Usually, tradition and cultural norms have established their roots so strong in a community, not many are open to welcoming challenges and a change. Even if the change is strongly emancipated, it is rarely struggled to achieve. The after effects of evoking the rebellion in you are too harsh to be experienced and unbearable to tag along for the rest of the life. Mostly, rebellions don't survive, or they are silenced before they can influence the generations to come. Despite the oppression, they succeed in gaining the limelight and hence the protagonists for many stories written and to be witnessed in future. .
Arundhati Roy, a writer brought up in the west, strongly influenced and touched by the cultural set up of the subcontinent, wrote a great piece of writing reflecting her beliefs regarding the caste system dominating in India. The God of Small Things, talks about the unjust treatment of untouchables, which is the lowest class in the societal hierarchy of India. Social class plays an important role in India; social class decides who can love who, who can chose what occupation, who is better than whom. Although, she touches upon the effects of Marxism and communist parties present at that time along with the "anglophile" fever that fled, the most significant concern of this novel stands to be the "love laws." Anyone who breaks these love laws, a rebel, has no future and place in the society. Ironically enough, Roy presents her protagonists to be breaking the love laws as they believe in the "small world'' free of all laws and norms. The story displays a realistic treatment of a rebellion. Velutha Paapen never meets justice and is killed for rebelling against the caste system. Later, the fraternal twins are also shown to be breaking the love laws through incest and thus, even when the story presents the harsh consequences of a rebellion act, it juxtaposes it to an act that is inevitable and followed on by the younger generation.
