Quote Analysis - TGOST

"That night in the lodge, Ammu sat up in the strange bed in the strange room in the strange town. She didn't know where she was, she recognized nothing around her. Only her fear was familiar."

In this quote, the readers gain a final glimpse at Ammu's feelings as we learn what is going through Ammu's head moments before her death. These last few moments are somewhat representative of Ammu's lifetime. It seems like Ammu always has something to fear. While she was with Chacko, she constantly feared abuse as he would lash out on her constantly. Then, after their divorce, Ammu took on a fear of society's punishments for her since she had broken the love laws. Just before this quote, the narrator explains a nightmare she had about the police coming to chop off her hair, which is what they do to punish prostitutes, so one can observe that Ammu continued to feel an intense guilt up until the end of her life, and probably struggled with the idea of retribution for her "unlawful" actions.Whether it was fearing a life with Chacko or a life no longer with Chacko, Ammu felt fear regularly. In the quote, Roy uses repetition of the word "strange" to contrast her unfamiliar surroundings with her well-acquainted feelings of fear.

Velutha and Bahka - TGOST

In the novel Untouchable, Anand attempts to create a character who, for the most part, is representative of all the untouchables in India. After being introduced to Velutha from The God of Small Things, my thoughts on the opportunities of an untouchable and Bahka's character had changed. Unlike Bahka, Velutha does not feel trapped by his social status and because of that, he has almost been able to rise above the other untouchables. Velutha has the courage to strive for a position as a supervisor, and even walk in a communist march. Even though both characters share a desire for a better life, Velutha's actions are things that Bahka could never have the confidence to do. The different responses may be due to the characters' different environments. While Bahka is stuck in a dream state, constantly reminded by his father that there is no hope for his future, Velutha doesn't feel the same pressures from his family. Due to my limited knowledge of Indian culture, I am unable to determine whether Velutha is an incredibly positive and motivated character, if Bahka is just someone who gives up, or if these two characters merely represent two extreme cases.

Capitalization - TGOST

Arundhati Roy uses plenty of stylistic techniques like nature imagery, italics, anaphora, onomatopeia, (to name a few) which all help her storytelling to be present and flowing. However, Roy also includes some capitalization of words in odd places, so odd, that it almost seems random. This technique does not help the story flow, but rather causes the reader to pause at the word and wonder, "Is that important?" Obviously, this type of capitalization cannot be seen in most works of literature, though Emily Dickinson seems to be no stranger to this technique in her poetry. When Emily Dickinson capitalized words in the middle of sentences it was to draw attention to them in order to highlight a certain symbol or theme. Roy does this as well, but since her literature is in a form of a novel, she includes foreshadowing as well. For example, Roy capitalized the words, "Good Sign" and "Man" in chapter four. Although I have not been able to verify the foreshadowing yet, those words seem to be setting up a romance that I am looking forward to reading about.

FRQ

In many works of literature, culture plays a pivotal role in the plot of the book. Choose a novel or play in which the main character could not be the same if placed in a different setting. Then, write a well-organized essay analyzing the effects that India's culture has had on Bahka's character and how it influences his relationships with other characters in the novel.