The God of Small Things

The novel The God of Small Things relates a young woman's painful journey of remembrance into her childhood. It is a story about forbidden love in a society where the caste system is deeply imbedded, and it is a story about India.
After twenty-three years, Rahel Kochamma returns to her family home in Ayemenem to find her long lost twin brother. Slowly, she recalls her childhood and the terrible drama that changed their lives. These memories revolve around the incidents that led up to and the consequences of the tragic accidental death of her young cousin, Sophie Kochamma.
The first remembrance is of 1969, in the southern state of Kerala, India, where the young two-egg twins await the arrival of their cousin from England, Sophie. The young twins, Esthappen, the boy, and Rahel, the girl, are inseparable. They have a very special tie between them, and they feel as if they were one and the same person. The twins are nervous and worried that everyone will love Sophie more than them. They are expected to be on their best behavior for Sophie's arrival. They are only seven going on eight and live with their mother Ammu in the Kochamma family home along with their uncle, Chacko, their grandmother, Mammachi, and their grandaunt, Baby Kochamma.
The Kochammas are an upper class Syrian Christian family. Their grandmother, Mammachi, started a pickles and preserve business, run by their Uncle Chacko. Their grandfather, already deceased, was an entomologist and civil servant. The family lived in Delhi until the grandfather's retirement, after which they moved to Ayemenem, a small town in Kerala. Ammu was a young teenager of sixteen at the time of the move. Life in the small town was very boring and limited. At eighteen Ammu still had no marriage proposals, so she went to Calcutta to spend some time with a distant cousin.
In Calcutta, Ammu met Estha and Rahel's father, Bengalese Hindu, who worked on a tea farm in Assam. After a two-week courtship, he proposed to her and was accepted. They went to live on the tea farm, and soon she was mother to twins. Slowly, her husband's true character was revealed. He turned out to be a compulsive liar and an aggressive drunk. When his violence began to turn on the children, she left him, taking her two-year-old twins home to her parents' house.
Ammu's brother, Chacko Kochamma, was a Rhodes scholar with a Marxist tendency. While completing his university studies in England, he met, fell in love with and married Margaret. Just when their baby daughter, Sophie, was born, Margaret left Chacko for another man, an Englishman named Joe. Joe could give her more security. Chacko returned to his home broken-hearted. He took over his mother's small but thriving homemade pickles and preserves business and invested in machinery to expand production to industrial level.
When Margaret's second husband died, Chacko invited her and their daughter Sophie out to India to help her get over her grief. It is Sophie who the twins are waiting for. The family makes much of Sophie's arrival. Sophie is special; she is half English. The twins are a bit shy of her.
One of the hardest workers in the factory is Velutha, the Untouchable, or Paravan. He is a handyman around the Kochamma house and a trusted employee at the factory. His position in the factory is not higher only because of his Untouchable caste. It is a shock to the family to find out that Velutha is a Marxist sympathizer. Velutha lives in a small house on the river with his father and handicapped brother. The twins love him and love playing in the river near his house. One day, the twins find an old boat on the riverbank near Velutha's house, which they fix up and use to cross the river to an abandoned house on the other side, the History House.
Unknown to all, Ammu also loves Velutha. Their love tryst is the same History House that so enchants her children. This affair is socially unheard of because of the difference in caste, class and religion.
When Velutha's father finds out about the love affair, he goes to the Kochamma house and tells Mammachi about the forbidden love. Mammachi is furious and scandalized by this news. Ammu is locked in her room. Ammu, locked in her room in shame, is quick-tempered with her children and sends them away.
Meanwhile, the twins, already feeling insecure in their mother's love, are badly affected by their mother's sharp words. The tragedy occurs when the twins run to the river late at night, together with their cousin Sophie. Innocently, they decide to cross the river to the abandoned house on the other side. The tragedy occurs when their boat is turned over by the current. The twins, who have often swum in the river, survive and reach the other side. Sophie, however, drowns and is found the next morning by a fisherman.
In order to protect the family name, Baby Kochamma goes to the police and accuses Velutha of rape. She insinuates that he has abducted the children. The police set out to find Velutha, the supposed kidnapper and rapist. Coincidentally, he is on the other side of the river in the same place as the twins - the History House, where he and Ammu secretly meet. The police brutally beat him.
When the police talk to the twins, it becomes evident that Velutha is innocent. It is necessary for Baby Kochamma to protect herself from being charged with false accusation and the police from being accused of beating an innocent man. Therefore, she cajoles the twins into falsely accusing Velutha. Ammu tries to tell the police the truth after Sophie's funeral, but it is too late. Velutha is dead. Ammu is shamed and heartbroken.
Chacko, whose mind has been poisoned by Baby, expels Ammu from her home. Sad, sick and alone, she dies at the young age of thirty-one. To complete the cover-up, the twins are separated. Estha is sent away to live with his father and his father's second wife. He becomes a withdrawn and reserved person who doesn't communicate with the rest of the world. He lives in his own silence. After many years, he returns to his old home in Ayemenem when his father goes to live abroad. This is when Rahel returns to see him.
Rahel stays in the family home, but she feels a permanent emptiness. At a young age, she goes to live in Delhi and studies architecture. She marries an American and goes to live in the States. After a few years, the marriage falls apart. Rahel returns to India and to her old home to see her twin brother. Memories of the past come flooding back to her.