The perception of time plays a particular role in The God of Small Things, serving both as a linear force, carrying the plot with it, and as a proverbial tar pit. , capturing and preserving a moment and an hour. The entire Kochamma family seems stuck in the latter solution; their ideology of family superiority no longer corresponds to their current situation at the end of the novel. In this way, the fall from grace of the Kochamma family can be seen as a divergence of Time and Perception of Time, with Time leading India towards the revolution of modernity and Perception keeping the Kochamma family firmly in the past, s 'clinging to the ghosts of past glory. in a vain attempt to maintain a reputation for power and means. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why violent video games should not be banned'? Get an original essay The first indicator of the Kochamma family's apprehension of time is the non-linear way in which the novel is written, forcing mention of past successes as if only to compensate for the family's ever-dwindling fortunes. With recurring pseudo-flashbacks, each of the elder Kochammas finds comfort from the fear of the present by remembering and dwelling on the past. Chacko does this during his years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, pining for Margaret while being pleased with her suffering. Baby Kochamma yearns for the years of yesteryear's prosperity as she stagnates on her sofa, fascinated by the superficiality of television. Estha is trapped in the moment when he lost his innocence in the cinema, missing the simplicity of childhood. Even Pappachi, the patriarch of the family, was privately impressed by his father, Rev. Rahel was another matter; by actively trying to escape her family's history, she came closest to normalcy. Her boarding school years (even if imperfect) distanced her further and further from her family's influence until, after arriving in Washington, D.C., Rahel gave in to the undeniable lure of family history and returned once again in Ayemenem. a contrasting approach reinforces this point, two being Ammu and Velutha. Ammu escaped the black hole of Kochamma family history only by escaping into her own fantasy. Velutha himself was a force of time. It offered him an escape from tradition, an escape from his societal role and, above all, an escape from the past. With Velutha, there were no flashbacks simply because Ammu did not need to try to obscure the present with the past when she was with him. Together they made time useless; they had no reason to bother with the story since societal norms had already publicly made their relationship impossible. The only viable force left was their emotions: "Somehow, by not speaking his name, she knew she had drawn him into the messy intimacy of that point-of-view afternoon." blue cross and tangerine transistor song. By not pronouncing his name, she felt that a pact had been formed between her Dream and the World” (210). The third person not to be bothered by the weather is Sophie Mol. A visitor to Ayemenem, she had no perception of her role in the Kochamma lineage, and death is the greatest liberator of the soul of Time. Even before her abrupt departure, Sophie Mol maintained an air of curious distance towards Ayemenem, the Kochamma house, and its inhabitants. By refusing to accept her family ties, she effectively isolated herself from any influence of the family past. Her death was the ultimate event that made her immune to the influence of Time and the Kochamma family. With only the memory. »?