The God of Small Things: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

In 1993 Rahel approaches the Ayemenem temple, where the kathakali performers are asking forgiveness of the gods for their tourist-friendly act at the hotel. Kochu Thomban, the Ayemenem elephant, is tethered outside. Rahel enters the temple, where the story has already begun. This doesn’t matter, because the “Great Stories” are already familiar, yet you still want to hear them over and over. The narrator describes the Kathakali Men who tell stories of the gods, love, and obscenity. These days kathakali is no longer a viable career path, so the performers have turned to tourism.

Rahel watches the story of Karna, and the actor playing Karna is high. She muses that his struggle is not to portray the part but to escape it – he is already Karna, the god whom the world abandons, who was raised in poverty. In the story, Kunti, Karna’s mother, appears and reveals how after he was born she put him in a reed basket and sent him down the river, as she was unmarried and couldn’t keep the baby.

Karna joyfully reunites with his mother, but then he learns that Kunti is only there to make him promise not to kill his brothers, who had insulted him. Rahel then notices that Estha has entered the temple as well. They stay all night as the performance continues, ending with Bhima and his bloody quest for vengeance. As the performer brutally “kills” Bhima’s rival Dushasana, the twins recognize the mad violence as the same violence from the Terror.

Dawn breaks and Comrade Pillai wakes up, greeting the twins as they pass by on their way home. Ironically it was Pillai who first introduced them to kathakali, and the story of Bhima who searches for “the beast that lives in him.” The narrator muses that men are more savage than any beast.