The Triple Tragedy of Ammu in The God of Small Things in the Perspective of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
Abstract
In the novel The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy’s heroine Ammu’s short life is surrounded by multiple tragedies. As a divorced woman from a high caste class in India, the significance of Ammu’s tragic death is not only the literary aesthetic of the novel that serves to accentuate the conflict of the plot, but it is also a powerful political statement embodying the unlimited downward pressure exerted by the powerful class in Indian society. In this paper, the five-order model of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory is categorised into three levels, namely, basic needs, middle needs and high needs, in accordance with the bottom-up order of the pyramid pattern and is combined with the traditional laws and institutions of Indian society embodied in the text to explore the causes of Ammu’s tragedy. Through analysing Ammu’s motives and behaviours of human needs, the readers can intuitively understand the opposition between the growing human needs of Indian women and the multiple ruling interests of the powerful class. In the process of pursuing the fulfilment of her human needs, Ammu, unfortunately, touches and even destroys the ruling pattern on which the powerful class relies, which is the main reason for her tragedy.
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