Dupler is a writer and has taught college English courses. In this essay, Dupler explores the relationship between individuals and the cultural forces acting upon them within the novel.
Arundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things reveals a complex relationship between individuals and the historical and cultural forces that shape them and their society. In Roy's novel, a so-called Big God presides over the large happenings of the world, the "vast, violent, circling, driving, ridiculous, insane, unfeasible, public turmoil of a nation." In contrast, it is a Small God that resides over the individual lives caught up in forces too powerful and large for these individuals to understand and to change. This Small God is "cozy and contained, private and limited," residing over people for whom "worse things" are always happening. Individuals ruled by the.....
