The God Of Small Things Identity Analysis

was actually a tentative, timorous, acceptance of herself” (pgs. 231-233) In the novel, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy challenges and developments in identity become a focal point in the story’s progression. From page 231 to page 233, Arundhati Roy blossoms the relationship between Margaret Kochamma and Chacko and raises questions regarding identity and the quality of identity within a relationship. The significance of identity becomes essential to the plot as the transient identities of characters are threaded seamlessly into the fabric of the novel itself. As the relationship between Margaret Kochamma and Chacko intertwines Margaret begins to undergo a shift in her identity. The significance of her shift is that Arundhati Roy approaches
Through imagery in the excerpt, Arundhati Roy introduces a challenge which stimulates Margaret Kochamma’s own expansion in identity. Chacko heavily influences Margaret Kochamma as she is placed in his environment and the sudden input of Chacko in her life causes her to search for an identity amidst his influence. “A few months after they began to go out together, he began to smuggle her into his rooms, where he lived like a helpless, exiled prince. Despite the best efforts of his scout and cleaning lady, his room was always filthy. Books, empty wine bottles, dirty underwear and cigarette butts littered the floor… Margaret Kochamma’s tiny, ordered life relinquished itself to this truly baroque bedlam with the quiet gasp of a warm body entering a chilly sea”(Roy 232). The placement of Margaret Kochamma in such a chaotic, messy scene highlights her identity when with Chacko. Her diminutiveness when surrounded by the “baroque bedlam” that Chacko lives in shows how her identity is framed by her surroundings. She further is framed by the imagery that surrounds Chacko as her ‘...tiny, ordered life relinquished itself”(Roy, 232) to Chacko’s environment. Arundhati Roy starkly contrasts Margaret Kochamma’s personality with Chacko’s surroundings to give a canvas for Margaret Kochamma’s development. Additionally, the description of Chacko’s personal living area contrasts with the more refined, initial version of him that Margaret Kochamma first met. The sudden contrast between Chacko as a Rhodes Scholar and reading Classic literature to a ‘helpless, exiled prince’ represents Margaret Kochamma’s changing perception of him and humanization of their love. The result of Chacko’s intensely chaotic inner life from the personal environment he creates is an immediate stimuli for Margaret Kochamma’s own identity. Margaret Kochamma is solidified in the novel as a more complex character through the way Chacko begins