The Architecture of Desire: "love Laws" as External Social Constraint and Internalized Psychic Structure in Arundhati Roy's the God of Small Things
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This study examines the concept of “Love Laws” in Arundhati Roy”s The God of Small Things, analyzing how these laws function simultaneously as external social constraints and internalized psychic structures. Through close textual analysis and psychoanalytic literary criticism, this research explores how Love Laws – defined as “the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much” – operate beyond simple social prohibitions to shape individual consciousness and identity formation. The analysis reveals how characters who transgress caste, class, and kinship boundaries face both external punishment and internal psychological fragmentation. Using feminist, postcolonial, and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks, this study demonstrates how Roy’s narrative techniques mirror the psychological fragmentation created by Love Laws while suggesting possibilities for healing through aesthetic innovation. The findings indicate that Love Laws constitute a comprehensive system of social control that penetrates individual psychology, requiring collective rather than individual transformation for meaningful change. This research contributes to understanding how literature represents the intersection of social constraint and psychological internalization in postcolonial contexts.
Author: Dr. Sonia Sebastian
Institution: Alphonsa College
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7089496776
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