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Chapters 16 & 17

Summary: Chapter 16, A Few Hours Later 

The narrative shifts to a few hours after Velutha takes his last swim across the river, and Estha, Rahel, and Sophie Mol are at the river. The full reason behind Estha’s plan to go to the History House is now made apparent: The plan the twins hatch in the pickle factory is to make the History House a safe haven from their home since Ammu has just told them they are “millstones” around her neck. After Estha’s experience with the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man, Estha is convinced that this plan is the most practical way forward. The twins recruit Sophie Mol into their adventure, and she clings tentatively to the food she’s stolen from the house in Ayemenem. Despite her nervousness, Sophie Mol proclaims that she must be with them because her disappearance will only make the adults more upset and the three children’s homecoming that much more special. The children set out on the boat. Shortly after, the boat capsizes after hitting a log. Rahel and Estha swim to shore but realize Sophie Mol is gone. They search for her for hours before collapsing outside the History House. The twins do not realize Velutha is sleeping near them in the shadows. 

Summary: Chapter 17, Cochin Harbour Terminus 

Readers learn more about Baby Kochamma’s ill-fated relationship with Father Mulligan. She and Father Mulligan keep up correspondence for years. Father Mulligan leaves the Catholic church to become a Hindu and worshipper of Vishnu, a move which sours Baby Kochamma since he was willing to leave the church for another belief, but not her. After Father Mulligan dies, Baby Kochamma continues their correspondence in her diary, beginning each entry with the words “I love you, I love you.” The imaginary relationship she has with him after his death becomes more real and heartfelt to her as she enjoys complete control over his imagined presence. 

The narrative turns to the twins sitting on a bed together, as adults. Estha remembers the last time he saw Ammu before she was forced to send him away to live with his father Assam. Readers learn that Velutha was arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder after Sophie Mol’s death. It is only then that Comrade K. N. M. Pillai comes to Velutha’s defense, laying siege to the pickle factory, claiming that Velutha was being persecuted for being a member of the Communist Party. 

Analysis: Chapters 16 & 17

In Chapter 16, the events of Sophie Mol’s death are finally described. Notably, the scene is eerily quiet and undramatic: Her death goes unnoticed by even the twins, who don’t hear her slip under the water and drown. The boat simply capsizes, and the river absorbs Sophie Molas the boat drifts away. It’s almost as if Sophie Mol is a willing sacrifice to the forces of the river, the same forces of nature that “consume” the characters as they try to deny them, over and over. 

Sophie Mol, with her “mixed” breeding as both Indian and English, is a person who is cherished, adored, and inspires fascination, but one who is never really understood by family and society. Even Chacko goes into her bedroom every night to study her features as an infant, trying to find traces of himself in her and to confirm she is his child. This concept mirrors the characters’ confusion with their own lives, and their culture’s own history and culture that are now being muddled with European influences and imported political ideologies such as Marxism. As Chacko sifts through Sophie Mol’s features, he sifts through the traces of the markings of his own life, which are blurred. He, like Ammu and the twins, is a “wanderer” of life, never really taking a stand and playing his part, like Mammachi or Baby Kochamma. For this reason, Chacko, Ammu, Rahel, and Estha remain lost, though also stand to gain the chance of redemption more than Mammachi and Baby Kochamma, who bargain for their own redemption at the expense of others.

In Chapter 17, readers learn the extent to which love and protection are rendered ineffectual in the hands of social order. Baby Kochamma’s life-long correspondence with Father Mulligan is just a shadow-play of love. Only in her diary, where she writes “I love you, I love you” to him every day is their relationship actualized. In fact, Father Mulligan likely never loved her. Unlike Velutha and Ammu, he was never moved to risk his social position to be with her. There was no impulse of love to motivate him. It’s only in her diary and in her imagination that Baby Kochamma can experience “love,” which is a true fantasy for her. Comrade K. N. M. Pillai, confused by the dictates of his adopted ideology of Marxism, turns away Velutha at the most crucial moment, and all his posturing of protecting the worker is revealed to be false.

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