Love Laws Quotes

In The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy, the love laws intervene with the family’s social life because the characters cross their social boundaries for love which breaks these laws that are set up by the caste system in India. The Kochamma family lives in Ayemenem where the caste system is dictated. Each member of the Kochamma family, Ammu, Estha, Rahel, Chacko, Baby Kochamma, Mammachi, and Pappachi, have a downfall due to the caste system, the Love Laws. The Love Laws are rules establishing “who should be loved, and how” (Roy 33). What if you love someone that breaks these regulations? Roy is trying to convince her audience that the Love Laws are inadequate to be ruling a society: “Looking back now, to Rahel it seemed as though this difficulty that their family had with …show more content…
Roy tells her audience that everyone does cross their class and break the rules. It is not simple like jam is jam and jelly is jelly, there is always a gray area where the social norms get confusing and what rules apply to who. In “Desire and in Death: Eroticism as Politics in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things”, by Boss Brinda, “Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things depicts protagonist who is ready to break social laws and die for desire, for love” (Boss 333). One who commits these unlawful acts in trying to pursue desire is also pursuing death as a penalty. Boss suggest that death and desire have no connection what so every and they are separate in politics. Love and desire are a myth and that is why Velutha’s and Ammu’s affair is looked upon as either against the government, Velutha’s side, or for a woman’s needs, Ammu’s side. Velutha and Ammu break the laws for love, they would die for it. Rahel and Estha also have this erotic desire and break their laws that govern the caste system. Roy uses a “perfect” caste system to show the disadvantages it