Resistance/Acceptance of Inferiority, Invisibility and Marginalization in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things & Kazu Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day

Abstract

This paper highlights the problemtatics of the identity of the characters of Velutha and Ammu in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and in the character of Stevens in Kazu Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. It examines the process of rethinking identity and the concomitant desire for erasing it to escape skin-color, tradition, racial, religious and professional identities as well as the effect of being different upon the characters’ lives and future prospects. It concludes by highlighting the greatness of Roy’s characters who insist on being different even though they pay a dear price for their difference and on the tragic status of Ishiguro’s Stevens who loses everything because his moral realization comes rather too late and because of his refusal to change.