The Small God and Foreshadowing

The Small God, the book's namesake, it introduced as the God who rules personal despair. The Big God controls all of society and the movement of the earth as a whole where as the Small God causes events that affect a human being, rather than the human race. The book begins with Rahel and Estha's life being ruled by the Small God. It is stated that "personal despair could never be desperate enough" (20), acknowledging that the tragedies individually experienced by the characters can never sum up to the tragedy caused by the Big God to the world. One such tragedy appears to be approaching as references to "The Terror" began to pile up up on the pages. Quotes like " The memory of a swollen face and a smashed, upside down smile" (32) and "lying on the broken church floor, dark blood spilling from his skull like a secret" (8) hint that both Rahel and Estha possess dark thoughts in the corner of their collective brain, perhaps stemming from memories of an event created not for them by the Small God, but for their people by the Big God.