Anglophilia in Arundhati Roy's the god of small things and Kiran Desai's the inheritance of loss

Anglophilia is a recurring theme in the postcolonial literature, owing to the domination of the English over the colonized nations, in the past. Anglophilia implies a deference for all things English and this tendency provides a source of conflict in the novels based on this subject. Both, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, explore this theme in detail. The characters of the novels demonstrate this tendency lucidly and show how they have accepted the English superiority unconditionally. The Ipe family of The God of Small Things and the Judge Jemubhai and his granddaughter, Sai of The Inheritance of Loss are all anglophiles. Since they are completely obsessed with the English culture and English lifestyle, they imitate them indiscriminately in order to be like the English. The present paper seeks to explore the theme of Anglophilia in both the above novels and to depict the adverse consequences of this tendency on the lives of the anglophilic characters because no matter how hard they try, they fail to be accepted by the English world because of their artificiality and fake mannerism. These anglophiles lead a shallow life in which superficial things hold more importance than the abysmal ones, but this causes a sense of a permanent loss in their heart from which they never recuperate.