‘THE SMALL VOICE OF HISTORY’ IN ARUNDHATI ROY'S THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS

Abstract

This essay argues that Ranajit Guha's ‘The small voice of history’ and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things are defined by, and help define, the contemporary ‘historical-political conjuncture’ that locates the motors of social, disciplinary, and epistemological transformation in the inherently or potentially resistant properties of the oppressed subaltern subject. A comparative reading of two generically different cultural artifacts – a theoretical-critical essay and a novel – that addresses both overlaps and differences between them, this essay also addresses the larger body of cultural work through which this conjuncture is also constituted, particularly work which engages with the difficulties that accrue to the task of recuperating the consciousness/voice of the oppressed and their subjugated histories.