How Does Arundhati Roy Use Metaphors In The God Of Small Things

In “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy portrays the gravity of Estha’s return to Ayemenem. As children, their family separated twins Estha and Rahel, after they took part in a big tragedy in their family- the death of their cousin Sophie Mol. Now 24 years later, Estha returns to Ayemenem as a silent, grief-stricken adult. Roy uses metaphors, allusions, and structure to depict the control Estha and Rahel’s childhood grief has on their adult lives.
Roy uses metaphors to show how childhood grief controls the twins’ adult lives. First, Roy writes, “A pair of actors trapped in a recondite play with no hint of plot or narrative” (Roy 182). Roy refers to Estha and Rahel in this first sentence as actors and refers to their lives as a recondite

They don’t know what they are supposed to do. No one is there to help them understand or to give them guidance on how to live with grief. Since that is the case, their foreign feelings of grief manage to manifest itself as a regular piece of the twins’ daily lives. Another metaphor Roy utilizes in this passage is ‘the tragic hood of victimhood’. The entire quote states, “If only they could have worn, even temporarily, the tragic hood of victimhood” (Roy,182). The hood is directly related to the twins’ ability to grieve and move on, or lack thereof. Roy says, ‘if only’, meaning the twins never had a chance to grieve, and attempt to remove the memories of their past. Now their memories sit in their minds, affecting them daily, yet Estha and Rahel still can’t process them entirely or ‘put a face’ on them. Lastly, Roy uses the phrase “Other Thing” (Roy 182) to indicate the bad memory itself. This memory

The two most prevalent styles are Roy’s use of short sentences, as well as short sentence fragments combined with commas. For example, Roy writes, “If only they could have worn, even temporarily, the tragic hood of victimhood... And eventually, perhaps, exorcize the memories that still haunted them” (Roy, 182). Roy breaks each sentence down into little fragment and each fragment seems like an interrupting thought. This passage is from Rahel’s perspective, so these are her own thoughts. Roy writes words like ‘perhaps’ to show Rahel’s lack of confidence in her thoughts. Roy shows that there could be another answer and Rahel isn’t too sure. Although Rahel recognized what could’ve or what should’ve been done, she doesn’t really know. Also, Roy gives emphasis on the event and the titles given to the twins using capitalization and italicization. She writes, “you’re not the Sinners. You’re the Sinned Against… You are the victims” (Roy 182). As children, they felt as if the ‘Other Thing’ was their fault, so they took all responsibility. They experienced a traumatizing event as children and their family blamed them for it. The twins were destined to develop sadness and guilt. They got called the ‘Sinners’ and they felt awful about it. Those feelings of isolation crept in and still make the twins feel bad. Also, the italicization of ‘victims’ further emphasizes the words the twins