Outcasts

The role of outcasts in society showcases the culture of each in the two novels. Outcasts in both novels are oppressed and discriminated against by the rest of their community. The coming of a different religion and culture allows some of these people a degree of security and safety. In Things Fall Apart we see that there is a sense of community among the outcasts and a separate society develops within the Christian church’s sphere, providing the shunned members safety and opportunity. Meanwhile, in The God of Small Things we see the old Hindu practices subvert the new religion and create an amalgamation of old and new. The old ways are never truly abandoned and follow the new converts into their new life, yet prevents them from changing their status.

In Things Fall Apart the people who convert to Christianity at first are described as the dregs of society. Many in the village are happy for these people to abandon their ways, as the community, therefore, will no longer need to deal with these outcasts. When the Christians first come to Okonkwo’s village they build a small church but “none of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulfe, worthless, empty men” (Achebe 135). The people seen as the bottom of Igbo society are the ones who join, who have nothing to lose by converting as they have little to no stake in the society and culture they are presently part of. The character Nneka becomes the first woman to join the Christians. She lost all her previous children because she could only conceive twins, which in the Igbo society were considered unnatural and thus they were left to die in the forest shortly after birth (Achebe 142-143). Before she gives birth a final time, she joins the Christians who prohibit this practice and protect her and her new children. And yet, her husband is not even upset when Nneka joins the mission station: “Her husband and his family were already becoming highly critical of such a woman and were not unduly perturbed when they found she had fled to join the Christians. It was good riddance” (Achebe 143). It’s obvious why these outcasts would join something that offers them another chance at life. As the first converts, they had nothing left to lose. Yet, it is not only complete outcasts who convert to the new religion. Nwoye, the son of the main character Okonkwo, converts to Christianity because his own culture perplexes him, and he sees it as an opportunity to part ways with his father, whose hyper-masculinity and aggression are at odds with Nwoye’s own nature (Achebe 50). We learn that there are certain aspects of Igbo culture with which Nwoye disagrees. There are two particular events that seem to evoke strong emotions in Nwoye, which he recalls when he hears the Christians singing hymns: “The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul—the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed” (Achebe 139). Nwoye sees Christianity as a way to rid himself of his father and the culture he has never felt comfortable being a part of. He wholeheartedly adopts his new religion and way of life. Nwoye even abandons his name and language, taking on the Christian name, Isaac, and goes to the Christian school to learn how to read and write English (Achebe 172). It is Nwoye, as Isaac, who later converts his mother and siblings (Achebe 144). When Okonkwo is living in exile, a friend tells him that the white men have established themselves as a new power in Umuofia. He is told “It is already too late…Our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger. They have joined his religion and they help to uphold his government. If we should try to drive out the white men in Umuofia we should find it easy. There are only two of them. But what of our own people who are following their way and have been given power?” (Achebe 165). To further the status of the new religion, men of title who have disobeyed the white men’s laws, such as molesting Christians, have been punished by the white men and their converts (Achebe 164). In belittling the community elders and those in traditional power, the once worthy men have now become the outcasts in the eyes of their own community. Achebe, therefore, skillfully documents the slow creeping of colonialism, through the motif of church converts, in order to exemplify the shift of power dynamics. The outcasts have gained power within the colonial system while the traditional elites and anti-colonial resisters have become the new outcasts.

This is in stark contrast with the life of outcasts in The God of Small Things. In Indian society, the Dalits or Paravans occupied the bottom rung of the Hindu caste system. Known as the untouchables, they were (and in some ways still are) the perpetual outcasts in society, doomed to a lifetime of oppression. Furthermore, the untouchables pass their outcast status hereditarily, meaning even their descendants are unable to break out of this imposed status. The discrimination they suffer is severe: “Pappachi would not allow paravans in the house. Nobody would. They were not allowed to touch anything that touchables touch” (Roy 73). They are considered unclean and are generally unwanted, forced to take spiritually contaminating employment, such as bodily funeral perpetration or pest extermination (Mayell). It is unsurprising, therefore, that many untouchables would seek to join a new culture or religion like Christianity to escape from their situation. Under British colonialism that is precisely what some of them do: “When the British came…a number of paravans…(among them Velutha’s grandfather, Kelan) converted to Christianity and joined the Anglican church to escape the scourge of untouchability” (Roy 74). It is clear how those with little status in society are the ones clamoring for a new culture or a new religion, as a shifting power structure can only improve their lives. However, while in Things Fall Apart the new converts are treated with a sort of gawking amusement by the rest of society, particularly within their small communities, where members are pleased to be rid of them, in The God of Small Things, Roy showcases that the old culture’s sway is indeed much stronger and their new religion is unable to protect the untouchables from old prejudices: “It didn’t take them long to realize that they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They were made to have separate churches, with separate services and separate priests” (Roy 74). In contrast to how one culture gives way to another in Nigeria, in India it just adds another layer of complexity to the culture rather than removing what came before. The touchable Christians are Brahmins, the highest of the castes “believed that they were descendants of the one hundred brahmins whom saint Thomas the apostle converted to Christianity” ( Roy 66). Although they take on a new religion, they do not cast aside their high status as Brahmins. These new converts do not see the Christianized untouchables as fellow Christians. Instead they continue to view them as socially untouchable, reinforcing the caste system even within the massive changes brought by colonial control. Although the untouchables are now able to attend school, they are not expected to be anything more than laborers. Mammachi, the grandmother of the family notices Velutha’s talents and persuades his father to send him to a school that her father-in-law built, however, years later, she remarks: “if only he hadn’t been a paravan, he might of become an engineer” ( Roy 75). They are trapped in the prison of their caste and nothing, not even conversion or education, allows them to escape. While charity is given to the untouchables in the form of schooling, the higher caste converts expect an unquestioned loyalty and obedience from them afterwards (Roy 77). In this way, the outcasts are not given a new status, merely a marginally better life than they had before, but one where they remain unable to challenge their societal superiors.

It is clear that the outcasts in Things Fall Apart wholeheartedly adopt the new culture that is presented to them and thrive in it. These people have not joined the colonial apparatus out of fear. Rather, they have willingly joined out of a desire to access new opportunities. Whereas before they were only “empty men,” as Christian converts with an English education, they have become court messengers and court clerks (Achebe 171). They gain a new status that has been created by the new culture and use this to assert power over the ones who used to have power of them. However, in India, the untouchables have gained very little from their conversion to Christianity. The new culture retains its previous prejudices and continues to have a much stronger hold over the population. In Achebe’s work, we see cultural obliteration that is irrevocably changing a society. In contrast, Roy depicts the assimilation of culture and the prevention of outcasts to escape their fate. In comparing Things Fall Apart to The God of Small Things, it seems that in Africa the presence of Christianity has offered outcasts an escape, whereas in India it has given them only false hope in a society that continues to treat them with disdain.

Obliteration/Assimilation

For the first half of Things Fall Apart, the reader is introduced to Nigerian Igbo culture, the oral traditions of stories, the proverbs said to one another, the oracles, and the superstitions. This precolonial lens creates the world that Okonkwo and his family live in. As the book was first composed in English, it can be assumed that Achebe expects the reader to have little knowledge of Igbo culture. Indeed the first half of the novel is a cultural feast for the reader in this regard. However, over the course of the novel we see how things slowly change and how things fall apart. In fact, the last line of the book is from the perspective of the English District Commissioner of Umuofia “He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (Achebe 197). At this final point, we see that this rich and detailed African world is, to the Europeans, a mere academic article of repressing a different people. Any goodwill one may have thought the Europeans had brought is eradicated as it is shown they have absolutely no respect for this culture and view any resistance as something to be pacified. Igbo culture is gone and now we are witnessing familiar European scholarly traditions taking over. However, In Things Fall Apart, as the colonization depicted in the novel is a recent event, the acquisition of language is not dealt with in depth. Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in his book Decolonising the Mind talks about the importance of how language can be used to subjugate people. He states that “language was the most important vehicle through which that power fascinated and held the soul prisoner. The bullet was the means of physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation” (Thiong’o 9). Whereas language as a tool of subjection is not fully explored in Things Fall Apart, it is quite prevalent in The God of Small Things.

In India, the English language has been assimilated in the culture as a sign of importance; the local communist party leader, Comrade Pillai, when meeting Chacko, insists they speak in English, to show that he, too, is educated (Roy 273). Despite being a communist, he shows his envy for bourgeoisie culture and the exchange seems like a piece of upper-class warfare, with him showing off his children’s knowledge in their recitation of English poems and Shakespeare, despite his children having no idea what they are actually saying (Roy 275). Their knowledge of their own culture seems to come a far second compared to the knowledge of their former colonizers. For communists tasked with overthrowing the upper classes, they overtly fixated on elite viewpoints. Chacko prides himself on his Rhodes scholarship to Oxford and his credentials, but his Oxford degree has hardly helped him in life. There is a loss of self-confidence and identity; Chacko goes to two universities, in Delhi and then to Oxford, but we never hear him talk about his university experience in Delhi. Clearly it means less to him than the old intellectual seat of imperial power in Oxford. He even admits how Indians admire the British at the expense of being proud of themselves: “Our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves” (Roy 53). This is even more poignant when Ammu reminds her brother that he married one of their conquerors (his English ex-wife) (Roy 53). It is also interesting that when the reverse has happened, when an Englishman “goes native” by learning the local languages and adopting Indian dress, he is portrayed as a madman who lives a life of debauchery and sin (Roy 52). He is not commended for learning their language; he is reviled for stooping so low, for betraying his privilege (Roy 52). When Indians learn English and dress and act like Englishmen, they are portrayed as men of class. To do the opposite is to be considered insane. The very fact that this is the case portrays that their minds have been colonized to the point that they have degenerated their own culture and have fully accepted an admiration of British culture. Yet, it is an assimilation of the new culture rather than an obliteration of the old. These Indian converts have kept their own language and, unlike Okonkwo’s son, have not changed their names to reflect a more European Christian background. They retain some parts of the old culture yet it is clear that speaking English is seen as a status symbol. To know the literature and culture of the former colonizer is respected in ways their own culture is not. In many ways, it echoes the teachings of the famous philosopher Frantz Fanon who declared “There is no help for it: I am a white man. For unconsciously I distrust what is black in me, that is, the whole of my being” (Fanon 162). This observation underscores what plagues men like Comrade Pillai in The God of Small Things; they despise what they are and seek to be the other. Pillai is a proletariat who aspires to be bourgeois; Chacko is an Indian who aspires to be English.

Communism is used as an example of how another new culture again fails to break the cycle of inequality in society, just like Christianity. In The God of Small Things, as Christianity has not given the untouchables the freedom they seek, many have turned to another foreign belief system with near religious zeal. They have become converts to communism. Although it is an ideology and not a religion, Roy states how similar they are: “Marxism was a simple substitute for Christianity. Replace God with Marx, Satan with the bourgeoisie, Heaven with a classless society, the church with the party, and the form and purpose of the journey remained similar” (Roy 66). At its core, communism is concerned with redistributing power, wealth, and status. Those with nothing take on those with everything. One would think this would include changing the status of the untouchables. But Comrade Pillai is shown to be selfish and greedy, using communism only to benefit himself. Years later, when he thinks about his part in Velutha’s death, he recollects that he “didn’t hold himself responsible for what happened. He dismissed the whole business as the Inevitable Consequence of Necessary Politics. The old omelette and eggs thing” ( Roy 14). Meanwhile, Velutha is a card-carrying member of the communist party, but his party chairman, Pillai, does little to help him and seems to do even less to improve the status of the untouchables (Roy 121). The chairman even complains that he cannot allow untouchables in his household because his wife would not allow it (Roy 278). In his sidestepping of responsibility, he passes the blame across gendered and economic lines, where the responsibly is anyone’s but his own. He tells Chacko that having an untouchable on the workforce is bothering the other workers so he should let him go: “Whatever job he does, carpenter, or electrician…for them he is just a Paravan. It is a conditioning they have from birth. This I myself have told them is wrong. But Frankly speaking, Comrade, Change is one thing. Acceptance is another” (Roy 279). He is not interested in sorting out the problems with caste and is, therefore, part of the problem. Marxism, like Christianity, provides little comfort for the untouchables, and they are exploited as they have always been. It is equally telling that before the police go searching for Velutha on the false charge that he attempted to rape higher status women, they go to Comrade Pillai first to see if Velutha is protected by the communist party (Roy 262-263). Pillai knows the allegation to be false but he does not inform the police (Roy 262). He sees no personal gain in helping an untouchable like Velutha, despite him being a fellow communist, and in so doing Pillai condemns Velutha to death. The old ways of caste have supremacy over the comradeship of the party.

The ways in which language has brought in a new way to denote class, how a society views itself as inferior, and how new cultures can still bring change but not full acceptance all combine to within these two novels to underscore just how damaging colonization can be to a society. For Okonkwo, his culture and traditional way of life is pushed aside with the full adoption of another, leaving him behind. In The God of Small Things, Velutha is merely a pawn to be used by the already entrenched higher statuses in their schemes and ideas for increased power and wealth. Both men react against these powers over their lives, and both men meet tragic ends.

The Sacrifice of Velutha and Okonkwo

Okonkwo built his legacy from the ground up. Achebe tells us that Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was a wastrel of a man, preferring to drink and sing rather than do an honest day’s work. Due to his lifestyle “his wife and children had barely enough to eat”(Achebe 5). Growing up in this way, Okonkwo despises his father. Men in Umuofia gain prestige by their titles, their prowess in battle, and the number of wives they can accumulate. When Okonkwo leaves his village and comes back after the European infiltration, his lifelong achievements are now worth nothing. His people no longer fight wars, so his martial abilities are worthless. His son who is entranced by Christianity suddenly has a place in society and is learning how to read, rather than learn to become a warrior like his father.

For the proud, courageous Okonkwo, adapting and accepting what Umuofia has become is too great a feat. When a meeting is called to discuss the situation with the Europeans, the colonial police storm in. Okonkwo, the warrior, fights back (Achebe 194). However, only he alone fights. The other village leaders and elders, having stayed in Umuofia as it slowly transitioned under colonial rule, do not physically resist. Okonkwo knows it is the end. He knows there is no hope for him or his people to regain the old ways. And thus he hangs himself.

His suicide logically fits the progression in Things Fall Apart, as there is no longer a space left for Okonkwo. It is a double tragedy, as it prevents him from being buried by his own people. Although Igbo society has been significantly altered by colonial incursion, Achebe informs the reader that one significant precolonial taboo remains. As Okonkwo’s friend Obierika states in the novel’s climax: “It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, only strangers may touch it” (Achebe 196). It seems out of place for Okonkwo to commit such a shameful act, considering he spent his entire life trying to eradicate the societal stigma of his lazy father Unoka. However, Okonkwo has, in his final act, shown that he no longer cares for cultural connections, as his society is one he no longer recognizes. As Okonkwo puts it, “worthy men are no more” (Achebe 189). His violent resistance to the colonial administrators goes nowhere. His spirit has been broken, and he can no longer go on. Okonkwo finds he is no longer a valued member of society despite spending his entire life trying to gain his position. Okonkwo has lost everything. His culture is diminished before his eyes and his place in it fades to nothing. For Okonkwo, everything has fallen apart.

In The God of Small Things, Velutha’s crime is that he engages in an illicit romance with Ammu. Both characters are marginalized by their society due to their breaking of its social norms. Ammu’s divorce from her abusive husband, Baba, has ostracized her. Yet, her brother Chacko is freely able to sleep with his workers. These relationships are such an open secret in the family that a private entrance is built so he can have his liaisons without disturbing the rest of the family (Roy 169). Chacko and Ammu’s mother even pays the women Chacko sleeps with so they will remain silent (Roy 169). In fact, Roy depicts these affairs ambiguously, so that it is never entirely clear if they are consensual. Yet Chacko can get away with it, because he is a man and he is of a higher status. On the other hand, Ammu sleeps with their untouchable handyman and is confined in a room for it. For a touchable man to have extramarital relations is overtly accepted, possibly even expected, but for a female to do the same is considered to be one of the greatest societal taboos. For her unforgivable actions of having sexual relations with an untouchable, Ammu becomes a persona non-grata in her family. Ammu has been ill treated for much of her life. She was never given an education because her parents merely expected her to get married (Roy 38), whereas Chacko was sent to Oxford University. Being a divorcee with children in a conservative society makes her feel trapped and ostracized. She is regarded with suspicion as “A woman that they had already damned, now had little left to lose, and could, therefore, be dangerous” (Roy 44). This, in part, explains why she is drawn to Velutha, her “God of small things.” They are both damned and trapped in their societal positions. Velutha is killed by the police, not for what he has done (having sexual relations outside your caste only breaks cultural taboos, not legal ones), but for what he represents—an anomaly in the system. Velutha is an untouchable who does not act like an inferior. His father, who is described as an “Old World Paravan” (Roy 76), dislikes the way that his son behaves: “Perhaps it was just a lack of hesitation. An unwarranted assurance. In the way he walked. The way he held his head. The quiet way he offered suggestions without being asked” (Roy 76). An untouchable who refuses to bow down to the system, despite Christianity and communism not giving him the freedom it originally promised, Velutha still seeks a life of his own. When the police come to arrest him, they have no need to beat him, as he is asleep when they find him. Yet he is savagely beaten to death. Roy informs us: “They were not arresting a man, they were exorcising fear…They were merely inoculating a community against an outbreak” (Roy 309). He is made an example of, the culture defending itself against those who would subvert its norms. The police act as a personification of its reactive element.

Conclusion

Each novel evokes sadness and neither end on an uplifting note; daring to challenge the system destroys Okonkwo, Velutha, and Ammu. Both novels, in their own way, highlight how the strict rules of culture and dogmatic beliefs uproot and yet entrench social hierarchies. Both novels tell a story of change, of pain and suffering. Each novel has deeply depressing outcomes, Okonkwo commits suicide, Ammu dies alone in a motel, and the police beat Velutha to death. Postcolonial literature, due to its subject matter and the systems under which it is produced, in many ways is rarely positive. So much culture and knowledge has been lost or subverted and the outcome is often a culture living in contradiction to itself. A new culture can create a space for the downtrodden in society to overcome their obstacles and experience a new way of life. Conversely, the established elites of the old culture can become outcasts and struggle to adapt to their new position, stuck in a fixation to the past while society rapidly shifts around them. However, the imposition of a new culture creates fractures where the elite in society can coopt to entrench their power and position and deny that right to others. Colonization creates a choice, one of either assimilation, of taking parts of the old culture and merging it with the new, or of obliteration, with the old culture being swept away forever. The process of colonization can be rather sudden and its effects on culture severe. Okonkwo, in the space of only a few years, saw Christianity ravage his community. Eventually his entire family converts to the new religion. White men, who at the start of the novel are a myth, are the ones fully in control of his village by the novel’s conclusion. In India, while the British are gone, the legacy of colonialism is everywhere in society. Speaking English and knowing English culture is used to increase status and prestige. The traditional customs that are adhered to are those separating individuals in terms of class and caste. Those who resist the eradication of their culture or seek to oppose the limits placed upon them are not tolerated. Okonkwo, Velutha, and Ammu all share this fate. They fight against the tide of societal expectations, and are made examples of, martyrs to the cause, but tragic to the end. Obliterated and Assimilated. The choice was not theirs to make, the clash of their culture made it for them.

Note

Works Cited