The Role of Gender in "The God of Small Things" Anonymous College

In the novel The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, the domination of women is a common theme that is manifested by each of the generation in the novel. Roy writes about the fraught social issues that plague Indian society; she wrote The God of Small Things after the caste system had been removed in India, but portrays how the caste system was outlawed but still ran India. Roy was raised to see the flaws in Indian society, and consequently wrote a novel with a message that showed the problems that exist and go unmentioned. Through the major theme of gender identity, Roy conveys a message that all people should be equal, and no caste system or gender bias should create a society that does not revolve around fairness and opportunities, no matter what the caste or sex of a person is.

Judith Butler’s theory of gender as a performance is extremely relevant to the characters in The God of Small Things who are forced to conform to society. The idea that gender is just a performance because society has created the illusion that in order to fit in one must suppress their inner desires and conform to society’s ideal image in order to survive in the world depicts the problems that make up favoring the first in a set of binary...