Trudell is an independent scholar with a bachelor's degree in English literature. In the following essay, Trudell discusses the significance of the sexual encounters between Rahel and Estha, and Ammu and Velutha.
The God of Small Things builds an incredible amount of anticipation and expectation for the definitive moment of the story. With all of its foreshadowing, its emphasis on tracing one's steps, and its insistent suggestion that everything, from politics to erotic desire, is intimately connected, Roy's novel places a great deal of emphasis on the central event of the twins' childhood that caused the momentous changes in the Kochamma family. The reader comes to expect, because of the narrator's many references to "the Loss of Sophie Mol," that everything will boil down to one key moment, and that this moment will involve Sophie.....
