1) This has been a recurring thing, but I think it's important. Why all the capital letters? Here are some examples:
Castes: Paravan, Touchable "Walking Backwards days" (242) "Loyalty and Love" (242) "Baby Kochamma's First Information Report" (249) History House God of Small Things Anything Can Happen to Anyone It's Best to Be Prepared "Memory; The Loss of Sophie Mol" (253 Unemployment (255 Paradise Pickles and Preserves; Synthetic Cooking Vinegar (261) Small Thin Man and Big Fat Man (266) Rights of Untouchables, Pickle Baron dreams, and People's War (266)
Does this fit in with the classification theme we've been discussing? But then, is classification necessarily bad, since the author is classifying proper nouns rampantly throughout the text? Or is that the point?
2)Is Lenin's Marc Antony quotation foreshadowing something? It was the eulogy to Caesar, the fallen dictator; in combination with the passage (near the end) about Comrade Pillai winning a war against Chacko, it seems distinctly ominous.
For this reading, I decided to choose quotations that would allow us to deeper examine some controversial characters.
(Referring to the Velutha/Ammu incident) "Baby Kochamma recognized at once the immense potential of the situation, but immediately anointed her thoughts with unctuous oils. She bloomed. She saw it as God's Way of punishing Ammu..." (245)
First of all, I really cannot stand Baby Kochamma. And I think that this quotation shows exactly what I find so obnoxious about her. She is always at the ready to destroy others and turn their happiness into sorrow. Why is Baby Kochamma so bitter towards the world? There is not one character that Baby Kochamma loves/has ever loved - except Father Mulligan. I do not even think Baby Kochamma loves herself (she pretends to as she is very insecure). Father Mulligan was the only person to make Baby Kochamma feel as though she had some self-worth. She is clearly jealous of Velutha and Ammu because they are in the relationship which she never really got to have.
(After Sophie Mol's death) "Like a child touched by tragedy, who grows up suddenly and abandons his playthings, Chacko dumped his toys. Pickle Baron dreams and the People's War joined the racks of broken airplanes in his glass-paned cupboard" (266)
It seems to be that Chacko had always seen life as one big game. He was simply a big child living in a world of play. This is even evident earlier on when as a Rhodes Scholar, he is insanely amused by an immature "Optimist/Pessimist" joke. When Pappachi died, Chacko still remained a 'child'. But when his daughter died, he suddenly grew up. What does this suggest about Chacko's values?
The times when people speak Malayalam and times when they speak English is mentioned a lot. I decided to research the language Malayalam to see if there was any special reason why it is used. I found my information on Wikipedia but the link wouldn't work so I'll just say what I found. There are 22 official languages of India, which means that this one must have something special about it since it's the one she chose to include in the novel. The next thing I found interesting was that it says "The word 'Malayalam' is an apparent palindrome; however, strictly, it is not, as the next to last vowel is long and should properly be written with a diacritic or spelled double, and both the first and second 'l' consonants represent different sounds." The fact that the word itself can't quite be classified definitely fits the theme of classification in the book. Another interesting fact is that the language is an aristocratic language and has many words borrowed from another language, Sanskrit. This is similar to how the family's lifestyle borrows things from another country, England.
4 comments:
1) This has been a recurring thing, but I think it's important. Why all the capital letters? Here are some examples:
Castes: Paravan, Touchable
"Walking Backwards days" (242)
"Loyalty and Love" (242)
"Baby Kochamma's First Information Report" (249)
History House
God of Small Things
Anything Can Happen to Anyone
It's Best to Be Prepared
"Memory; The Loss of Sophie Mol" (253
Unemployment (255
Paradise Pickles and Preserves; Synthetic Cooking Vinegar (261)
Small Thin Man and Big Fat Man (266)
Rights of Untouchables, Pickle Baron dreams, and People's War (266)
Does this fit in with the classification theme we've been discussing? But then, is classification necessarily bad, since the author is classifying proper nouns rampantly throughout the text? Or is that the point?
2)Is Lenin's Marc Antony quotation foreshadowing something? It was the eulogy to Caesar, the fallen dictator; in combination with the passage (near the end) about Comrade Pillai winning a war against Chacko, it seems distinctly ominous.
For this reading, I decided to choose quotations that would allow us to deeper examine some controversial characters.
(Referring to the Velutha/Ammu incident) "Baby Kochamma recognized at once the immense potential of the situation, but immediately anointed her thoughts with unctuous oils. She bloomed. She saw it as God's Way of punishing Ammu..." (245)
First of all, I really cannot stand Baby Kochamma. And I think that this quotation shows exactly what I find so obnoxious about her. She is always at the ready to destroy others and turn their happiness into sorrow. Why is Baby Kochamma so bitter towards the world? There is not one character that Baby Kochamma loves/has ever loved - except Father Mulligan. I do not even think Baby Kochamma loves herself (she pretends to as she is very insecure). Father Mulligan was the only person to make Baby Kochamma feel as though she had some self-worth. She is clearly jealous of Velutha and Ammu because they are in the relationship which she never really got to have.
(After Sophie Mol's death) "Like a child touched by tragedy, who grows up suddenly and abandons his playthings, Chacko dumped his toys. Pickle Baron dreams and the People's War joined the racks of broken airplanes in his glass-paned cupboard" (266)
It seems to be that Chacko had always seen life as one big game. He was simply a big child living in a world of play. This is even evident earlier on when as a Rhodes Scholar, he is insanely amused by an immature "Optimist/Pessimist" joke. When Pappachi died, Chacko still remained a 'child'. But when his daughter died, he suddenly grew up. What does this suggest about Chacko's values?
The times when people speak Malayalam and times when they speak English is mentioned a lot. I decided to research the language Malayalam to see if there was any special reason why it is used. I found my information on Wikipedia but the link wouldn't work so I'll just say what I found. There are 22 official languages of India, which means that this one must have something special about it since it's the one she chose to include in the novel. The next thing I found interesting was that it says "The word 'Malayalam' is an apparent palindrome; however, strictly, it is not, as the next to last vowel is long and should properly be written with a diacritic or spelled double, and both the first and second 'l' consonants represent different sounds." The fact that the word itself can't quite be classified definitely fits the theme of classification in the book. Another interesting fact is that the language is an aristocratic language and has many words borrowed from another language, Sanskrit. This is similar to how the family's lifestyle borrows things from another country, England.
Two vocab words...
Deranged (pg. 244): Disarranged, disordered
Presaging (pg. 247):
1. A sign felt as a warning; omen.
2. A feeling that something is about to happen; presentiment; foreboding
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