English novel

What are the two prominent themes in chapter 1 of book " The God of Small Things"?

Novel The God of small things

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I might consider family loyalty and the caste system. The novel focuses a great deal on the alienation experienced in the Ipe family. No one in this family appears to like one another much, or even know one another, despite their common history. One is supposed to be able to trust one’s family members, but the Ipe family continually betrays one another in the most base and painful of ways. Pappachi brutally abuses Mammachi. Mammachi openly favors Chacko over Ammu, even down to encouraging his womanizing.

The entire society around the Ipe family is obsessed with caste and class differences. The English are still an oppressive colonial ghost in the form of self-hatred. Everything English is still seen as brighter and higher class than anything produced by India. The whiter one’s skin, the closer one is to cleanliness and good.