Summary
In 1950, Digby cultivates a farm called Gwendolyn Gardens, named after Digby's mother. With the help of his friend and business partner, Cromwell, Digby grows and sells coffee, tea, and rubber; together, the two men resist the "madness" caused by isolation. When a massive land slide makes part of the road impassible, Lizzi is brought to Digby for medical assistance. Her husband, Kora, sliced through her stomach in a poison-induced haze. The cut pierced her womb and her child sticks its hand out. Though Digby thinks of himself as a planter now and not a surgeon, he repairs the wound and compares the child's shaking fist to Vladimir Lenin, prompting Lizzi to name her son Lenin Evermore.
Six months after Ninan's death and Elsie's departure, Elsie's father, Chandy, dies. Big Ammachi attends his funeral but does not ask the bereaved Elsie to return with her, though she is alarmed by Elsie's physical and emotional deterioration. Philipose struggles with opium addiction, having begun the habit to soothe the pain of his two broken ankles and the grief over Ninan's death. When Baby Mol begins to starve herself and approaches death, Big Ammachi writes to Elsie begging her to return to Parambil. Seeing Elsie, Baby Mol recovers. However, a massive monsoon traps Elsie at Parambil and the emotional pain of returning to the site of her son's death leads her to spend entire days pacing and entire nights weeping. She avoids Philipose, who is simultaneously thrilled by, and afraid of, her return.
One night, when Philipose is hazy with opium and sleep, he confesses to Elsie that Ninan's death is his fault, and internally vows to help bring Elsie out of her despair. The two make love, though Elsie is detached and passive, and leaves the room immediately after. She then devotes all her time to carving a huge stone sculpture and avoiding Philipose. Big Ammachi then reveals that Elsie is pregnant again, and to the entire family's shock and chagrin, Philipose hires a fortune teller to predict that the child will be a boy, which he interprets as the reincarnation of Ninan.
Towards the end of Elsie's pregnancy, Philipose's behavior grows increasingly erratic, and he is haunted by Elsie's unfinished sculpture. One night, he takes a mallet to the sculpture, attempting to "free" the Stone Woman. In the process, he breaks his clavicle and ruins the sculpture, which he tries to hide. Elsie tells Philipose that all she ever wanted was his support of her art, though even when he thinks he is giving his support, he is taking away her dreams. She begins to build a new sculpture, a nest created from broken branches and other debris she finds along the property. In the nest, Elsie confesses her fear about the labor to Big Ammachi and asks the matriarch to care for her daughter if Elsie should die during labor. When Big Ammachi wholeheartedly agrees, Elsie assures her that the baby will be named Mariamma.
Elsie goes into labor, attended by Big Ammachi and Anna, a young mother Big Ammachi hired to help with housework after Odat Kochamma's death. When Elsie faints from labor pains, Big Ammachi realizes the baby is in breech, arriving in the position of the figure in Elsie's sculpture. Running out of time, Big Ammachi reaches into the birth canal and repositions the baby, listening to essential medical advice from the spirit of Odat Kochamma, whose voice she hears in her head. Though the baby arrives safely, the sound of a smashing urn in the basement alerts Big Ammachi and Anna to Elsie bleeding out. Unable to stop the bleeding, Anna reaches into the birth canal and readjusts Elsie's womb, a trick she saw a nun perform in her youth. When Elsie is safe, Big Ammachi presents the newborn to the waiting family members. Seeing that the child is a girl and not the reincarnation of Ninan, Philipose moans that "God has failed" him again. For the first time, Big Ammachi scolds Philipose, telling him that God "overlooked" Philipose when he "handed out common sense," and shames him, reminding him that Elsie risked her life to bring the child into the world, nearly dying in the process.
Physically, Elsie slowly recovers from the birth, but her emotional pain never abates; she is unwilling to hold her daughter, and bursts into tears whenever she sees the baby. One day, she goes for a walk to gather more materials for her nest, and does not return. The entire Parambil community searches for her to no avail. After filing a police report, Shamuel finds Elsie's clothing and shoes discarded by the river, implying she waded in and intentionally drowned. In Elsie's nest, Big Ammachi finds a drawing of herself holding the baby, communicating that she, not Elsie, will raise the child. Throughout the following years, Big Ammachi keeps the drawing— essentially Elsie's suicide note—a secret, and looks at it often.
Analysis
Digby renames his estate Gwendolyn Gardens to honor his deceased mother. Though Digby spent the majority of his life trying to forget his mother's suicide and the feelings of betrayal it evoked, he finds the most meaningful healing by accepting and celebrating her. This deliberate choice of name demonstrates the cyclical nature of life and rebirth. Big Ammachi, Philipose, and the other residents of Parambil feel connected to their ancestors through the cycles of nature that surround them; the bodies of their loved ones become life-giving trees, crops, and animals. Similarly, Digby's mother is given a new, redemptive life in the soil of Gwendolyn Gardens. By lovingly tending the earth, Digby is symbolically nurturing his mother, who was cruelly rejected by her family, community, and friends. Digby views the "fecund soil" as a "salve for the wounds that never close." This affirmation implies that his unresolved relationship with his mother, represented in the estate, was the wound that prevented him from truly healing. Emotionally restored, Digby is able to perform surgery on others.
In a unique example of the hands motif, Lizzi's child reaches its fist through the wound in her uterus. Consequently, Digby compares the fetus to Vladimir Lenin, in reference to the Soviet Union leader's signature gesture, a raised fist meant to communicate solidarity with the working class and acceptance of violence to achieve economic equality. Throughout the text, hands are used to demonstrate personality, skills, values, and human connection; in Lenin's case, the raised fist demonstrates connection across classes and an aggressive determination to act. Lenin's highly symbolic birth is an example of nominative determinism, a concept that proposes people develop personalities and values that "match" their given names. Thus, Lenin grows to be highly concerned with mitigating class struggles and, like his namesake, takes ethically questionable actions to realize his political goals.
Part Six utilizes a unique, dreamlike tone to demonstrate that Philipose's opium addiction makes him an unreliable and unobservant point-of-view character. The text's sense of time and pacing are altered to demonstrate that Philipose's assessment of Elsie's grief and illness is limited. Every time he is confronted with grief over Ninan's death, or the physical agony of his broken ankles, Philipose immediately chews opium, leaving the reader and Philipose little space to digest the gravity of the family's mourning. This plot element also serves as a commentary on the medical ethics of prescribing opiate-based painkillers, an international epidemic at the time of the book's publication. As the text argues, the pain of Philipose's emotional pain is "compounded by physical pain," implying that all aspects of a person's mental, emotional, and physical health need to be considered when creating a treatment plan. In the murkiness of opium use, Philipose is unable to fully heal his ankles, his sorrow, or his marriage. All of his wounds magnify each other, and none can fully heal when Philipose is not fully present. Similarly, Baby Mol suffers physically and nearly dies when separation from Elsie and tension within the family damage her emotional well-being.
Big Ammachi's relationship with faith and superstition is explored when Philipose hires a fortune teller to determine the sex of Elsie's future child. Big Ammachi is immediately furious and accuses the fortune teller of charlatanism. Though Philipose counters Big Ammachi's concerns, calling into question her superstitions and Christian identity, Big Ammachi's perspective is deeper than simple hypocrisy or denial. Throughout the text, Big Ammachi turns to prayer when she strays from her personal values and convictions or needs encouragement to accept her circumstances. For example, she takes breaks from direct communication with God when tragedy befalls her family, like with Jojo and Ninan's deaths, but resumes when she realizes her loved ones need her to be strong and decisive. Thus, the text argues that faith and superstition should be personal tools to navigate life's challenges and develop identity. Thus, Big Ammachi's objection to Philipose's fortune-telling is not a judgment on divination practices, but a recognition that Philipose is unwilling to accept the reality of Ninan's death, which will ultimately harm Philipose in the long run.
During the monsoon, the river floods and becomes visible from Parambil for the first time. Since water symbolizes both death and renewal in the text, this condition is alarming and highly symbolic. Before Ninan's death, the family considered death and destruction as external forces from which they could shield themselves through covenants like Philipose's promise to Big Ammachi never to swim alone, maintaining physical distance from the outside world, and creating strong interpersonal bonds. However, Philipose's opium addiction and increasingly erratic behavior threaten to destroy the family from the inside. The river's flooding also recalls when Philipose saved the boatman's baby, choosing to brave the flooded river, forsaking his fear of the water and repulsion towards surgery to help another person. Similarly, Elsie needs Philipose's help and bravery to save Mariamma. Though he initially fails, cruelly expressing his disappointment that Mariamma is a girl, he eventually rises to the challenge and raises Mariamma with love and self-discipline, though he knows she is not biologically his daughter.
Elsie's sculpture, the Stone Woman, is a complicated and multi-faceted symbol. At first, the Stone Woman's physical position seems to predict Mariamma's breach birth, as the child emerges in the exact pose as the Stone Woman. However, the faceless sculpture takes on a deeper meaning, representing Elsie and the invisibility she feels in her marriage with Philipose. Philipose claims to love Elsie, but his inability to understand and support her work creates an unbridgeable distance between them. Philipose is desperate to connect with Elsie and support her so that she grows to love him. However, his desire to grow their marriage is what eventually ends it. The irony of Philipose's anxious efforts is best demonstrated in his well-intentioned destruction of the Stone Woman. Not understanding the sculpture's message, Philipose grows distressed, feeling like he needs to "free" the woman in the stone, believing if he does so, he will liberate Elsie from her emotional pain. However, Philipose breaks the sculpture and hurts himself in the process. As Elsie regards her ruined work, she comments that, though all she wanted was Philipose's support, he thinks he's giving her the ability to be an artist when in fact, he's taking it away. This tragic scene encapsulates Elsie and Philipose's relationship; by trying to chase their individual dreams through marriage, Elsie and Philipose hurt and limit each other.
Elsie's labor is described using gruesome medical imagery. As Big Ammachi observes, "men like to think that women forget the pain upon seeing the blessed baby," but in reality, Elsie's labor is horrific, dangerous, and life-altering. Big Ammachi and Anna Kochamma bravely deliver the baby, though they have no medical training, each performing a pseudo-surgery to remove Mariamma from the birth canal and stop Elsie's bleeding. This harrowing scene demonstrates how opportunities and education intertwine with a person's fate, a concept that is explored soon after when Big Ammachi lights the lantern for Mariamma, a symbolic honor usually reserved for the first male child. The delivery scene parallels the surgery Digby performs on Lizzi and later, Mariamma's delivery training, to highlight how fate along with sexism and poverty prevented Big Ammachi and Anna from pursuing careers in medicine. Both women are incredibly competent and fearless in the delivery room, and the language used to describe their work is the same used when describing Digby and Rune's surgeries. When Big Ammachi scolds Philipose for his cruel sexism, she comments on the larger societal ills that limit women's fates and ultimately rob the world of their talents. Still muddled by opium, Philipose is devastated that Elsie's child is a girl, ruining his hopes that Ninan would be reincarnated, thus absolving Philipose of responsibility for his son's death. However, Mariamma's birth is a unique interpretation of resurrection. At Elsie's request, the infant is named after Big Ammachi, who promises to raise her. Though Big Ammachi lives well into Mariamma's adulthood, Mariamma is presented as a symbolic reincarnation of Big Ammachi who reclaims the educational opportunities Big Ammachi was supposed to have before fate intervened and she married Big Appachen. Though Mariamma is not what Philipose expected, her presence changes the family's dynamic, ultimately redeeming him.
