"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.
You do realize, of course, that Chacko is Ammu's brother, right? Not her husband!
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