The God of Small Things can very well be taken as a revenge of revolt - a revolt against the shabby treatment of women in the snobbish Indian order. The novel is a poignant expression of women‘s revolt against the man made codes of social decency that provides women a secondary rather despicable position in the society. Roy‘s women characters out rightly reject their encagement by the laws and regulations enforced by an extremely traditional society. They bypass these rules and try to chart out an independent space for themselves. However, such endeavours of these rebellious women fail to bulge the rigid social set up because in this society, ―change is one thing, acceptance quite another.
The society, in turn, takes vengeance on them. They are made to suffer, even condemned to death. Ammu, the main character, has the guts to defy the familial code of decency as she marries a Bengali Hindu for love and respect, leaving behind the respected Syrian Christian household in Kerala. However, her search for a dignified life ends in a complete failure as she has to bear the brunt of her snobbish husband‘s physical and psychological cruelty.
Ammu‘s leaving her husband and unceremonious return to her house at Ayemenem does not signify her defeat. She is still bubbling with life and striving hard to find a dignified place for herself and her children. In the absence of any economic support and social security, she may have opted for her parental house. However, it is just the beginning of her ordeal.