Nobody can escape ideology. According to Louis Althusser, an individual is a subject of idealogy even before one is born (Althusser 1505). Ideology forms an invisible and absolute structure which governs our social behaviour. Ideology interpellates individuals, summoning them to perform their roles in society (1504). We see Althusser’s terrifying reality represented in the postmodern novel The God of Small Things and the colonial text Oroonoko. In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy demonstrates how the traditional ideologies of Ayememnen, namely those concerning the Indian caste system, radically change and affect the everyday lives of people. We also attempt a post-colonial reading of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko to understand how the Western ideology of Orientalism influences both authorial bias in the form of racism as well as the fictional events in the story. Hence, I argue in this essay that The God of Small Things and Oroonoko show how ideology can be used to create imbalanced relationships with its ideological subjects, creating injustice in society.
Althusser defines the State apparatus as a “machine of repression”. The State apparatus seeks to maintain the dominant social formation. Its ultimate goal is the “reproduction of the conditions of production” through the reproduction of “labour skills” and by reproducing the masses “submission to the rules of the established order” (1485). In other words, the State seeks to manipulate the proletariat and exploit their means of production to prolong their rule. It does this by intervening and repressing the “class struggle” between the bourgeoisie upper-class and the proletariat working class (1487). The State’s controls the people using Idealogical State Apparatuses (ISA) such as family and schools, and Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) such as the army and police force.
We then define the Indian caste system as an example of Althusser’s ISA which, while officially abolished, continues to oppress and exploit the Paravan Untouchables in The God of Small Things. The Paravan are low-ranking members in Indian society, despised by upper-caste Indians so much that they are not to be touched (Roy 118). Despite the constitutional abolition of the caste system in 1950, the rules of the caste system continue to be strictly observed through the manipulation of ideology. Mammachi, Pappachi and Baby Kochamma, members of the Ipe family, are perfect examples of the bourgeoisie who utilise the caste system to their ends. The Ipe family are wealthy factory owners belonging to the upper caste of Indian society. Lower caste, proletariat workers like Velutha provide labour for them. In the novel, Pappachi bars Paravans from entering their household and “touch anything that Touchables touched” (34). Other examples of discrimination against Paravans are rife in the novel: Baby Kochamma even remarks that Paravans have “a particular smell” (118). Both Pappachi and Baby Kochamma imply that the Paravans are “dirty” and inferior to them of the Touchable castes. We see the Ipe family members draw a clear distinction between the Paravan and the touchable castes. Clearly, they are making use of the Indian caste system as an ISA to oppress the lower caste members of society, making them submit to the rule of the established social order.
As an ISA, the Indian caste system functions by ideology. According to Karl Marx, ideology controls the proletariat by hiding “the reality of class struggle from our perception and consciousness”, even causing the proletariat to “unconsciously absorb bourgeois values”, becoming victims of “false consciousness” (Marx 762). Vellya Paapen is one of these characters living in false consciousness. Despite being a Paravan himself, his thinking is so influenced by the “bourgeois values” of the Indian caste system ISA that he will betray his son out of a sense of duty to his bourgeoisie masters (Roy 118). The caste system obscures the reality of the bourgeois Ipe family exploiting the Vellya Paapen and his Paravans for their labour through ideology, having them think they are inferior. They do so to maintain their superior status over them and ensure the Paravan’s continuous labour which powers their means of production. Hence, we see how the Indian caste system functions as an ISA which the bourgeois Ipe family use to exploit the Paravans for their labour.
Similarly, a postcolonial reading of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko reveals to us how the Europeans used the ideology of Orientalism to create an imbalanced master-slave relationship of colonial oppression. Oroonoko was written during published in 1688 while the First British Empire was a colonial power warring with the Dutch over overseas colonies. It is very much a product of its time – the narrator of the story is very distinctly European. Behn’s writing is very clearly influenced by Orientalism. Unlike the postmodernist The God of Small Things,which is very self-aware, Oroonoko is first and foremost a colonial text, making its ideas problematic at best and downright racist at worst. However, a postcolonial reading of Oroonoko will reveal to us the influence of Orientalism on Behn’s writing.
Perhaps most disconcerting to modern readers of Oroonoko might be Behn’s racist views on non-Europeans. Her description of Oroonoko’s beauty betrays authorial racism, a belief that the Africans are racially inferior to Europeans:
His face was not of that brown rusty black which most of that nation are, but of perfect ebony, or polished jett. His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turn’d lips, which are so natural to the rest of the negroes. (Behn 10)
Behn gives Oroonoko European features to depict beauty. His beautiful features of a Roman nose and “finely shaped” mouth is only beautiful because of Behn’s implied ugliness of African features of “great turn’d lips” and flat noses which Behn claims to possess. For Behn, an African can only be beautiful to a European readership by imitating the appearance of a white, European man. Behn’s relational depiction of Oroonoko’s beauty closely parallels the relationship between Europe and the Orient. Like how Oroonoko’s beauty may only be defined in relation to European standards of beauty, the Orient is defined as a “contrasting image” to the West (Said 1991). The ideology of Orientalism is omnipresent in Oroonoko, influencing Behn’s words. According to Edward Said, Orientalism reinforces the idea that European culture is superior to non-European ones (1995). Oroonoko, through its depiction of non-European cultures as racially inferior, can be seen as a cultural ISA, used to “control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world” (1999). Indeed, we observe that Oroonoko is relegated to the role of a Noble Savage, an African who speaks European languages and looks European. Yet his status will always be lower than a European as he is not one. Like how the Ipe family use ideology to keep their servants in check, colonial powers use ideology to oppress non-European cultures whose domination is justified by their inferiority.
The State apparatus is efficient in maintaining the status quo. In both texts, dissenting characters who try to rebel against the injustice of the dominant ideology are punished through ISA and RSA.
In The God of Small Things, Velutha oversteps his rights as a Paravan by initiating a romance with Ammu, causing his death by RSA. Roy lets us know early in the story that Velutha is very intelligent. He singlehandedly maintains most of the machines in the factory and Mammachi even gives him grudging respect saying he would have been an engineer if not for his caste (Roy 35). Velutha does things unbefitting of a Paravan (according to Vellya) like give suggestions “without being asked” with a “lack of hesitation” (35). Roy foreshadows Velutha’s ultimate fate here. Velutha is too intelligent to be deceived into false consciousness. Unlike his father, who is “steeped” (Althusser 1485) in Indian caste ideology, Velutha’s intelligence lets him know that he is not in any way inferior to Indians of higher castes than him. He knows that he is a smart and capable worker, evidenced by Mammachi hiring him as a carpenter and paying him “more than she would a Paravan” (Roy 36). Roy hence sets up Velutha as the dissenting or rebellious voice of the novel.
Velutha’s ultimate downfall comes when he breaks the Love Laws which “lay down who should be loved, and how” (16) and is punished by the State. We see the State use ISA to correct Velutha’s behaviour in the form of Vellya Paapen who is manipulated by ideology into betraying son to maintain social order (36). Baby Kochamma, hearing the news, files a false report by manipulating the policeman Inspector Thomas Matthew: She frames the story as a “sex-crazed Paravan on three women alone in a house” (119). Baby Kochamma manipulates the Inspector by framing the story in a way that would invoke his fears of a class revolution, where a lower caste member of Indian society breaks both legal and ideological rules by attacking upper-caste members. The Inspector is easily convinced as he is also an ideological subject influenced by the caste system. The wrath of the police is swiftly invoked upon Velutha. It is important to note how Roy depicts the beating of Velutha:
the absence of caprice in what the policemen did. The abyss where anger should have been. The sober, steady brutality, the economy of it all.
They were opening a bottle.
Or shutting a tap.
Cracking an egg to make an omelette. (Roy 139)
The children are perplexed by the lack of emotion the police display as they deliver their “steady brutality”. Roy likens the nonchalant manner in which they deliver punches and kicks to “opening a bottle”, “shutting a tap” and “cracking an egg”, all everyday tasks. She alludes to the fact that delivering violence on enemies of the State is an everyday job for police officers. We understand the police here are an example of RSA which functions by violence to correct the behaviour of “bad subjects” (Althusser 1507). Roy’s emphasis on their lack of human emotion shows that the police forgo personal decision making to act as blunt force instruments of a state. In Velutha’s case, he is unfairly punished. He does not commit any legal crime to provoke the intervention of RSA. He only violates the ideology of the Indian caste system by making love to a Touchable. Yet we see how Vellya and Baby Kochamma collaborate to plot his demise for the breaking of ideological rules. They use ideology to manipulate the police RSA into carrying out their bidding. Hence, we see how dissenters of ideological rules are unjustly punished in The God of Small Things.
Like Velutha, Oroonoko’s ultimate demise by RSA is caused by his defiance of Orientalist ideology. Earlier in the text, Oroonoko is forced by Behn to play the role of the Noble Savage. Later, he becomes a slave. Oroonoko chooses to rebel against this role, leading his fellow slaves in a revolt against their colonial masters. he questions why the Africans should be “slaves to an unknown people” (Behn 63), realising that the inferiority of non-Europeans is a lie created through ideology. Behn however, takes a dim light of Oroonoko’s challenging of Orientalism, describing it as “ill examples, and have very fatal consequences oftentimes, in many colonies.” (65) Behn’s writing reflects only the concerns of the colonist masters, as she is herself an ideological subject of Orientalism. She is only concerned with the results of a revolt, i.e. death and chaos. She does not consider the inherent injustice of enslaving human beings. Behn implies throughout the text that the natural order of whites above blacks must be maintained. Even the kingliest of Africans is uncivilised as compared to the civilised European man. Oroonoko’s crime is one against Orientalist ideology: trying to escape the role created for him by Europeans. Similar to The God of Small Things, Oroonoko’s rebellion against his role is quickly corrected by the militia RSA who capture and execute him, allowing the Orientalist status quo to remain. Hence we see how the colonialist powers use RSA to punish Oroonoko for defying Orientalism.
In conclusion, we see that both texts display how ideology is used to rule over and oppress ideological subjects by implying inferiority. In The God of Small Things, upper-caste members use the caste system to oppress and discriminate against Paravans. In Oroonoko, the ideology of Orientalism is used by Europe to dominate the Orient and define their cultures as inferior. Ideological subjects who recognise injustice are quickly corrected using ISA and RSA to maintain the status quo of the dominant social order. Hence, we see how ideology can be used to create imbalanced relationships with its ideological subjects, creating injustice in society.
1954 words
Works Cited
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Random House, 1997. Print.
Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689. Oroonoko, Or, The Royal Slave. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000.
Louis Althusser, “From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus”, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, general ed. Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton & Company: New York & London, pp. 1483-1491
Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, “From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, general ed. Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton & Company: New York & London, pp. 762-767
Edward Said, “From Orientalism”, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, general ed. Vincent B. Leitch, W.W. Norton & Company: New York & London, pp. 1991-2012
13 October 2020