Tea Colored Minds: An in-depth Evaluation on The God of Small Things and Transgressive Love in India’s Caste System

Jillian Handley, Verrazzano Class of 2026, completed major in English Literature 

For my thesis, I examined the structure of India’s caste system and how it shapes and forms everyday life, creating tight restrictions on love. I think what primarily motivated this research was my infatuation with the concept of love. It can be found everywhere, within anyone, and lingers for years. It can be shown and represented in so many ways, and everyone deserves that invisible bond that trails amongst us all. It is such a mundane topic, but it impacts us in so many ways, and it's a common ground we can all relate to in one way or another. Almost everyone I am surrounded by has had either a great love, a tragic love, a first one, or even a doomed love.

Arundhati Roy took everything I wanted to focus on and compiled it into an intricate work of art that remains extremely relevant to this day. In her work, she draws on her experience living in India and the effects of caste, post-colonialism, and family dynamics leading up to tragedy and altering lives.

When I went into this paper, I was excited because I had never quite done something like this before. Despite being an English major, I haven’t had to complete something of this caliber. When I was a sophomore, I took a class with Professor Ray, and on the first day, he asked us, “Do you know the caste system?”, and went into great detail about the social system in the country, making for a well-informed conversation throughout the semester. Although we had spoken about it throughout the course, it still didn’t make the topic any less daunting. For me, focusing on love and family bonds was the bridge I needed to feel most at ease with during the conversation.

I found more things to be more hard than easy when working on this, but I feel that is expected and maybe even more appreciated. I love feeling challenged, but I also like adding to conversations, and I was able to do exactly that in my research. I don’t think I’ll ever speak about temporal hybridity or the bildungsroman the way I do now, but who knows!

If I were to ever expand on this topic, I would need something that can provide a new avenue of perspective to enhance the work rather than sounding like I’m repeating the same four sentences. But from my work, I am leaving with the importance of childhood experiences in shaping lives. Prejudice is taught, not born. Love is truly the greatest risk taken and the most rewarding, despite all odds.