Sibling Relations in The God of Small Things

In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (156) says that

“there are things that you can’t do – like writing letters to a

part of yourself.” This statement, emerging from the mind of

the female twin named Rahel, establishes the theme of the novel

with respect to the intimate relationship between twins.

Despite having been born “from separate but simultaneously

fertilized eggs,” or being dizygotic or fraternal rather than

identical twins, Rahel and her brother Estha are so intertwined

psychically that even the science into which the brother

Ethappen enters does not separate them (4). This brief essay

will examine the theme of constant communication and the

inescapable linkage between twins as this theme is presented in

Roy’s novel.

Estha and Rahel “never did look much like each other” and

the confusion regarding their synergies “lay in a deeper, more

secret place (4).” As young children, these twins are described

as thinking of themselves “together as me and separately,

individually, as We or Us. As though they were a rare breed of

Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities

(4-5).” So intimately intertwined are the psyches of these two

individuals that Rahel actually has a memory “of waking up one

night giggling at Estha’s funny dream (5).”

 These two children, born to a lonely mother who takes a

lover, surrounded by adult relatives described as difficult at

best, and subject to many different family and personal

tragedies, are exceptional in their youth because of their

shared lives. Together, they are united in the face of family

traumas and are mutually supportive.

This young couple – and it is quite clear that they

function as a couple for much of their youth – share various

“Terrors” as they attempt to navigate family relationships.

They are a brother and sister “who had never been shy of each

other’s bodies, but they had never been old enough (together) to

know what shyness was (88).” Ultimately, the siblings, in their

separate identities, achieve as they mature, a sense of distance

from one another. The normal adolescent development is forever

changed when Estha enters into a period of silence.

Estha is described as someone who “had always been a quiet

child, so no one could pinpoint with any degree of accuracy

exactly when… he had stopped talking. Stopped talking

altogether (12).” The arrival of quietness is what distances

the boy from his sister, striping “his thoughts of the words

that described them” and permitting him “to withdraw from the

world (13).” Rahel, in contrast, brings to her brother “the

sound of passing trains, and the light and shade that falls on

you if you have a window seat (16).” In other words, his

sister’s presence opens the closed gates that have prevented

Estha from speaking and from expressing himself freely.

The young boy is sent away from the family, but ultimately

is “returned,” reunited with his sister when they are older. As

Roy (149) describes this, it is “as though that was what twins

were meant for. To be borrowed and returned. Like library

books.” In this return, what both of the twins and particularly

Rahel discover is that “separately, the two of them are no

longer what They were or ever thought They’d be. Ever. Their

lives have a size and a shape now. Estha has his and Rahel hers

(5).”

Though it may not be necessary for twins who are separated

to communicate with one another verbally, what Roy (5) seems to

suggest is that there are events and actions that can ultimately

diminish the bonds that exist between twins or at the very

least, permit them to have separate identities and separate

lives. As Roy (192) puts it, “Things can change in a day.”

Despite the fact that their mother has asked them to

“promise me that you will always love each other (214),” these

twins learn that certain kinds of love cannot be expressed

between twins despite the naturalness that their intimacy may

engender. Seeing each other naked opens up the reality of

separation. Estha recognizes that his sister has “grown into

their mother’s skin (283)” and that his love for her has been
transformed into love for his mother who died far too young.

The sexual attraction between the twins is ultimately buried

because it must be.

The secret that the twins share is ultimately revealed:

all three of them bonded by the certain, separate knowledge that

they had loved a man to death (307). This is because the twins

and their mother, Ammu, together have been so involved with a

man that they are responsible for his death. So intimate is the

relationship between this set of twins (310) is that “they were

strangers who had met in a chance encounter. They had known

each other before life began.” The cost of living is separation.

In this particular story, following the action is made

complex by Roy’s movement back and forward in time. It is quite

clear that having been constantly together when they were young,

Estha and Rahel have moved apart, separated by their shared

memory of violence and betrayal. It is also clear that they

think of themselves and are portrayed by Roy (182) as “a pair of

actors trapped in a recondite play with no hint of plot or

narrative. Stumbling through their parts, nursing someone

else’s sorrow. Greeting someone else’s grief.” Having been

responsible for the death of a man, Estha moves into silence and

Rahel moves into academia where she displays “waywardness and

almost fierce lack of ambition (19).”

 Where Estha moves into silence, Rahel “drifted into

marriage like a passenger drifts toward an unoccupied chair in

an airport lounge (19).” Both of these twins are afflicted with

personal despair that permeates their beings and which

nevertheless seems to underscore the fact that the bond between

them can be diminished, but not settled. Separately and

together, “they would grow up grappling with ways of living with

what happened (54).”

At the outset of this report, the idea was advanced that it

is impossible to write a letter to a part of yourself. In the

relationship between twins, such letters may not need to be

written at all. The relationship between Rahel and Estha is

such that communication, even in the face of enormous anguish is

not necessary for understanding. Estha and Rahel know who they

are, what they did, and how their actions influenced the actions

of others. Consequently, they find that maintaining a sense of

unified “Me” to be in many ways to be impossible and in other

ways, inescapable.

This report has considered one aspect of being a twin and

its impact upon individuals. The family constellation in which

Rahel and Estha are positioned is in no sense typical of

ordinary families. However, the twins in their connection to

one another may very well be exemplars of the intimacy that

occurs between two separate individuals who share a single womb

for nine months.

Work Cited

Roy, Arundhathi. The God of Small Things. New York:

Random House, 1997.