Jason-Roy-4/6

            The ways in which the powerful and the powerless appear in Roy’s novel seem to be split along lines one would assume they would be split along. Class position, religion, political alignment, skin color, age, etc. Sophie Mol seems an embodiment of all that is deemed powerful, at least by the family. Though the love she is the focus of (which she seems to not reciprocate or even be interested in) ultimately doesn’t save her from drowning. Though in some way her place in the family’s “heart” does appear to haunt Rahel and Estha endlessly.

It seems that the greatest determining factor, in terms of who’s powerful and who’s powerless, is the degree or amount one is loved. This didn’t seem to come up in Roy’s speech specifically but does in the novel. Rahel and Estha (though particularly Rahel) seem to be focused on the amount they perceive their mother to love them. In their eyes, this entity, love, is what can give them power. The weighing Rahel and Estha do, to determine their moth’s love for them, seems to be set against the perception they have that Sophie Mol is ubiquitously loved by everyone in their family perhaps to a “larger amount” then anyone loves them. Only Velutha seems to unconditionally love both Rahel and Estha.

            In terms of a political perspective, maybe this child-like rendering of power dynamics is really at the heart of all political discourse. The state or the status quo, or the traditional manners of hierarchical structure, embodied by Inspector Thomas Mathew and the police, Baby Kochamma and Mammachi, Comrade Pillai, seem to all be in the business of determining who can be loved, how much, and by who. By doing so it is possible to dictate who interacts with who, who has relationships with who, and determine what the structure and face of social dealings look like. This is made clear by Ammu’s relationship with Velutha (a touchable and an untouchable) one that’s forbidden by societal traditions as well as Rahel’s relationship with Estha and what it culminates in. It’s possible that in Roy’s depiction of the interference of political systems and traditions on interpersonal relationships, specifically Ammu’s and Velutha’s, she implies that it sets a dangerous precedent for the generations that follow. That these types of restrictions are the source of all ensuing problems.