"Rahel put on her sunglasses and looked back into the Play. Everything was Angry-colored. Sophie Mol, standing between Margaret Kochamma and Chacko, looked as though she ought to be slapped" (176). She proceeds to kill an entire hill of ants.
These red sunglasses are significant because they transform Rahel when she puts them on. They change her from the pleasant and complacent girl she normally is to angry and impulsive. When she isn't wearing the glasses, she feels a slight aversion to Sophie Mol, but when she is wearing them, she goes as far as to say that she deserves to be slapped. This is a very physical and angry proclamation for a little girl to make. And the strange thing is, she is always wanting to wear those glasses. It is possible that the transformation makes her feel more in-control of her life, whereas most of the time she is not in control of the events around her. She is like someone on a roller coaster, just along for the ride and unable to do anything to change it's course. The glasses change her perspective. They give her courage to change the things going on around her. The unsuspecting ants probably would have continued on with their routines in perfect insect harmony if it was not for Rahel putting on those glasses that gave her a lust to change something around her. The ants give her a helpless victim to take out her aggression on, very similar to the way that she is a helpless victim of the experiences she undergoes.
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