpenter and mechanic worker but since he is

an untouchable, he is a vulnerable human being. Despite being unprotected himself, he

provides sense of security to Ammu as a lover and to her twins as a surrogate father. This

is what makes him “god of small things”, hi this regard, he is heroic and divine in the

“small things”. So the inversion of the character at these levels is very ironic. Inversion of

the character of god into an untouchable man who is gifted with all the best qualities of

god as a protector is o f ironic nature. Roy plays intensively with Kathakali’s norms of

characterisation.

As of the characterisation of female characters, there exist only two types in

Kathakali dramatic theory. One, ‘Radiant’ or ‘shining’ (minukku) and the other ‘Black’

(kari). Either a woman is categorised as “the idealized females who conform to

standardized notions of female behavior and purity as dutiful wives and heroines ... [or]

(kari) demonesses who by nature are lustful, sexually charged, ugly, hysterical, and are

‘dangerous’ shapechangers able to transform themselves” (Zarrilli 2000: 56). There is no

third category for female characters in Kathakali theory. Roy challenges this theoretical

conception of creating extreme polarities of female attitudes. She creates a third space for

her female characters where they redefine their identities differently and in a

nonconformist way. Ammu, Rahel, Mammachi, Margaret Kochamma are very different

characters fi*om what Kathakali defines a woman character to be. Since Kathakali is

58
based on the Hindu scriptures, the rules and perceptions directly come from there. Roy,

being an iconoclast herself, ingrains equal amount of nonconformity into her female

characters for the rules of society/religion and Kathakali dramatic theory.

Ammu and Rahel both are nonconformist women of the novel. Ammu does not

proceed according to the norms of her family. Since her father caimot afford a dowry, she

goes to Delhi to attend wedding but finds herself a husband. After having babies, she

starts having issues with her husband which culminates into divorce. She returns to

Ayemenem, her father’s home with her twins - Rahel and Estha. Divorce is a taboo in the

society. So Ammu goes against the rules of society. Her family, however, doesn’t

welcome her wholeheartedly, especially Baby Kochamma. After the return, Ammu forms

love bond with Velutha, an untouchable. Here again she goes against the tradition of her

family and society. Being a Syrian Christian, of higher caste, she is not supposed to be

giving this respect to Velutha. But as Roy herself puts it “perhaps Ammu... [is] the worst

transgressors” (31). She transgresses all the “laws that lay down who should be loved,

and how. And how much” (31). With this attitude, she doesn’t conform to the Kathakali

description of a woman character.

Similarly, Rahel, Ammu’s daughter, is another character redefining the woman

character. We see the events that take place in the novel through Rahel’s eyes. After

death of Sophie, returning of Estha to their father, and Ammu’s forced leaving from the

house, Rahel is admitted into boarding schools/colleges. She gets expelled from the

schools three times and is an average student. She joins college of Architecture where she

meets her future husband. After marriage she leaves for America but like her mother she

also gets divorced. When Mammachi, writes to her of Estha’s re-retuming to Ayemenem,

59
she immediately comes back to see her twin brother. She also commits an act of adultery,

“hideous grief’, with her brother and becomes one of the transgressors. In short, she is

also one of the woman characters that don’t conform to the rules o f Kathakali theory.

Baby Kochamma is a combination of two Kathakali character types which

challenges Kathakali rules for female character types. She possesses both female “dark”

and male qualities of evil characters. Two Kathakali characters called Kari (black) and

“karunatati” (black beard) have been juxtaposed in the creation of a female character of

the novel called Baby Kochamma. Kari characters are female “demonesses ... [who] are

shape-changers capable of transforming themselves into beautiful maidens in order to

deceive and trick their prey” (Zarrilli 2000: 55)* And, karunatati are male characters who

are “by nature schemers” (Zarrilli 2000: 55). These characteristics of being a natural

schemer, and a demoness capable of transforming themselves are located in Baby

Kochamma in The God o f Small Things. She is a metaphoric demoness who appears to be

taking care of the family’s respect in the eyes of Mammachi by locking Ammu into the

room and filing rape-case against Velutha in the police station after it is revealed to them

they have a secret love relationship. But initially, she takes secret revenge from Ammu

that she has been harbouring against her for no apparent reasons. But as soon as the

matter gets worst, she is proven a liar in front of the police for lodging a false complaint

against Velutha. She traps Estha to testily in front of police that Velutha has abducted

them. She tells Estha that confessing this, he will be able to save Ammu. However, in

reality she tried to save herself from being jailed. And then, to secure her reputation and

in order to stop Ammu to get Velutha’s case reopened, she makes Chacko force Ammu

leave Ayemenem as a punishment, as Ammu’s twins and Ammu herself are responsible

60
for the drowning o f Sophie - Chacko’s daughter. So she is an evil incarnate who appears

to be good to others but in fact does a great harm in the lives of ahnost all the main

characters. Velutha is murdered due to her false FIR, Ammu is ostracized from her

father’s house, Estha is returned to his father (who becomes quiet for the rest of his life

after realising that he has been directly a cause to the loss of Sophie and Velutha’s death).

So the inversion takes place at metaphoric level. Also the characteristics of male

Kathakali characters are planted into a female character. By the same token, a human

character is endowed with the characteristics of supernatural character (demoness). In

conclusion, it is clear that the conventions of characterisation have been parodically

inverted in the novel. Like the revolts lodged by 18^ century writers/modernists in the

genesis of novel as a genre, it is also one of the revolts lodged to challenge and redefine

the norms of characterisation.

Similarly interactions between low and high caste characters are pretty much a

norm of this novel. Also, Syrian Christians (Ipe family) play the major characters in the

story. It is a parodic transgression of the traditional conventions of Kathakali storytelling.

The Kathakali practitioners and patronisers have been so keen in maintaining a

“distance” between castes and the audience who come to watch the play. These plays

used to be arranged inside the premises of temples. The “audiences at Kathakali

performances taking place at temples or in family house compounds were governed and

constrained by these rules and conventions, and did not mix across either boundaries of

gender or the caste-based line of pollution” (Zarrilli 2002: 7). Roy parodically violates

the principle of distance in her novel that Kathakali performances maintained. Roy

revolts against boundaries by bringing a Paravan, Velutha, at the centre of the plot of The

61
God o f Small Things. The tussle across higher and lower castes is very much a subject of

this novel. Being a love story, the tragedy of Ammu-Velutha love relationship is also a

portrayal of the caste tussles that transgress “the laws that lay down who should be loved

and how. And how much” (31).

In a nutshell, it can be observed that Roy’s attempts to “preserve” the Indian

culture/tradition by appropriating Kathakali narrative structure into the tradition of novel

in English. This novel is a self-reflexive experiment from within the Indian tradition. As

Hutcheon asserts, also affirmed by Richard Horcwich that parody is a critical model that

works from within to challenge and incorporate the same structure that it attempts to

subvert (1988).” As a postmodern novelist, she creates a metafiction in which she not

only challenges the traditional model of Kathakali narrative but also affirms and

appreciates it by modelling her novel’s narrative pattern on it. She has been able to

evolve narratorial technique of “familiarization” in the genre of novel by following the

Kathakali traditional model. In so doing, she pays tribute to the Kathakali tradition. She

attempts to eternalise and, at the same time, critique the Indian tradition through parody

thereby creating a new model of novel conforming to Hutcheon’s definition that parody's

“ironic trans-contextualization and inversion” (2000: 37) of the original, which "can be

critically constructive as well as destructive” {Parody 2000:32). Here it is seen that it is

“critically constructive” as a new fictional theory is being evolved through ironical

inversion by Roy.

4.2. Recontextualization of Macbeth in The God o f Small Things

According to Julie Sanders, the writers who adapt Shakespeare, a figure of Western

culture, have two aims. Either they authenticate their own works by referring to

62
Shakespeare and in turn pay a tribute or they rewrite Shakespearean plays in order to

“talk back” which is a part of postcolonial practices (2006: 46). Roy contextualizes

Shakespearean plays into novel with the intention of demonstrating the coexistence of

classical British classical literature and Indian literature/stories in Indian English

literature and culture. It is part of her cross-cultural strategies, and an intensive feature of

postmodernist literature. She pays a tribute to Shakespeare by parodically contextualizing

his plays into her novel; however, it doesn’t mean that she depends on it to authenticate

the validity of her own novel.

Roy contextualizes Macbeth parodically into The God o f Small Things. The

character of the Witches has been pitted against the character of Estha. Formally, the

supernatural characters of Macbeth have been inverted into witch-like human character in

The God o f Small Things. It is a very playful parody of the role of witches and the

mantra that they chant prophesizing for Macbeth. Estha has similarities with Macbeth’^

Witches insofar as the responsibility of the events that followed after their actions is

concerned in both Macbeth and The God o f Small Things. It is similar and at the same

time different from the Macbethian character. One of the differences is that Estha is an

innocent child whereas the Witches are evil and wicked by nature. The peculiarities of

their nature are also confirmed by the inversion of ‘charmsVsongs in The God o f Small

Things which marks another aspect of playful parody. There is a complete inversion of

the recipe and charm/wizard of Macbeth's witches in The God o f Small Things marking a

parodic difference from the Macbethian character. Another formal inversion is that

Macbeth's prophesies take a form of presaging into The God o f Small Things. In

Macbeth, witches prophesize Macbeth about the future kingship. Contrastingly, in The

63
God o f Small Things, Estha’s witch-like appearance presages imminent catastrophe and

ominosity. One of the interesting points regarding the inversion of witches’ charm into

the boat-song is that the former belongs to the western cultural tradition and the later to

Indian cultural tradition. Roy, while suggesting simultaneous coexistence of both,

replaces Western cultural tradition with Indian cultural tradition by prioritizing it.

Roy deftly contextual izes the witches of Macbeth in The God o f Small Things in

the character of Estha. In Macbeth, the role of the three witches has been very vital, as

Macbeth’s actions are predominantly influenced by their prophesy that Macbeth “shalt be

king Hereafter” (Act 1, Scene 3). Samuel Coleridge confirms in the essay “On Macbeth”

that “[i]n ... Macbeth the scene opens with superstition; ...it is connected ... with the

shadowy, turbulent, and unsanctified cravings of the individual will” (2008: 212). The

witches are mentioned as the ‘Sveird sisters” (Act 4, scene 3) throughout the play because

they are believed to be the cause of mischief in people’s lives. Indeed the mischief in

Macbeth’s life stems from their supernatural powers and the evil that promise to commit

(Act 1, scene 1). William Wizlitt also approves that “[t]he Witches urge Macbeth to evil

because of their love of mischief and because of a motiveless delight in deformity and

cruelty” (2009:25). It is certain that Macbeth wouldn’t have murdered the king of

Scotland Dimcan without the motivational push given by the witches’ predictions

coupled with Lady Macbeth’s provocations. When Macbeth revisits the witches for

further prophesies, as their previous ones come true, these prophesies also cause to

accentuate the myopia of Macbeth. The witches convince him that he is invincible and

thus “Macbeth is finally destroyed and his bloody career halted by a pair of prophecies:

that ‘none of woman bom / Shall harm Macbeth’, and that Macbeth shall never
64
vanquish’d be until / Great Bimam wood to high Dunsinane hill / Shall come against

him” (Russ Macdonald 2002: 46-47). So the prophesies prove deceiving and the witches

succeed in playing a wicked part in the fateful end of Macbeth. It is not only the

prophesies but also Macbeth’s v^ll and ambitiousness that bring such an end to him.

On the other hand, Estha, a human but witch-like character, also plays a very

significant role in the story of The God o f Small Things. However, unlike the witches of

Macbeth, he is an innocent but serious and intelligent child. He is considered to be

“somehow responsible” (264) for Sophie’s death. It is Estha “... - Stirring Wizard with a

Puff-who had rowed jam and thought TwoThoughts, Estha who had broken rules and

rowed Sophie Mol and Rahel across the river” (264). When Roy pits Estha against the

witches of Macbeth, he is brooding over the “Two Thoughts” stirring in the “black iron

cauldron” (194). Roy relates that “Estha became a Stirring Wizard with a spoiled puff

and uneven teeth, and then the Witches of Macbeth” (195). This prefigures the imminent

fateful event when Sophie Mol drowns on the way to the other side of river. He suffers

traumatically in consequence of the circumstances leading to both Sophie’s and Velutha’s

death. His sufferings as a child begin when OrangedrinkLemondrink Man at the Abhilash

Talkies theatre sexually abuses him. It is one of the “Two Thoughts” (194) he thinks in

the pickle factory, as Macbeth's witch, that provoke him to seek refuge in the “History

House.” Had he not planned to go to the History House, Sophie Mol would not have

drowned. Similarly, it is apparently Estha’s “Yes” (320) to the police that brings about

annihilation of Velutha. Nevertheless, Estha is a naive innocent child who doesn’t

attempt to harm anyone out of wickedness of his nature or will, unlike witches in

Macbeth. Instead he is driven by the circumstances - Ammu’s anger and fear of

65
OrangedrinkLemondrink Man provokes him to seek refuge into the History House; and

Baby Kochamma’s strategy to provoke him to register Velutha as an abductor in order to

save herself from “charge [ofj lodging a false F.LR. Criminal offense” (315). It is

realisation of his mistakes that he becomes “a quiet bubble floating on a sea of noise”

(11), abandons studies, and prefers to stay home doing household at his father’s home.

Estha goes to the river out of his own volition but not to cause mischief or evil. Estha’s

plan leads to catastrophes not only for Sophie, Maragaret, Chacko, Ammu but also

himself.

The order of appearance of the witches determines its importance in the Macbeth.

Since Macbeth is erected on the traditional plot structure, appearance of witches in the

first scene signals that the prophesies are going to play an instrumental role in Macbeth's,

development. As regards The God o f Small Things^ its storyline follows a postmodernist

plot structure as discussed in the previous part. This scene appears late in the novel,

nevertheless, Estha also has an instrumental part to play in the novel. The resemblance of

Estha to Macbeth's witches prefigures an ominous and fateful happening in the novel -

drowning of Sophie Mol. So both are equally important but their placement is determined

according to the overarching plan and intentions of both.

Roy inverts the wizard of Macbeth's Witches with the boat song of Onam. On a

broader level, it suggests intermingling of EngHsh folklore into Indian folklore. As the

witchcraft refers back to the 16^ century of British culture, when the use of witches was

very frequent in the plays as it was part of their culture. Similarly, the onam boat song

refers to Onam festival^, which is a traditional Hindu festival in India being celebrated for

centuries. It also symbolises that Roy after pointing toward the presence of English
66
tradition into Indian culture through Shakespearean plays, replaces it with Indian folklore

suggesting a return to indigenous forms. She at first builds a connection and then

ironically prioritizes one over the other. Here she seems to be exploiting cross-cultural

strategies marking richness of the Indian culture/literature.

Roy inverts the frightening charm (Double, double toil and trouble/ Fire bum and

cauldron bubble) (Act 4, Scene 1, 74) of the Witches with the boat song of Onam that

Estha sings in “nun’s voice singing” (197). The poisonous and harm-rendering charm of

witches has also been ironically changed into harmless banana jam recipe signalling

incorruptibility of the will of Estha unlike Macbeth's witches suggesting the evil and

corruption of motives to cause damage to Macbeth. The wizard of Macbeth's witches

undergoes inversion as “Fire bum, banana bubble” (195) where Estha is recalling banana

jam recipe and stirring the cauldron containing the jam. While stirring Estha sings the

Onam boat song from Snake Boat Race^: “thaiythaiythakathaiythaiythome” (196). He

seems to invoke the river to come to his help not knowing that a tragedy will ambush him

from the river. The boat gets stuck, Estha and Rahel swim through to the other side,

Sophie drowns and hence a destmction availed. Estha does not instigate anyone, yet the

fate turns against him vdiile he makes effort to seek refuge. Here Roy challenges and

inverts the convention of poetic justice. Those who do not commit any harm or do not

take any revenge yet fall prey to fateful ends in The God o f Small Things.

Roy also replaces the poisonous recipe of Macbeth's witches (immediately

following the charm in both texts) with the recipe of Banana Jam suggesting the

innocence and harmlessness of Estha. The ingredients of the Witches’ recipe for their

spell and its powerful effect are extremely poisonous and deadly to increase ominousness
67
and evil in Macbeth’s life. The three witches use the following ingredients: boiling

venom of toad, fillet of a fenny snake, eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and

tongue of dog, blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’

mummy, and cool it with a baboon’s b!ood(Act 4, Scene 1, 75). In contrast to this

poisonous recipe, Estha stirs the Banana Jam and recalls the recipe that Ammu asked him

to copy in her diary. The ingredients are: banana, water, sugar, and gelatine (195). The

complete inversion of the recipe and songs is done according to the context of The God o f

Small Things. The formal similarities are still there at one level such as the use of charms

and songs but their purposes/intentions vary according to their respective contexts.

So it is clear, Roy parodically trans-contextualizes Macbeth as part of cross-cultural

strategies to suggest co-existence of Western and Indian traditions in Indian English

fiction. However, unlike postcolonial concerns of writing back to Shakespeare or

authenticating her work, she uses past references to put “contemporary under scrutiny”

(2000: 57). Hutcheon asserts that modem art forms in general do not necessarily ridicule

or mock backgrounded texts, it rather uses it as a ‘%veapon” to position “contemporary

under scrutiny” rather than exercise it as a ‘"target” (2000: 52). It is clear that Roy by

prioritizing Indian tradition over Western in this juxtaposition suggests a new formalistic

paradigm marking a return to Indian traditions without ridiculing Macbeth. Through this,

she questions the contemporary practices of Indian writers in English who grossly follow

the Western tradition of fiction writing.

68
4.3. Heart of Darkness as Cultural Critique in The God o f Small Things

The intertextual characters and symbolism of Heart o f Darkness throughout The God o f

Small Things leave an impact on the formal structure of The God o f Small Things. Both

the novels differ insofar as the form is concerned; however, there are thematic difFerences

as well that are evoked through characters and symbolism. The plots of both the novels

follow a different storyline but the resemblances of Heart o f Darkness echo at various

points m The God o f Small Things, These resemblances appear in the form of inversions

of characters as well as symbols. It is interesting to note that Roy violates the narrative

structure of Heart o f Darkness at all levels, which is suggestive of questioning western

tradition of novel writing. By incorporating Heart o f Darkness into the novel, Roy

suggests that European cultural values are embedded in 19* century Indian culture, but

the inversion suggests overthrowing of those values. In so doing, it becomes a parody

which doesn’t make intertext a target but a weapon to put Indian cultural under scrutiny.

Let us analyse at what points does the Heart o f Darkness intersects with the story and

form of The God o f Small Things.

Heart o f Darkness recurs at many crucial points in The God o f Small Things and

has been parodied at various levels. Roy has deftly contextualized the symbolism and the

characters of Heart o f Darkness in The God o f Small Things. The symbols and characters

of Heart o f Darkness run parallel and at times intersect with the symbols and characters

of The God o f Small Things. As we shall see the parody of the characters and ""Heart o f

Darhtess"' as a symbol takes place at semantic as well as metaphoric level in accordance

with Hutcheon’s opinion that “in modem parody, another context can be evoked and then

69
inverted without a step-by-step, pedestrian signalling of the entire form and spirit”

{Parody 19). The nuances of similarity and difference of Heart o f Darkness with The

God o f Small Things are very subtly juxtaposed and distributed throughout the text. In the

case of characters, Kurtz has been pitted against and in parallel to Kari Saipu and Baby

Kochamma; Marlow has been identified metaphorically with Margaret Kochamma, Rahel

and Estha; the colonial mission with the Police in Ayemenem; and “Heart of Darkness”

as a symbol with India, Ayemenem, and the Histoiy House. Most importantly, the

symbol Heart o f Darkness is inverted into ‘T)ark of Heartness”; a playful parody.

The symbolism, characters and geography are intrinsically linked to each other.

Mysteriousness of the region enters as a theme and a point of similarity into both the

novels through the characters of the novels; and is further connected to the places. As

Walter Allen asserts that “the heart of darkness of the title is .., the heart of Africa, the

heart of evil ...” (1954: 291). “Heart of Darkness” as a geographical metaphor runs

parallel to three territories through its symbolic relevance into The God o f Small Things,

It is metaphorically suggestive of India, Ayemenem, and the “History House”. Here I

discuss the point of similarity and difference between History House and “Heart of

Darkness” as a geographical symbol.

The “History House” and Heart o f Darkness are likened to one another at

pragmatic level in The God o f Small Things. Both are a symbol of mystery for the

characters. Marlow and Estha and Rahel both feel curious to enter into Africa/Heart of

Darkness and History House/Heart of darkness. Like Marlow, the fear of darkness and

unknown engulfs Estha and RahePs hearts but despite this they feel compelled to visit the

70
“History House”. For Rahel and Estha the “History House” {Heart o f Darkness) is a

place of refuge as well as an object of inquiry, a mystery that has to be solved but this

mystery doesn’t get solved ever. It can be said to be repetition with critical difference

because the same fear has been reintroduced into this story but their intentions and aims

are totally different. Like Marlow, the sense of adventure and mystery of history draws

them toward “the History House”. Chacko instils this quest into the twins to know the

unknown when he refers to “the History House” while discussing Pappachi’s past which

is related to the colonial history of India.

The horrendous effects of Heart o f Darkness are reintroduced into The God o f

Small Things but its intensity has been increased in the novel as annihilation of Estha

takes place. He continues to live but in his subconscious mind. He never recovers from

the deep scars, on his mind and heart, of the secrets that “History House” reveals to him.

Slowly, his subconscious mind takes control of him and he starts living quietly in his

father’s home when he is returned as a punishment to have Sophie drowned in the river.

So Heart o f Darkness of The God o f Small Things proves more damaging for Estha. He is

an innocent child who has to go through the brutalities of life in India/history house. The

geographical territory doesn’t let him grow into a normal human being. It has an evil

effect on him. On the other hand. Heart o f Darkness incurs madness, wilderness and

happens to be a damagingly influential place for Marlow as well as Kurtz. However,

Marlow escapes the horrors of Africa/the Congo in Heart o f Darkness, It doesn’t bring

about annihilation of Marlow; however, it does leave an impact from which he soon

recovers.

71
 Furthermore, one of the differences is that Heart o f Darkness! h a s never

been suggestive of refuge/protection for any of the characters. It is a place which Marlow

and Kurtz want to conquer and colonize. Contrastingly, “History House” is a place of

refuge to Velutha when he senses danger after Mammachi directly voices disapproval of

the relationship to him; Rahel and Estha also seek refiige in here after the drowning of

Sophie Mol; the forbidden love affair of Ammu and Velutha grows there.

As suggested darkness is not only limited to the outer and physical level it also

seeps into the minds and hearts of the characters in both the novels. It diffuses into

multifarious connotations of darkness as we see that Marlow starts seeing darkness in

African people’s skin, morality and standard of their mind/knowledge as he labels them

‘barbarians’ and ‘monstrous’ as Watts (1996) maintains. Walter Allen also asserts that

“the heart of darkness of the title is at once the heart of Africa, the heart of evil -

everything that is nihilistic, corrupt and malign - and perhaps the heart of man” (1954;

291). This symbol is ftirther ascribed to the moral character of imperialists along with Mr

Kurtz. It will be analysed that how the moral darkness of “Heart of Darkness” reveals

into two characters in The God o f Small Things^ which find direct or indirect semblance

with Kurtz.

Kurtz, being an imperialist finds its counterpart in the form of Kari Saipu; and

Baby Kochamma reflects the moral dark side of Kurtz. The Europeans came to this dark

continent with the intention of civilizing Afncan with their “torch-bearing” force.

However, it is later revealed in the novel through the character of Kurtz and the company

Manager that it is only a garb. In point of fact, their basic purpose is to collect the ivory

72
from the region as well as take Africans in their bondage. This wicked purpose most

vividly unfolds itself in the character of Mr Kurtz and his relationship with the Company

in the novel. Kurtz as well as the Company come to Africa with noble intentions of

bringing civilization but turn demonic afterwards. The dark side of Kurtz reveals itself

when he appears in a god-like figure brutally treating Africans. So the apparent positive

side/whiteness of Kurtz is overwhelmed by the negative/darkness of his nature after

getting power over the Afiicans. Kurtz has been assigned the duty of caretaker of

Africans in the Congo. He is an Englishman — a representative of the Company

(Europeans) in charge of a trading-post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country,

at ‘the very bottom of there” (35). He is a “petty tyrant, a dying god, an embodiment of

Europe” (Moran 2000: 44). Earlier he iised to worry as to how to bring the light to the

Congo but as soon as he enters Congo his objectives change. His greed and lust for ivory

and all things luxurious drives him into the madness. He uses force to collect ivory. He is

known as a very powerful and strong person because he “sends in as much ivory as all

the others put together” (35). Africans are either “brutes” or “noxious fools” for him.

Roy recalls Marlow’s Kurtz in The God o f Small Things by placing him in

contrast to and in compliance with Kari Saipu. She writes.

“To understand history,” Chacko said, “we have to go inside and listen to what they’re
saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smelis.” the
river, in the middle o f the abandoned rubber estate where they had never been. Kari
Saibu’s house. The Black Sahib. The Englishman who had “gone native.” Who spoke
Malayalam and wore mundus. Ayemenem’s own Kurtz. Ayemenem his private Heart of
Darkness. (52)

73
The point of similarity highlighted here between these characters is that Kari Saipu is an

English man who has “gone native” like Mr. Kurtz. Kurtz and Saipu relate to one

another at another level and that is their obsession. However the objects of their

obsession are ironically different. Kurtz is obsessed with authoritatively ruling over the

natives. Contrastingly, Kari Saipu wants to remain connected with his beloved (the boy).

Kurtz was also a homosexual like Saipu but it never became an obsession for Kurtz . But

Saipu’s obsession made him take his own life. Here Roy inverts the characters on

semantic level but they seem to resemble to one another metaphorically at some points.

Kurtz’s presence was felt throughout the novella on account of his association with the

imperial company. He used to collect ivory for the Englishmen due to which his character

is quite influential for both Englishmen and the natives. He served as a Imk of

relationship and communication between Englishmen and the natives. In the similar way,

Kari Saipu dominates the story through his house, “the History House”. The destinies of

all the characters hinge on “the History House” as they are intrinsically connected with

the happenings at the “History House”. All the major incidents of The God o f Small

Things took place around and inside the “History House”. The forbidden love affair of

Ammu and Velutha nurtures in it; it serves as a refuge to Velutha after Mammachi as

well as to Rahel and Estha after the drowning of Sophie Mol; Velutha was also murdered

at the same place by police whose affect remained on Estha and Rahel throughout their

lives and also on Ammu till her death. The difference here is that Kurtz’ presence is felt

throughout the novel due to his own personal characteristics. However, Kari Saipu’s

dominates the novel through his property - History House.

74
 On the other hand, the darkness of moral side of Kurtz - the evil, the shrewdness,

and corruption of the soul - finds itself reflected in Baby Kochamma (Navomiipe) in The

God o f Small Things. Baby Kochamma is an insecure, selfish, and ruthless person

throughout her life. Owing to the rejection received from Father Mulligan, she turns all

the more bitter, spitefiii and cruel towards people in general and women in particular. She

despises Ammu, her divorced niece, along with her twins: Estha and Rahel. Kurtz’s

comment on Africans, the lowest race, “exterminate all the brutes” resounds at the

deepest level in Baby Kochamma’s character. She insidiously convinces the twins to

condemn Velutha to death to put under the cushion her own mistake of misreporting to

the police officer who kills Velutha on information of rape assault on Ammu. She alone

manipulates Chacko who drives Ammu out of their house and Estha is made to return to

his father. This incident leads to catastrophic ends to the lives of all the important

characters in the novel. Estha turns quiet for the rest of his life, Ammu loses the love of

her twins, Velutha - the untouchable, and ultimately loses her own life only because she

is an touchable untouchable - being a woman, being a divorcee, being a Christian falling

into forbidden love with Velutha, being mother of the twins who lead Sophie Mol to her

stoic death on the fateful day. Like Kurtz, Baby Kochamma wants to bring light of

light/knowledge/etiquettes/morality into Ammu’s twins yet ironically goes against herself

becoming an evil incarnate. Roy simply evokes the corruption of Kurtz in Baby

Kochamma so that the reader can relate this character in a playful manner. It is a very

parodic intertextuality without aiming at ridiculing of the backgrounded text.

In the chapter “the History House”, Roy invokes the theme of hypocrisy of

imperialism as portrayed in Heart o f Darkness, She evokes the dual purposiveness of the
75
colonialist enterprise revealed in the novel but contextualises it in The God o f Small

Things in a different way. The context, situations and characters are totally different from

that of Heart o f Darkness', however, the similarity of the theme finds expression in the

novel in a parodic way.

In Heart o f Darkness, apparently, the colonizers are “torch-bearers” on purpose of

civilizing the uncivilized in Africa; however, privately they have set up a mission

collecting and transporting the wealth (ivory) under the supervision of Mr Kurtz - the

cruel and exacting representative of the Company. An implicit reference also appears in

the novel suggesting the whole British colonialism deputed in different African countries

for the sole job of collecting ivory. Kurtz as well as the Company come to Africa with

noble intentions but later on turn demonic. Kurtz with the use of force draws ivory out of

the Congo by slavering the natives. Instead of civilizing the culture, they succumb to

coercive measures for material gains. For Marlow as well as Kurtz, African are only

objects. Marlow considers his hehnsman a piece of machinery while Kurtz’s African

mistress is a piece of statuary.

In the similar way, Roy invokes the similarities of brutality of the “civilized”

police in The God o f Small Things. Like the Company, the police of Ayemenem is

justice-bearer as well as protector, as opposite to the torch-bearers as well as civilizers in

Heart o f Darkness, of the people in general Both of them have the knack of asserting

racial/caste superiority. Both harbour implicit purposes that invoke their actions in the

novels. Both “exorcise fear” in order to gain what they want; ivory in the case of later and

death of Velutha in case of the former. When Vellya Paapen (Velutha’s father) himself

76
reveals the meetings of Ammu with Velutha, Mammachi locks Ammu out into her room

while Baby Kochamma hatches a plan to unrelentingly punish Velutha as well as

Ammu’s twins who became the reason of Sophie’s drowning into the river. The “shabby

khaki crowns. Dark of Heart. Deadly purposed” touchable police beats up the

untouchable Velutha to death so that the Syrian Christian family doesn’t incur a bad

name upon it. The police executes the task with “[i]mpelled by feelings that were primal

yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt bom of inchoate,

unacknowledged fear-civilization’s fear of nature ... power’s fear of powerlessness.”

(308). This materialises the hypocrisy displayed due to the superiority of caste by Police

as well as Baby Kochamma, who shrewdly reports Velutha as a rapist and the police

brutally beats him up to death only because he is a Paravan - the untouchable. Therefore

he doesn’t deserve a fair trial but on the spot execution. Here the police in The God o f

Small Things is acting like the company and Kurtz in Heart o f Darkness. The difference

is that the former deals with a social drama, the later the political.

In order to suggest the different context in this novel, Roy parodically inverts the

symbol “Heart of Darkness” into “Dark of Heartness”. It suggests that Indian police has

become “dark” of love, mercy, and indiscrimination toward both gender and caste. The

object of critique through this inversion is Indian culture/politics/institutions, not the text

Heart o f Darkness, So it is evident here as Hutcheon puts it that the contemporary has

been put under scrutiny by Roy.

“Heart of Darkness” surfaces as theme of imperial superiority, a meaning that

Margaret Kochamma and Marlow bring forth in both the novels. There are expressions of

77
imperial superiority transformed into symbolic darkness of Africa/India as a region.

India, for Margaret, is “Heart of Darkness” and Africa for Marlow. The similarities and

differences are drawn between Marlow and Margaret Kochamma on the basis of their

attitudes toward Africa and India respectively. The similarity between Marlow and

Margaret Kochamma is the fact that both are outsiders. Marlow is an outsider journeying

toward Africa in Heart o f Darkness whereas Margaret journeying toward

India/Ayemenem. Both being representative of superior nations have the same

perspective toward Africa and India. Marlow at first denies the imperialistic

preconceptions and attitudes toward Africans, Marlow partly exposes the darkness that

imperial Company has brought over Africa to attain ivory cushioning it under “bringing

civilization” intention. However, he himself dehumanizes Africans. They are merely

parts of “machinery” for Marlow. It reveals that dual attitude, “sympathetic and

derogatory” of Marlow toward the natives.

Like Marlow, India is ’"''Heart o f Darkness” for Margaret Kochamma. Her colleagues

remark:

Take everything, her colleagues had advised Margaret Kochamma in concerned voices,
you never know, which was their way o f saying to a colleague traveling to the Heart o f
Darkness that (a) Anything Can Happen To Anyone. So (b) It’s Best to be Prepared.
(1996: 267)

However, unlike Marlow, Margaret is a naive woman. She comes to India/Ayemenem in

search of peace but agony continues to stalk her as uncouth India/Ayemenem swallows

Sophie Mol, her daughter (263). India/Ayemenem proves to be a real “Heart of

Darkness” snatching the most precious possession from her. It presents India as a

symbolical darkness for Margaret which is why it is Heart o f Darkness for both of them.

78
So both outsiders share the superiority of imperial identity placed in contrast to the

inferior natives.

In conclusion, it can be seen that Roy employs Heart o f Darkness as a

constructive parody which aims at critiquing Indian cultural values that probably have

been borrowed from their colonial masters through parodic inversion of symbols and

characters in The God o f Small Things. It is implicitly suggested by contextualizing a

canonical text from Western culture. The overlapping of different characters and

symbols, as discussed above, their inversions are suggestive of cultural critique lodged by

Arundhati Roy. It is interesting to note that Roy violates the narrative structure of Heart

o f Darkness at all levels, which is suggestive of questioning Western tradition of writing

and by following Kathakali model of narrative structure she conforms to and prioritizes

Indian tradition/convention of writing.

79
Notes

^All the textual references of The God o f Small Things have been taken from the version

released by Harper Perennial (1997).

^The Onam festival is one of the most representative of rich cultural heritage of Kerala,

India. It is celebrated during the Malayali month of Chingam (Aug - Sep) and symbolises

the homecoming of King Mahabali. The decorated Pookalam (flower tray), ambrosial

Onasadya, spectacular Snake Boat Race and interesting Kathakali dance are some of the

most remarkable features of Onam.

^There is an interesting legend behind Vallamkali or the Snake Boat The story is that

once 10 kilometers up the river Pamba from Aranmulla, the head of the KatoorMana, a

Nambudiri family, offered his prayers and was waiting to feed a poor man to complete

the ritual. After waiting for long, he started praying to Lord Krishna and closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes he saw a dirty and hungry boy standing in front of him. The

Brahmin gave a bath and new clothes to the boy, and also a meal. After having the meal,

the boy vanished. He searched for the boy and spotted him at the Aranmulla Temple but

the boy disappeared again. Namboodari resolved that it was not an ordinary boy, but God

himself appeared to him. Therefore in order to remember the during the time of Onam he

began to bring food to the Aranmulla. He used to accompany the entourage to protect the

food from the river pirates, Kovilans or snake boats. With the rise in popularity of this

tradition, the number of snake boats increased leading to the custom of a grand carnival

called Snake Boat Race. The most remarkable feature of the Snake Boat Race is the

depiction of the great team spirit and the importance of being united and to be in harmony

80
with nature. (Society of the Confluence of Festivals in India; Onam Festival, (n.d,).

Retrieved July 27^, 2011 from http://vyww.onamfestival.org/vallamkali-boat-race.htmn

81
 Conclusion

The aim of this research was to find out how Arundhati Roy came to redefme fictional

forms by using parody as a technique to reinterpret novel as a genre. It sought to examine

and present how the writer through critique and appreciation has been able to revise the

conventions of telling stories in writing. The foundation of the theoretical framework of

this study is Linda Hutcheon’s definition of parody which is at once constructive and

destructive as opposed to the single-lined orthodox definition of parody. The questions

that have been raised in the context of this research are: one, which forms and practices

of fiction writings, in a postmodernist sense, have been parodically employed by

Arundhati Roy in the novel The God o f Small Things?’, two, how is Roy challenging and

redefining the fictional form?; and lastly, as a whole, how far the novel can be interpreted

as a parodic metafiction? These questions are inter-related and hence carmot be answered

separately.

In the preceding pages it has been observed that Arundhati Roy borrows from and

questions both Indian and Western traditions of storytelling/fiction writing. She chooses

Kathakali dance-drama marking her choice from Indian tradition; and Macbeth from

Shakespearean classics and Heart o f Darkness fi'om modem English fiction marking her

choice from Western tradition. Using parody as a tool, by ironically inverting the

traditions, she comes up with a new model of novel writing in the form of The God o f

Small Things. Her novel conforms to the tradition of metafictional writings of

82
postmodern era as it is experimental, self-reflexive, and draws attention towards its own

process of creation.

First, I subsume how Kathakali as parodic intertext helps Roy challenge the

fictional forms and create a new form of novel. Roy develops parodic intertextual

relationship with Kathakali in order to redefine the overall form of the novel. Kathakali

dance drama’s narrative structure plays most defining role in the formal shape of the

novel. It is part of her cross-cultural strategies whereby Kathakali is not only a symbolic

but also structural element. She incorporates elements of the genre of Kathakali as a way

of both honouring Indian modes of expression and cultural production, as well as creating

new, hybrid forms of expression.

The God o f Small Things is experimental in that it challenges the conventions of

the canonical literary narrative. It is representative of metafictional tradition of fiction

writing as Roy self-reflexively critiques the corruption of Kathakali stories by modem

performers in the chapter, Kochu Thomban, It is a self-reflexive act as she is also

‘corrupting’ the Kathakali tradition by juxtaposing the Kathakali narrative tradition not

only with the Western tradition of novel writing but also pulling Kathakali theatre out of

its own context and transferring hito the written text. That for Roy, however, is

eternalizing the Kathakali narrative structure into the English fiction and creatmg an

ethnic model and representation rather than following western ones. However, she also

substitutes and redefines some conventions of Kathakali in The God o f Small Things.

She parodically challenges Kathakali conventions of characterisation whereby the

self-reflexive questioning of Kathakali theory also takes place. However, as part of

83
paying tribute in Hutcheon’s conception, she invents the technique of familiarization

based on the principle of “famiharity” of Kathakali and also changes the plot structure of

the novel in accordance with Kathakali theory. In so doing, she also challenges principle

of defamiliarization in Western fictional theory. It is clear that she challenges both

Western and Indian traditions of fiction/writing following an eclectic approach to come

up with a new parodic metafiction of her own derived mainly from ethnic fabric.

Secondly, 1 summarize how Roy utilizing Shakespearean intertext Macbeth is

able to challenge tradition of novel writing and establishes itself as a parodic metafiction,

Roy establishes intertextual relationship of Macbeth with The God o f Small Things to

challenge conventions of novel writing as well. Being a classical drama Macbeth aligns

itself with Kathakali - the overarching fictional theory; however, Roy defies conventions

of classical Indian as well as Western drama at formal level. Roy incorporates English

literary tradition because Shakespearean tragedies have also been a part of Indian culture

due to the colonisation practices. Also, the presence of Shakespearean play in this novel

is, at a formal level, characteristic of postmodern metafiction on account of simultaneous

coexistence of different genres in novel. She challenges convention of characterisation of

classical plays with regard to supernatural characters. She replaces the Witches of

Macbeth with Estha, the human character, in the novel. Moreover, she also prioritizes

Indian folklores over Western ones. Inclusion of Western plays is unavoidable owing to

the fact that India has been occupied by British colonizers for almost a century.

Therefore, presence of Western folklores and Shakespearean culture has become a part of

Indian culture. Yet Roy’s ironic and “conscious” replacement of Witches’ charm with

84
Onam boat song in the story is symbolic of a “call” to return to Indian tradition of

narration/expression. Here through this strategy, Roy has been able to critique

contemporary postcolonial Indian writers writmg in English who are following English

narrative models for fiction writing whereby they ignore their own rich cultural heritage.

Thirdly, I recapitulate how the third intertext Heart o f Darkness fimctions

parodically to challenge and redefine convention of writing fiction by Roy. She

incorporates a novel. Heart o f Darkness, in The God o f Small Things to rewrite

convention of novel writing. She violates traditional conventions of novel as well as the

form of Heart o f Darkness, which is a rejection of modernist paradigm of novel writing.

She achieves it by aligning the conventions of novel with the theory of Kathakali dance-

drama narrative structure. Not only this. She also inverts the characters and symbols of

Heart o f Darkness to put Indian cultural values under scrutiny.

From the discussion, it can be concluded that Roy has actively involved herself

with redefining conventions of fiction writing through parodic inclusion and critique of

intertexts such as Kathakali dance-drama, Macbeth, and Heart o f Darkness. The novel is

representative of postmodern metafictional tradition on account of drawing the attention

toward the process of writing not only through its apparent mode of narration and

structure but also through authorial intrusions where Roy posits her own theory of

narrating stories/writing fiction. It is interesting to note that Philip Zarrili records Roy’s

redefinition of Kathakali in his theoretical and historical work entitled Kathakali: Dance-

drama where Gods and Demons Come to Play. It shows the recognised importance of

Roy’s retheorization of the way stories should be told in fiction writing. Therefore, as

85
asserted in the thesis statement, Roy employs parody, in a postmodernist sense and as

defined by Hutcheon, as a tool to redefme the shape and structure of the novel. For this

purpose, she blends Western as well as Indian traditions and conventions to come up with

new and hybrid form of novel. It appreciates and at the same time critiques Kathakali as

well as Western Classic and Modernist traditions. Roy attempts, very much, to create an

ethnic postmodern narration style in choice of characters, symbols and plot structure

conforming to Hutcheon's postmodern model of parody.

86
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Cavell, Richard. (1993). “Spatial form”. In I. R. Makaryk (Ed.), Encyclopedia o f

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