The God of Small Things Chapters 18 & 19 Summary & Analysis

Chapters 18 & 19

Summary: Chapter 18, The History House

The narrative shifts to the day of Sophie Mol’s death. The policemen are at the river looking for clues. The narrator describes much of the natural life along the river, which is teeming with insects, frogs, and other signs of life. The police find the History House, where Estha and Rahel are sleeping after spending the night looking for Sophie Mol, and Velutha is sleeping inside. The police beat Velutha brutally while the twins listen to the events outside. To cope with this reality, Rahel and Estha pretend Velutha’s brother is being beaten instead. The twins go inside and gaze upon Velutha’s broken body in fascination and horror. They learn that “Blood barely shows on a Black Man” and that it “smells sicksweet, like roses on a breeze.” The policemen’s beating is described as mechanical and economical, as if they’re simply stopping the spread of an outbreak of a disease with their inhumane cruelty. Even though Velutha is so badly beaten he can’t move, the police handcuff him and take him to the police station. The police, proud to have saved Rahel and Estha from an Untouchable Paravan, steal some of the toys at the History House for their own children as they leave.

Summary: Chapter 19, Saving Ammu

Back at the police station, Inspector Thomas Mathew sends for Baby Kochamma. He makes sure the twins are not in the room as he summons her. The Inspector is deeply annoyed since the twins have testified that they went to the river of their own volition and that Sophie Mol’s drowning was accidental. He realizes that he acted impulsively on Baby Kochamma’s claim that Velutha was a criminal, especially since no one, meaning Ammu, ever filed an official report against Velutha, and now he has an innocent man’s life on his hands. The Inspector tells Baby Kochamma that if the twins don’t corroborate her story, or if Ammu doesn’t make an official statement that she was raped by Velutha, Baby Kochamma will be charged with filing a false account against Velutha.

Baby Kochamma, in an effort to save face, decides to manipulate the twins into corroborating her claims against Velutha. She kisses her crucifix before they enter the room and she sits them down, telling them that they “murdered” Sophie Mol by taking her on the boat with them, and that they were jealous of Sophie Mol, finally explaining that they, as well as their mother, will go to jail for Sophie Mol’s death if they don’t say that Velutha kidnapped them. The twins are fascinated listening to Baby Kochamma’s story, and in a confused attempt to save their mother, they agree to make a claim against Velutha. Estha is chosen to make the claim since he is the more practical one. Estha is led to Velutha’s battered body to identify him and make his claim. He’s been told he is only to say “yes” to the officer’s questions. Estha thinks he sees Velutha communicate something to him through his mangled face. Velutha dies later that night. Baby Kochamma, realizing she can’t trust Ammu to keep her secret, convinces Chacko to banish Ammu and the children from the house.

Analysis: Chapters 18 & 19

In Chapters 18 and 19, the scene of Velutha’s beating, while the twins listen outside the History House, is horrifying. Here, Rahel and Estha are faced with yet another brush with the harsh realities of life: that the innocent can be killed, the blameless blamed, and they often are. Estha’s refrain that “Anything can happen” at any time, something he came to realize too early after being abused as a child, has now happened in real life.

The children make up a “fiction” to deal with this reality by proposing that it was actually Velutha’s brother, not Velutha, who was being beaten inside the house. The twins, so good at mixing reality and fiction, a skill they learned from their family, succeed for a while in doing this, but over the course of the novel, they are continually brought back to face the “truths” of their lives, like the pull of the river. When Rahel and Estha return home as adults, it is then that they begin to discover the truth about Ammu’s involvement with Velutha’s death, and face the reality of what happened at the History House due to Baby Kochamma’s deceit. This facing of reality is when the true healing for both twins can begin when they are “re-adjusted” to a proper balance of reality and fiction.

Velutha’s beating is described as “economical” and efficient, as something that is done mechanically and without emotion. Velutha’s beating is relegated to the equivalent of a group of policemen snuffing out an infection that will threaten society. Ironically, that “infection” has already spread—in the form of British and Marxist influence, as it has infiltrated the lives of the characters and their culture, making them warped carriers of vitality, purpose, protection, and love even though they can’t seem to make these things truly manifest in their lives.

Velutha and his presence as the “God of Small Things,” is actually the real source of revitalization of culture, as a representation of the “Small Things,” which have the power to move, provoke, and stimulate culture. It’s the “Small Things,” that matter, like the pure natural love shared by Ammu and Velutha, as Roy suggests, not the “Big Things,” like social and family obligations, the things Mammachi and Baby Kochamma try to uphold. These “Big Things” seem to cause people to betray each other, banish one another, wound each other and break even the most sacred of familial bonds, such as when Mammachi banishes Velutha and Baby Kochamma cruelly manipulates the children to save her own skin. It is the “Small Things” that invite people to slow down, fuse with and be in awe of nature, value deep culture, and give unconditional love.