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Abstract

This article sheds light on multifaceted discrimination and exploitation encountered by minority marginalized groups owing to social laws and norms prevalent in post colonial state of Kerala, India, in light of Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things. These so called social laws not only strengthen the bonds of subordination and discrimination against women, subalterns and other downtrodden sectors in the Society but restrict them from enjoyment of their individual, economic as well as social rights and leave them to more vulnerable position. If one transgresses those strictly stipulated laws, codes and norms, he/she will be made stumbled, sometimes will be led even to tragic death. Those in power within social hierarchies subject the transcending individuals, sometimes called as dissidents, to most cruel and inhuman punishments. The central character in the Novel, Ammu and her lover Velutha show extreme kind of audacity and boldness to challenge these existing social laws and age old taboos and go to claim their individual choices and freedom and eventually end up in having their family shattered, children traumatized for the rest of their lives and finally bringing in their own decay and death.

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