God of Small things
The God Of Small Things, a Booker Prize winning novel by Arundhati Roy, is a tragic story that renders rich psychological insights into the effects of India’s political and social problems on an everyday family in their everyday lives; and illustrates in a powerful fashion the ways in which these problems can destroy both rich and poor people alike. ... Against the backdrop of a small town in southern India, Arundhati Roy incorporates many elements reflecting Jacques Lacan’s formulation that man’s desire is the desire of the Other, (Fink 87) while deftly and powerfully weaving intricate, dreamlike descriptions of the reality and effects of modern Indian life into the novel in as gripping a manner as any blanket-bound child has heard in her mother’s arms on a stormy night. ... As the tale unfolds it tells of many things, the most important of which are the effects of the corruption of innocence both politically and privately. ... Desire in one psychological form or another is the primary cause of many of these unhappy events, and whether Freud’s theories explain some of these developments better, or whether Lacan, Kristeva, or even Guattari’s theories apply with more accuracy is almost a simple matter of opinion, because application of psychoanalytic theories to The God of Small Things depends to such a great degree on how the individual reader perceives the respective character’s motivations. ... (Freud 274) Things begin to go seriously awry when a stealthy jaunt, masterminded by Estha and Rahel, climaxes in her death by drowning.