Sophie Mol and Velutha: Victims or Villains? Gabriella Gonzalez College

In Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, readers may find it easy to view Sophie Mol and Velutha as the Gods of Colonial circumstances. However, by viewing the characters solely as the embodiments of colonial circumstances, readers fail to see them as not just the villains that society, but as the victims of the novel as well. Each character has been placed into a society-driven category by the novel, namely a class such as either touchable or untouchable. The reader is presented with Sophie Mol as the victim since she is the touchable of the novel, but while she is a victim to her privilege she is also the villain to the narrator. In juxtaposition to the touchable of the novel is the untouchable, Velutha. Although he is the villain of society, he is the victim to the narrator. Both characters experience social actions and reactions they do not necessarily want or deserve. The narrator states, "They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how" (Roy 31). To view the characters through both the lens of society and the lens of the narrator is to see both sides of their stories. Neither character is wholly victim or villain, and to view...