Introduction:
A brilliant display of the most appropriate and striking similes and images is a crowning achievement of Arundhati Roy, as a writer. She is excellent in creating most striking and appropriate images utilizing metaphor, personification irony etc. but her forte is simile. In fact she has created poetry in prose by her clever use of similes. She is simply outstanding, most original and highly impressive in this arena.
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| Novel The God of Small Things—Use of Imagery and Similes |
Description of Nature of Roy’s Imagination:
In her use of similes, Ray has her unique position beside such written as James Joyce and Salman Rushdie. Like them she has liberally used similes. Her description of nature is superb. Just like a child, she observes minutely and points the narration with appropriate colours the required effect. Like Dickens, she possesses the child's power to apprehend things in all their sensuous glory. This power is most active in the portions of the novel where the narrator fully invests herself with the twin's consciousness. Besides, there is undoubtedly an autobiographical element in the story. Thus even the passages operating on the literal plane, the diction evokes vivid images in terms of colour sound and movement arising probably from the author’s personal experience. In evidence, the following passage, glorifying the nature may be considered:
“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month …. The river shrinks and black cows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dust green trees Red bananas ripen. Jack fruits burst. Dissolute blue bottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. "
Penetrating Sense of Discrimination of Roy in the Novel:
The above passage is an evidence of Roy superb penetrating sense of discrimination, as far as colour, sound movement and language are concerned. Without always resorting to figurative language, she can create her own words to emphasize appropriate, different shades and colours of which we are not aware of earlier, like dust green, wet green and moss green. Even she has depicted light in different varying melodies as the sun light is fractured by their "Trunks of tilting trees" and "glittering sun-shine", “wedge of light” and bright parallelogram of barred sun - light on the floor . " Similarly Ray has differentiated the various smells like sick - sweet smell, old food smell; sour metal smell, smell of smoke, a sour farty smell of red ants, smell of pickles and smell of lover's skin etc.
Use of Similes and Metaphors by Roy in the Novel Ray has a genius of child and an animal in creating single sense images. She has outstanding command over coining new words. She has used similes and metaphors to create appropriate effect of place, person and event depending only on one sense impression. Given below is an example of single sense images:
(i) Her face was pale and as wrinkled as a dhobi's thumb from being in water for too long. (ii) Her hair, dyed jet black was arranged across her scalp like unspooled thread. (iii) Most of Rahel's hair sat on top of her head like a fountain. If the above examples are usual ones under noted are her auditory ones:
“And how at night the brush crickets had sounded like creaking stains and amplified the fear.” Roy's sense about olfactory is amazing and she has produced the beautiful examples like the following: (i) History smell, like old roses on a breeze. (ii) Meat smelling blood money.
She is penetrating the heart while describing the loss of Sophie Mol: (i) Grief and bitterness at her daughter's death coiled inside her like an angry spring. (ii) The loss of Sophie Mol steeped softly around the Ayemenem house like a quiet thing in socks.
Conceptual Images in the Novel
There are a number of similes and metaphors in the novel which compare two objects in terms of concept, function or connotation rather than any of the senses. To clarify we usually think of a bride as a gorgeously dressed young woman; here the focus is on the visual aspect alone, but we also associate shyness with a bride, here the resulting image will be conceptual. Roy has excelled in terms of consent like: (i) The silence sat between grand - niece and baby grand aunt like third person. A stranger. Swollen Noxious. (ii) Like a lion - tamer she tamed twisting vines and nurtured drifting cacti. (iii) A captured spy in enemy territory, plotting het spectacular escape.
Synesthetic Images in the Novel:
Though we do not come across many synesthetic images, yet the few we see are remarkably effective. Here Roy comes close to Keats. When the gurgling, bubbling sound of her own pissing came, Baby Kochamma listened with her eyes. In another case, the loss of silence is suggested synaesthetically. As soon as Estha had said ‘yes’ to the Inspector's query, childhood tiptoed out and silence slid in like a bolt. It may appear odd that silence is compared to a bolt, yet when we consider the catastrophic import of the situation, this violent image is understood as the most appropriate one.
Abstract Images in the Novel:
Whenever we think of abstract images we recall Shelley's famous image: the dead leaves driven away from the west wind are like “ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.” Arundhati Roy too is an expert master in comparing the abstract with concrete in a perfect meaningful manner. How beautifully she compares the dripping blood from the skull of a fallen man from great height to spilling down “like a secret” and at Ayemenem house " strange insects appeared like ideas in the evenings and burned themselves on baby Kochamma's dim 40 watt bulb.”
The correctness of this image is realized, when we keep in view the fact that it is the time of rainy season when such short lived beings (insects) are a common sight. Evening is also the time when transitory ideas arise in mind and fade away quickly. There are some original views of this nature, when the police is in search of the abductor of the twins and they walk past a giant spider webs that spread like “whispered gossip from tree to tree”, and past “Butterflies drifting through the air like happy messages.”
Use of Complex Images in the Novel Arundhati Roy's real skill lies in using similes which are hidden deeper and surface out in a moment to create the desired effect . These images are deeply grounded in the context and uniquely arise out of it. They call for several sense impressions that are related in a complex or a composite manner. To illustrate:
“He walked through the world like a chameleon. Never revealing himself, never appearing not to.” What a befitting comparison of Pillai who actually behave in a peculiar manner changing his stand like a chameleon changing its colours. In this simile the visual quality of changeability is combined with Kinetic property to provide a figure for the way Pillai actually conducted himself through the affairs of the world. Another complex image is the delightful comparison of the twins with a pair of frogs. Given below are some more examples which require a careful analysis in order to yield their full meanings and effect. “He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside.” It is to be noted here that the use of the above image has required modifiers and personification. The family playmouth is compared to: “A wide lady squeezing down a narrow corridor. Like Baby Kochamma in church, on her way to the bred and wine.” In some cases Roy has taken the help of multiple similes, where the comparison is multidimensional and the focus has been pointed on a single object like: “She touched him lightly with her fingers and left a trail of goose bumps on his skin. Like flat chalk on a black - board. Like breeze in a paddy - field. Like jet streaks in a blue church sky.”
Use of Images and Similes from Nature, Rural Life and Modern Urban Life:
Roy draws images from nature and rural life. No doubt she has been highly impressed by nature and rural beauty which is clearly visible in her writings, which look surprisingly fresh and produce a new effect. As the undernoted examples will show, the author's imagination is able to find new ways for utilizing these traditional sources of imagery: (i) “With every monsoon, the old car settled more firmly into the ground. Like an angular, arthritic hen settling stiffly on her clutch of eggs.” (ii) "She managed that by doing what she was best at. Irrigating her fields, nourishing her crops with other people's passions. She gnawed like a rat into the godown of Chacko's grief.” (iii)"His own voice coiled around him like a snake.”
More striking, however, is Roy's tendency to draw figurative material from modern urban life. She is highly original in this respect. To illustrate: (i) “It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a tea bag.” (ii) "Slow mud that oozed through toes like toothpaste.”
Use of Different Vehicles by the Novelist in the Novel:
Roy's choice of the vehicle is quite sensitive to the context and feeling sought to be generated through a figurative expression. Two objects in this respect are ' eyes ' and ' silence ' which have been variously imaged by Roy in the novel “The God of Small Things.” Baby Kochamma is eighty three years old, she wears thick glasses and she is in a state of triumph. Therefore her widening eyes call up a specific comparison: “Her eyes spread like butter behind her thick glasses.” The other undernoted illustrations are to be analysed for the purpose of assessing the full significance of the specific vehicle used for ‘eyes ' in each case : “They would water with dinner plate eyes as lustory revealed itself to them in the back verandah .” “Estha’s eyes were brightened sancers.” “Ammu saw her son's bright fever - button eyes.” Silence is generally a negative state, absence of sound just as in the case of eyes, each kind of silence will require its specific comparison. In his abnormal state, Estha spends his time quietly; he has lost his urge to express himself in any way. Rahel's arrival at Ayemenem and her presence in his room demanded voluminous expression from her brother. But these things were barred any exit through words; there was a sense of loss. And therefore, “Silence hung in the air like secret loss.” There is no love lost between Baby Kochamma and Rahel and when they are aware of non - communication as a solid being. “The silence sat between grandniece and baby grand aunt like a third person. A stranger Swollen Noxious.” The other images given below are based on similar specific structural factors which consequently produce the unique comparison: “Silence filled the car like a saturated spong.” “The silence gathered its skirts and slid, like spider woman, up the slippery bathroom wall.” “Silence slid in like a bolt.”
The Structural Importance of Imagery and Simile in the Novel:
On analysis of the structural importance of imagery in Shakespeare's plays it is evident that the emotional and unifying centre of his plays is to be found in the nature of imagery frequently employed by the author. It is the predominant imagery that unifies a Shakespeare play and not the sequence of events, time reference or site of action. When we scrutinize the entire range of imagery found in “The God of Small Things” from the above point of view, we are struck by the power and frequency of the images relating to filth, sickness and injury. This will be evident from the undernoted examples reconsidered in the light of the above observations: (i) “A grossammer blanket of coal dust floated down like a dirty blessing and gently smothered the traffic.” (ii) "Filth had laid siege to the Ayemenem house like a medieval army advancing on an empty castle.” (iii) "Every mouthful that she ate was displayed to her admiring younger cousins, half - chewed, mutched, lying on her tongue like fresh vomit.”
All these similes compel us to think that Ray has seen the Indian culture through Western glasses to which the Keralite society looks negative and loaded with filth, sickness and needs immediate introspection and remedial changes.
Conclusion:
When we consider the prominence of this kind of imagery in “The God of Small Things” in its symbolic significance and implication in respect of the plot and character of the novel; we can come to the conclusion that Ray's vision of Indian society in general and the Keralite society in particular is a negative one with a very specific meaning; through the net - work of images, the author has evidently suggested that our society is filthy, sick and wounded.