阿蘭達蒂‧洛伊（Arundhati Roy）的初試啼聲之作《微物之神》吐露一股絕望。透過時空背景交叉的敘事手法，洛伊勾勒出印度伊培家族的興衰史，以及家族成員各自受困於阿慕與維魯沙因為踰越「愛的律法」（The Love Laws）的禁忌之戀所引發的毀滅性後果。小說中，洛伊刻意鑄造「愛的律法」一詞，指涉印度社會在種姓制度的運作之下，森嚴的階級隔離與性別規範。種姓制度不但嚴格控管印度人民的日常生活，約束他們的自由與潛能，更進而懲戒企圖破壞此傳統教條的反抗分子。洛伊在深刻描繪艾斯沙和瑞海兒的創傷癥狀時，巧妙運用「壓抑的回歸」的創傷敘事架構，以反覆出現的創傷場景、不完整的段落以及不合文法的語句等，作為喚起創傷記憶其導因於懸而未決，並存於家族及社會中的敵意與衝突的催化劑，以及對「愛的律法」霸權的指控。除了呈現「愛的律法」對印度人民壓迫性的規訓之外，洛伊更在小說中提供了一個有別以往探討愛的關係的觀點。對洛伊而言，愛已不僅僅是純樸而無雜質的情感，反之，愛參雜了書中角色各自為了迴避禮教，逃離令人窒息的生活的算計心態。本論文第一章闡述史碧娃克（Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak）對於底層人民（subaltern）能動性（agency）的研究，藉此聚焦於阿慕及維魯沙欲改寫社會既有的文化規範的努力，及其顛覆行為如何觸發上層階級的心理焦慮。儘管阿慕與維魯沙對「愛的律法」的反動未獲印度上層階級的回應，在洛伊戲劇性地呈現印度社會因無視此對戀人無聲的請求認可而招致的一連串致命後果之下，洛伊籲請讀者重新審視聆聽從屬他者聲音的倫理可能性，並領略此一倫理回應的急迫性。第二章挪用克魯絲（Cathy Caruth）及佛特（Greg Forter）兩者對創傷不同的詮釋框架，追溯深植於印度社會中的兩大亂源，即階級鬥爭與性別壓迫對小說人物造成的創傷。透過描述年輕一代艾斯沙及瑞海兒深陷於上一代的悲劇痛楚之中，始終無法走出幼童時期遭受的劇烈創傷，洛伊嚴厲的批判印度傳統禮教的束縛已讓創傷經驗不幸地成為印度社會的文化遺產，持續折磨一代又一代的印度人民。第三章藉由並置紀登思（Anthony Giddens）對「純粹關係」（pure relationship）的討論與小說中三段愛情軼事，探討愛不可計量的本質。在此章節，我欲說明紀登思的論述雖然合理地解釋了親密關係的理想狀態，卻未闡明為何最終親密關係會淪為仇恨，甚至成為戀人之間暴力行為的辯護。相較之下，洛伊筆下三段愛的關係則揭露了愛的陰暗面以及愛的「超額」（excess），此超額說明了愛的不可計量性—愛同時超越本能與律法的約束。而無論愛的超額最終將引領戀人至更美好或更頹壞的境界，愛無法計量的這一面向忠實呈現了人際關係的真實樣貌。

Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things breathes despair. The narrative jumps back and forth between the past and the present, mapping out the tragic downfall of the Ipe family, whose members suffer the fatal consequence of the forbidden love affair between Ammu and Velutha, a transgression of the Love Laws. The Love Laws, a term coined by Roy, refers to the implicit social discrimination and sexual regulation of the caste system in India. The enforcement of the caste system delimitates people’s everyday life, restrains their personal freedom and potential, and further punishes those who attempt to temper with it. Focusing on Estha’s and Rahel’s inability to work through the trauma inflicted by Ammu and Velutha’s transgression, Roy structures her novel in terms of the “return of the repressed,” with reiterated traumatic scenes, fragmented passages, and ungrammatical phrases, etc., serving as both catalysts to trigger traumatic memories of unresolved familial conflicts and indictment of the oppressive power of the Love Laws. Other than demonstrating the disciplinary force of the Love Laws, Roy also proffers a different view to explore the underside of love as love is not merely a pure affection but it also involves the lovers’ calculating move to flee from the suffocating life each is respectively leading. Chapter One of this thesis elaborates on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s discussion on the subaltern agency to deal with Velutha’s and Ammu’s struggle to defy and escape the defiled social order and the psychic anxieties their subversive act of transgression has provoked in the dominant class. Even if their rebellion against the Love Laws fails to solicit the response from the dominant class, Roy, in dramatizing the terrific consequence of the society’s collective failure to listen to their mute demand for recognition, invites the reader to rethink the ethical possibilities of listening to the subaltern other, and to comprehend the urgency of such an ethical project. Chapter Two takes Cathy Caruth’s and Greg Forter’s perspectives on trauma as a point of departure to trace the characters’ traumatic experiences back to the two deep-rooted social evils, class antagonism and gender oppression, prevalent in the Indian society. The impossibility of redemption suggested in the young generation Estha’s and Rahel’s symptomatic responses to their previous generation’s trauma articulates Roy’s spirited critique of India’s social system, in which trauma unfortunately becomes a cultural legacy tormenting the Indian people from generation to generation. Chapter Three discusses the politics of love by juxtaposing Anthony Giddens’s assumption of the pure love relationship with Roy’s three tales of love. By doing so, I propose to contend that, whereas Giddens’s investigation of the human intimacy explains what intimacy should be, it fails to clarify why intimacy turns into hatred and how it becomes a justification for acts of violence. The three tales of love in Roy’s novel, by contrast, unveil the dark side of love and unmask its excess, proving that love is the “incalculable” something that goes beyond instincts and law. The excess of love which can transform the lovers either to be better or to be worse, displays itself as the true nature of the interpersonal relationships among people.

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