How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Then [Baby Kochamma] shuddered her schoolgirl shudder. That was when she said: How could she stand the smell? Haven't you noticed? They have a particular smell, these Paravans. (13.129)
Like Mammachi, Baby Kochamma has a heap of prejudices against other social classes, and these prejudices run deep. By disparaging Velutha out loud and saying that his smell must have been intolerable, she tries to show just how high class she is.
Quote #11
Mammachi's rage at the old one-eyed Paravan standing in the rain, drunk, dribbling and covered in mud was re-directed into a cold contempt for her daughter and what she had done. She thought of her naked, coupling in the mud with a man who was nothing but a filthy coolie. She imagined it in vivid detail: a Paravan's coarse black hand on her daughter's breast. His mouth on hers. His black hips jerking between her parted legs. The sound of their breathing. His particular Paravan smell. Like animals, Mammachi thought and nearly vomited. (13.131)
Again, we see just how deeply Mammachi's prejudices run. She doesn't see Ammu and Velutha's relationship as love between two people, as it might look to us. As far as she is concerned, it is as low as two animals going at it in the mud. The idea of a "coolie" (lower-class laborer) having sex with her daughter is so repulsive to Mammachi that it almost makes her puke.
Quote #12
With a street-fighter's unerring instincts, Comrade Pillai knew that his straitened circumstances (his small, hot house, his grunting mother, his obvious proximity to the toiling masses) gave him a power over Chacko that in those revolutionary times no amount of Oxford education could match.
He held his poverty like a gun to Chacko's head. (14.63-64)
The communist movement is an important sub-plot in the novel. Basically, we see people who are typically regarded as the lowest members of society – the workers of the world – looking to break class lines and fight for their own rights, whether it means marching in the streets or taking more violent measures. As the boss of the pickle factory, Chacko represents the kind of person who oppresses the lower classes (even though he calls himself a Marxist). As someone with political ambitions in this climate, Comrade Pillai can have more sway over the masses, and this is dangerous for a more affluent person like Chacko – he doesn't have the same kind of power in society that he used to.