which her father stands for. Ammu’s choices somehow deviate from what are regarded common by her
family and society. As a child she also shows a strong personality, referring to her brave decision to enter the house and rescue her beloved gumboots, and how she
manages to endure her father’s beating without crying, and also how she courageously watches those gumboots shredded by her father using the pinking
scissors that she herself brings to him. It is easily said that Ammu’s bravery that she shows during her childhood is also a form of unstable emotion that she inherits
biologically from her kin. In her early age, Ammu has shown the pontetials for a transgressor.
B. Adolescence: Marriage as a Transgression
In 1958, 16 year old Ammu finished her school in Delhi and in the same year moves to Ayemenem with her family p. 19. The family moves to the rural village
from the capital city because his father has retired from his job. Ammu actually wants to pursue college education, but his father, like his father before him, insisted that
college education is an unnecessary expense for a girl p. 19. Here, her position as a daughter is a disadvantage. Although her brother, Chacko, can pursue education to
Oxford, Ammu’s interest on education is abruptly stopped. She has to follow her family to reverse to the rural area.
The 16 year old Ammu has to stay at home, helping her mother with the
domestic chores while waiting for a marriage proposal. However, after independence, being an imperial entomologist is no longer a fruitful job. The family faces a financial
decline and they do not even have enough money to raise a suitable dowry for their daughter p. 19. There is no marriage proposal that comes to Ammu, although she
waits for it as a marriage means a ticket to escape the life with her parents. The adolescent Ammu’s dream is to escape the house. Escaping the house
means escaping the abusive father, escaping the bitter, long-suffering mother, and the quiet days in Ayemenem. Marriage, that is once obligatory, is seen to be an effective
escape point. In rural India, marriages are followed with the bride living with the husband, leaving her childhood home Anupamlata et al 32. Thus if Ammu finds a
person to marry, it can be her ticket to flee the Ipe family. Ironically, the adolescent Ammu tries to seek refuge from a failure of a
household by building another household. She tries to escape her parents’ abusive marriage by engaging herself in a marriage. She tries to avoid her father’s masculine
rage by bonding herself with another man. After waiting for two years, the restless Ammu actively plans several ways to
get married. She planned a visit to a distant relation and eventually she managed to find a husband at the trip. Ammu meets her husband-to-be when she is 18 years old
p. 19. The man is referred as “Baba” in the novel. “Baba” is an honorific term used to refer to men Platts, 1884. It is a term of respect used by wives and children to
refer to the husband or the father. In the novel, Ammu’s husband is referred as Baba because the novel is narrated from her twin children’s perspective.
In the novel, Baba is described as an interesting young man. He is a descendant of a respected family. His ancestors are wealthy Bengali zamindars.
Zamindars were ancient Indian aristocrats who hold controls over vast lands and local peasants. Often, zamindars were noble people who had lost sovereignty due to British
colonization Wraxal 135. Usually, hereditary honors are still bestowed upon the descendants in post-independence time.
Besides being a descendant of a noble ancestry line, Baba also has secured a promising career of his own. He also has a friendly personality and attractive looks.
However, Ammu sees him only as a solution for her desperation at home. She does not fall in love with his qualities that normally can attract other girls.
Ammu’s feeling to Baba is shown as follows, “...Ammu didn’t pretend to be in love with him. She just weighed the odds and accepted...She thought that anything,
anyone at all, would be better than returning to Ayemenem p. 19.” Here it is clear that Ammu uses Baba as a ticket to flee her life in Ayemenem.
Five days after getting to know with each other, Ammu gets a marriage proposal from Baba p. 19. Although they have an elaborate Calcutta wedding p.
19, Ammu’s family do not give their blessings and pay no dowry. The Ipe family do not reply Ammu’s letter explaining her decision to marry Baba. An unplanned
marriage, moreover with a person with different religion, will stain the family’s pure reputation that has been kept carefully by inbreeding Hutton 64. However luxurious
the wedding be, excluding family’s role and marrying a Hindu man hurt the image of a well-respected old Syrian Christian family. Again, Ammu shows bravery and
stubborn characteristic that she develops since childhood. Nevertheless, Ammu reaches her goal of not coming back to Ayemenem. She
moves to Assam, to her husband’s working place. The young and beautiful Ammu is celebrated as a popular lady in her husband’s circle of colleagues.
Ammu, beautiful, young and cheeky, became the toast of the Planters’ Club. She wore backless blouses with her saris and carried a silver
lam‚ purse on a chain. She smoked long cigarettes in a silver cigarette holder and learned to blow perfect smoke rings p. 19.
In the first years of her marriage, Ammu enters the rapid social world full with professionals that she cannot encounter at home. She has the chance to expand her
beauty in front of people she never meets before. She also has the chance to try socialite things that suit her. As an 18 year old married woman who has spent her
whole life daydreaming of leaving a house that preserves traditional values, this is a significant change.
In her adolescence, Ammu has shown her transgression in the form of marriage. Her marriage is an unplanned marriage to a man of her choice. She has
excluded her family’s agency in planning her marriage. Moreover, by marrying a Hindu man, she disrupts the long journey of inbreeding in the family. She also
uproots her position in the family and therefore, lost her legal standing in the Ipe family.
C. Marriage: Authority to Her Own Body and Divorce as Transgression
