Pappachi's Moth
by Arundhati Roy
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An extract from The God of Small Things. After Pappachi (Benaan John Ipe), a retired Imperial Entomologist, returns to Ayemenem, his wife Mammachi begins a successful pickle-making business despite being nearly blind. Jealous of her sudden success and unable to bear the 'ignominy of retirement', for he is seventeen years older than his wife and feels old while she is still in her prime, Pappachi refuses to help and beats Mammachi nightly with a brass vase, until their Oxford-educated son Chacko intervenes and stops him for ever. Pappachi's deepest bitterness stems from a professional injustice: a moth he had discovered was, through official politics, first dismissed as a known species and then, years later, named after a junior officer he disliked. This 'Pappachi's Moth' becomes the symbol of his frustrated ambition and cruel temper. The extract quietly exposes domestic violence, male ego, and the resilience of an oppressed woman.
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This extract from Arundhati Roy's Booker-winning novel raises crucial social issues, domestic violence, male vanity and the double standards applied to working wives, not through open criticism but through subtle, ironic suggestion, packing whole lives into a few pages.
Mammachi's success, Pappachi's jealousy
After Pappachi retires and moves to Ayemenem, Mammachi, though nearly blind with conical corneas, builds a thriving pickle-and-jam business. Pappachi, a jealous man who thinks pickle-making beneath a high-ranking ex-official, refuses to help and resents the attention his wife receives. He slouches around in immaculate suits and beats her every night with a brass flower vase.
Chacko's intervention
Their son Chacko, home from Oxford and strong from rowing, finds Pappachi beating Mammachi and twists his father's vase-hand behind his back, warning him never to do it again. Pappachi never touches Mammachi again, but he also never speaks to her for the rest of his life, and, in petty spite, smashes his favourite rocking chair and sews buttons onto his own shirts to make people think she neglects him.
The moth and its ghost
Pappachi's life's greatest setback was that a moth he discovered was not named after him: it was first dismissed as a known species, and twelve years later, when reclassified as a new species, named after a junior officer he disliked. Though he was ill-humoured even before, 'Pappachi's Moth' became blamed for his black moods, its 'pernicious ghost' tormenting his household and 'his children's children'.
Habit, not love
The blue Plymouth car Pappachi buys and forbids anyone else to use is his 'revenge'. At his funeral Mammachi weeps, but, as Ammu observes, more because she was used to him and to being beaten than because she loved him. Human beings, Ammu notes, are creatures of habit who can get used to almost anything, even beatings with brass vases.