Forbidden Love in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things

Abstract

While shared beliefs, standards, and norms can often influence our perception of what is morally right or wrong, it is necessary to question the origin of certain cultural ideals. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1997) questions the importance of adhering to the status quo as the novel explores the theme of forbidden love. The use of heterotopic spaces in the book produces variations of the real world where characters can explore their forbidden love interests and challenge societal constraints. These heterotopias are environments that are characteristically 'other' because they represent ideas which are intense, incompatible, or transforming (Foucault 4). Central characters in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things use these spaces to interrogate the complexity of forbidden love and disrupt the status quo.