The God of Small Things

Novel | Arundhati Roy

Brief Questions in The God of Small Things

Brief Questions in The God of Small Things

  • What prize was Arundhati awarded for writing The God of Small Things?
Ans: She won the Booker Prize in London on 14 October 1997. 
  • Who are the central figures in the novel?
Ans: Estha and Rahel, fraternal twins living with their mother Ammu.
  • What was Pappachi’s discovery as an entomologist?
Ans: A moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts; he thought it new.
  • How did Pappachi appear in his photograph?
Ans: Dapper, carefully groomed, chin hidden, proud but controlled.
  • What kind of man did Pappachi seem from the photograph?
Ans: Polite outwardly, yet marked by cruelty and buried violence.
  • Why was Pappachi jealous of Mammachi?
Ans: Her public success as a pickle maker eclipsed him.
  • How did Pappachi treat his wife?
Ans: He beat Mammachi nightly with a flower vase.
  • What was Chacko’s view of Pappachi’s attitude?
Ans: He called Pappachi an Anglophile who aped the English.
  • When did Mammachi start making pickles commercially?
Ans: After Pappachi retired and returned to Ayemenem.
  • What were Mammachi’s feelings after Pappachi’s death?
Ans: She mourned out of habit and duty, not love.
  • Why did Mammachi dislike Margaret Kochamma?
Ans: For her working-class background and for leaving Chacko.
  • What was Baby Kochamma’s real name?
Ans: Navomi Ipe, daughter of Reverend E. John Ipe.
  • How did Navomi Ipe become “Baby Kochamma”?
Ans: Called “Baby” in youth; became “Kochamma” as an aunt.
  • In what sense did Baby Kochamma live backwards?
Ans: Youth renounced worldly life; old age embraced it.
  • What did Baby Kochamma do to attract Father Mulligan?
Ans: Publicly bathed a peasant child to appear charitable.
  • How did Baby Kochamma spend her last years?
Ans: Makeup, fine saris, TV serials, English films, football.
  • Who is Chacko?
Ans: Mammachi and Pappachi’s son; Oxford-educated factory owner.
  • Why did Margaret Kochamma separate from Chacko?
Ans: She chose Joe, a biologist, over him.
  • How did Chacko treat pretty factory workers?
Ans: Lectured, flirted, drank with them, calling them comrades.
  • What were Chacko’s favourite foods?
Ans: Chicken roast, chips, sweet corn, soup, parathas, ice cream.
  • What was the last blow for Chacko?
Ans: Sophie Mol’s death devastated him utterly.
  • What is Chacko’s attitude to life?
Ans: Humans are unmoored prisoners, adrift on troubled seas.
  • Who is Ammu?
Ans: Pappachi and Mammachi’s daughter; mother of Estha and Rahel.
  • When were the twins born?
Ans: In 1962, during the Sino-Indian war.
  • Why did Ammu divorce her husband?
Ans: He demanded she sleep with his boss to keep work.
  • Why did Ammu get angry with Margaret Kochamma?
Ans: A rude cultural remark made Ammu storm off.
  • Why did Ammu love Velutha by night?
Ans: Lonely divorcee, she found forbidden love with Velutha.
  • Where did Ammu die?
Ans: In a grimy room at Bharat Lodge, Alleppey.
  • In what sense is Velutha a social rebel?
Ans: He defied caste barriers and chose personal dignity.
  • Is Velutha a tragic hero?
Ans: Yes; brutally killed by police, a martyr.
  • Who is Sophie Mol?
Ans: Chacko and Margaret’s daughter; Estha and Rahel’s cousin.
  • What did Sophie Mol wear?
Ans: Yellow bellbottoms and a Made-in-England go-go bag.
  • Why did Sophie Mol love Joe more than Chacko?
Ans: Joe raised her; Chacko left earlier; Joe died later.
  • What relation did Sophie Mol form with the twins?
Ans: She quickly became their close friend.
  • Where did the three children go on excursion?
Ans: Boating on the nearby Meenachal River.
  • How did the boat capsize?
Ans: It struck a floating log in the darkness.
  • What was the irony of Sophie Mol’s life?
Ans: She loved family members the elders disliked.
  • Who is Estha?
Ans: Ammu’s son and Rahel’s twin brother.
  • What is Estha’s long name, and who gave it?
Ans: “Esthapappychachen Peter Mon,” whispered by Rahel.
  • When did the twins come to Ayemenem house?
Ans: After Ammu divorced, when they were two.
  • Who oversaw the twins’ education?
Ans: Baby Kochamma, often unkind and strict.
  • What work did Estha prefer over college?
Ans: Housework—sweeping, laundry, cooking, shopping.
  • What happened to Rahel after Ammu’s death?
Ans: She drifted through schools, largely neglected.
  • Whom did Rahel marry?
Ans: Larry McCaslin, an architecture researcher in Delhi.
  • Why did Rahel’s marriage end?
Ans: Larry sensed her detachment, eyes searching for Estha.
  • What is the novel’s setting?
Ans: Ayemenem (Aymanam) in Kerala, Roy’s childhood place.
  • Why did Ammu choose Velutha as lover?
Ans: Both were untouchable in society’s eyes.
  • Who molested Estha?
Ans: The Orangedrink Lemondrink man at the cinema.
  • Whom did Chacko marry at Oxford?
Ans: Margaret Kochamma, then a café waitress.
  • Which film did the family watch in Cochin?
Ans: The Sound of Music.
  • Which university did Chacko attend?
Ans: Undergraduate at Delhi; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
  • Why did Baby Kochamma convert to Roman Catholicism?
Ans: To win Father Mulligan’s affection.
  • Who is Pappachi?
Ans: Ammu and Chacko’s father; a noted entomologist.
  1. Who was Baby Kochamma?
Ans: Pappachi’s sister, the children’s grandaunt.
  • What was Velutha’s political ideology?
Ans: He was an active Marxist Communist party worker.
  • How did Pappachi treat his wife?
Ans: Abusively; he beat her with a brass vase.
  • What is entomology?
Ans: The scientific study of insects.
  • How did Sophie Mol die?
Ans: She drowned after the boat struck a floating log.
  • What made Pappachi unhappy in marriage?
Ans: His age gap; feeling old while Mammachi seemed young.
  • Why did Baby Kochamma fail in love?
Ans: Conversion and becoming a nun still couldn’t win the priest.
  • Whom did Ammu see in her dream?
Ans: A man she called “the god of small things,” Velutha.
  • Who or what is the “God of Small Things”?
Ans: Velutha, the tender god of forbidden, small things.

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