In God of Small Things,Arundhati Roy exposes the differences in gender standards in Indian society. She effectively brings to light these differences through perceptions of siblings: in particular, Ammu and Chacko. Throughout the novel, Ammu is described as a woman beaten down, depressed, and seemingly having burned out her chances at a “normal” life. After all, she divorced her alcoholic husband and father of her children, and is left alone to raise her twins Rahel and Esthappen. Additionally, she lacks the sense of hospitality and grace that is expected of her when Margaret and Sophie Mol visit India because, as the reader learns, she had an abusive father. Despite her troubled past, the characters in the novel treat her poorly and do not offer any sympathy to her. Roy suggests that Ammu and Veluthra have a forbidden sexual relationship, and this relationship leads to disgrace of her and family, for Chacko tells her to depart because she has “destroyed enough already” (151). When Ammu dies, Roy notes how no cemetery would bury her and so she was burned at the crematorium, where “nobody except beggars, derelicts, and the police-custody dead” and those “who died with nobody to lie at the back of them and talk to them” were cremated (155). Roy also notes how “no one else from the family was there” except Rahel and Chacko (155). In contrast, Chacko represents the privilege of being a man in Indian society. Even though he is divorced, his family places the blame on his ex-wife and views him as the victim. Additionally, Chacko never experienced abuse from his father in the way that Ammu suffered because he was sent away to boarding school, which was an investment deemed not necessary for a daughter. Furthermore, his mother is well aware of his frequent sexual relations with women from the factory, but simply dismisses them as him “satisfying his Needs” and even builds a separate entrance to the house for the women. The fact that Chacko and Ammu both come from a wealthy family but have very different lives highlights the different expectations and standards for men and women in their society.
In her short story “The Headstrong Historian,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pays tribute to Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart while adding her own distinct voice. Like Achebe’s classic novel, “The Headstrong Historian” paints rich portraits of Nigerian tribal culture before the advent of white missionaries and the Nigerians who grapple with culture clashes and changes. The short story immediately establishes its ties to Things Fall Apart when it mentions that the character “Obierika”–a name which readers may recognize as the close friend of Achebe’s protagonist Okonkwo–is the late husband of Adichie’s protagonist Nwamgba (198). Moreover, when Nwamgba and Obierika struggle to conceive a child, Nwamgba “suggests he go and see the Okonkwo family about their daughter” as a potential wife and mother to his child (204). These developments create the expectation that the short story will have a similar, if not identical, narrative to Things Fall Apart : that the advent of the white missio...
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