Arundhati Roy¡¦s first novel The God of Small Things focuses on the incessant confrontation permeating in divergent layers of the Indian society. With the prevalence of the caste system, which stabilizes the society by eliminating individuals¡¦ social mobility, Roy reveals that the essential conflicts individuals face in their daily interactions are repressed by their social consciousness and accordingly distort their subjectivities. ¡§Love Laws,¡¨ an oxymoronic term that Roy intriguingly combines, points out the generally-believed opposing position of love and laws but simultaneously reveals their interrelated relationship that blurs their division. Based on ¡§Love Laws,¡¨ body serves as another battlefield for the social norms and individuality to compete against each other. Individual bodies are trapped between their desire for bodily contacts and their inscription of various social codes. Such confrontation even subtly seeps into individuals¡¦ daily lives through visual, olfactory and tactile senses and provides them with numerous ways to sense their unquenched desire in the severely guarded society. The natural environment, vulnerable to human abuses, is also encoded with ¡§Love Laws.¡¨ The monsoon and the river, closely related to the prosperity of the Indian people, bear human beings¡¦ love, fear, and impulses to control. In human beings¡¦ pursuit of happiness, the Nature ¡§witnesses¡¨ and suffers their brutality that leads to the destruction of both the Nature and human beings. Thus, ecology functions as a broader scope to demonstrate the power of ¡§Love Laws¡¨ and expresses Roy¡¦s utmost concern for human beings¡¦ unruly abuse of the Nature. In The God of Small Things, it is through the discussion of ¡§Love Laws,¡¨ body and ecology that Roy presents the incessant confrontation in human nature. Instead of being pessimistic about such confrontation, Roy transmits the message that only by celebrating individuals¡¦ love that transcends laws, only by paying homage to their bodies that perform their subjectivities as well as their positive relationship that bridges the gap with nature, can the ever-lasting conflicts within human nature be ceased and a new prospect of a better tomorrow will emerge.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0620105-215747 |
| Date | 20 June 2005 |
| Creators | Chang, Hsueh-chen |
| Contributors | Ting-yao Luo, Rufus Cook, Shuli Chang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0620105-215747 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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