A caste system.

Caste systems have always fascinated me, especially those in India, and the surrounding region...I find it really interesting, that even though Beddagamma seems so far from "civilization" there is still something like caste adhered to so strongly. It may have been just me, but there seemed to be so little difference between the classes in the village, that it's difficult to distinguish (though living in the culture would make it clearer, as I'm sure it was to Woolf). Though the caste system lends order to the village in a way, it also is what created all of the disharmony and discomfort. It's one of the reasons that capitalism, and harsh caste/class systems have always had an un-mendable flaw.

I'd also have to agree that the story, so far, has a classic love story emerging reminiscent of Romeo & Juliet- which kind of enforces the pre-/Victorian influence on the transnational modernist writers. It's a trait that I'm glad has yet to die out even in post-modernist composition.