阿蘭達蒂．洛伊的《微物之神》描述微小事物構成的世界，任一微小事物和生活在當地阿耶門連的人們都有重要關連性，特別是對故事中主角雙胞胎瑞海兒和艾斯沙而言。本論文藉由重組阿耶門連此地散落各處的微小事物來審視地方、空間與人三者間的交織關係。地方之所以具有意義是因為生活在其中的人們，其個人歷史、社會關係和個人經驗對地方產生了生活空間的認知感。因此，地方的意義，應該取決於個人對地方的體驗，而不是單純地受外在環境和官方敘事的描述所主宰。個人對地方的認同來自於個人的生活空間，人對於微小事物的感受和認知形成了生活空間。
本論文第一章旨在探討人們對地方的認知主要是受到個人歷史和個人經驗所影響，而非單純的隨著地理外在形貌的改變而有所變更。雙胞胎瑞海兒和艾斯沙被維魯沙之死所遺留的微小事物禁制於當時的時空。儘管地景外貌已變，人事已非，雙胞胎對地方的認知卻始終停滯在當時悲劇發生的空間。第二章透過討論微物之神維魯沙以其賤民身份在阿耶門連上所遇到的困境和壓迫，企圖重現地方和人之間的社會關係。第三章重組地方上微小的事物再現人們對地方的認知，並呈現當地的生活空間。本章著重生活空間因地方和人之間的交互運作而生，而人的生活經驗和生活空間同時也建構人對地方的認知。

In The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy depicts a world constituted by small things, and each small thing attaches its significance with those who live in Ayemenem, especially for the twins Rahel and Estha. By remapping the small things scattered in Ayemenem, this thesis aims to explore the interrelation between place, people, and space. Place is meaningful for those who live there when their personal history, social relation, and personal experience produce life space and thus have the sense of place. Therefore, place is defined by the personal experience, not the changes of landscape or political history. The sense of place is developed from life space which is formed by small things that people perceive and conceive.
Chapter One focuses that place is identified by personal history and experience, not by the changes of landscape. The twins are traumatized by the small things that trace Velutha’s death and are confined in the space constructed by the past memories. Even though the landscape and people of Ayemenem become different, the twins still sense Ayemenem consistent with its past. The small things are left in Ayemenem by the god of small things, Velutha, who belongs to subaltern group. Chapter two illustrates the social relation between place and people through the dilemma and oppression he faces. By remapping the small things of the novel, Chapter Three represents how people identify place to produce their life space. Life space is produced from the interrelation between people and place, while the sense of place is constructed by people’s life experience and life space.

Table of Contents


Introduction………………………………………………………..……..1


Chapter One
Place and Personal History………………………………………..….....17


Chapter Two
Subaltern Identities in Small Things…………………...……………..…43


Chapter Three
Small Things and Life Space…………………………………………....65


Conclusion…………………...…….…………………………………....86


Works Cited………...…………………………………….……………..92

Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.
Barnabas, Simon G. “Ayemenem and the Ayemenem House: A Study of the Setting of The God of Small Things.” Arundhati Roy: The Novelist Extraordianry. Ed. R. K. Dhawan. New Delhi, Prestige, 1999. 296-306.
Benoit, Madhu. “Circular Time: A Study of Narrative Techniques in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 38.1 (1999): 98-106.
Bose, Brinda. “In Desire and in Death: Eroticism as Politics in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” ARIEL 29.2 (1998): 59-72.
Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and Literary Imagination. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Campbell-Hall, Devon. “Dangerous Artisans: Anarchic Labour in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and Anil's Ghost and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 40.1 (2002): 42-55.
Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden: Blackwell, 2004.
Dhawan, R. K., ed. Arundhati Roy: The Novelist Extraordianry. New Delhi, Prestige, 1999.
Dumont, Louis. “Hierarchy: The Theory of the ‘Varna.’” Caste and Democratic Politics in India. Ed. Ghanshyam Shah. London: Anthem P, 2004. 44-55.
Durix, Carole and Jean-Pierre Durix, eds. Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2002.
Durix, Jean-Pierre. “‘The Post-Coloniality’ of The God of Small Things.” Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Ed. Carole Durix andJean-Pierre Durix. Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2002. 7-22.
Fox, L. Chris. “A Martyrology of the Abject: Witnessing and Trauma in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” ARIEL 33.3-4 (2002): 35-60.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Ed. and Trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971.
Guha, Ranajit, ed. Subaltern Studies 1: Writing on South Asian History and Society. 7 vols. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1982.
Harvey, David. “From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflections on the Condition of Postmodernity.” Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Ed. Jon Bird et al. London: Routledge, 1993. 3-29.
Lanone, Catherine. “Seeing the World through Red-Coloured Glasses: Desire and Death in The God of Small Things.” Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Ed. Carole Durix andJean-Pierre Durix. Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2002. 125-43.
Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Malden: Blackwell, 1991.
Lippard, Lucy. The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicultural Society. New York: The New Press, 1997.
Massey, Doreen. “A Global Sense of Place.” Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994. 146-56.
Merriam-Webster Online. 2009. 22 June 2009 < http:// www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/life[1]>
Miller, J. Hillis. New Starts: Performative Topographies in Literature and Criticism. Taipei: The Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, 1993.
---. Topographies. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995.
Nair, Rama. “Of Roses and Rivers: Thematic Symbolism in The God of Small Things.” Arundhati Roy: The Novelist Extraordianry. Ed. R. K. Dhawan. New Delhi, Prestige, 1999. 248-55.
Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney. “The Small Voice of History in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” Interventions 7.3 (2005): 369-91.
Patchay, Sheena. “Pickled Histories, Bottled Stories: Recuperative Narratives in The God of Small Things.” Journal of Literary Studies 17.3 (2001): 145-60.
Pesso-Miquel. “‘Queen Cigars’ and ‘Peppermint Children’: Foreign Arrivals in The God of Small Things.” Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Ed. Carole Durix andJean-Pierre Durix. Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2002. 23-40.
Punter, David. Postcolonial Imaginings: Fictions of a New World Order. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
Ray, Mohit Kumar. “‘Locusts Stand I’: Some Feminine Aspects of The God of Small Things.” Arundhati Roy: The Novelist Extraordianry. Ed. R. K. Dhawan. New Delhi, Prestige, 1999. 49-64.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997.
Saldivar, Jos&#233; David. “Unsettling Race Coloniality and Caste: Anzald&#250;a’s Borderlands/La Frontera, Martinez’s Parrot in the Oven, and Roy’s The God of Small Things.” Cultural Studies 21.2-3 (2007): 339-67.
Singh, N.P. “Women in The God of Small Things.” Arundhati Roy: The Novelist Extraordianry. Ed. R. K. Dhawan. New Delhi, Prestige, 1999. 65-70.
Soja, Edward W. Thirdspce: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Malden: Blackwell, 1996.
Spivak, Gayatari. “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow Sacrifice.” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. London: Routledge, 1995. 24-28.
Strehle, Susan. “Exiles and Orphans: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” Transnational Women’s Fiction: Unsettling Home and Homeland. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 126-52.
Thormann, Janet. “The Ethical Subject of The God of Small Things.” Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society 8.2 (2003): 299-307.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1977.