Ø Name:- Kubavat Kishan B.
Ø Semester :- 4
Ø Roll no :- 11
Ø Enrolment No :- Pg14101021
Ø Year :- 2015-16
Ø Paper No :- 13
Ø
Paper
Name :- The New Literature
Ø Topic :- Various interpretation in Adiga’s
The White Tiger
Ø Submitted to :- Department of English
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji BhavnagarUniversity
Introduction :-
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 for his debut novel The
White Tiger, 33-year-old Aravind Adiga is a journalist and author by
profession. He is an Australian citizen of Indian origin. Apart from The White
Tiger, Aravind Adiga has written two novels, namely, Between the Assassinations
and Last Man in Tower and four short stories The Sultan’s Battery (The
Guardian, 18 October 2008), Smack (The
Sunday Times, 16 November 2008), Last Christmas in Bandra (The Times, 19
December 2008), and The Elephant (The New Yorker, 26 January 2009).
Here,
Adiga wants to show that poor people never go beyond their constructed ideas of
poverty. They are poor because they never go beyond the mind set or the shackle
of poverty. Balram has the different thinking. He has different mindset. His
ideas are new that’s why he became entrepreneur and he has created his own
world and path where he can live as a master and comes out poverty.
Let’s illustrate novel as various
point of view
Ø The
White Tiger: Cultural & Social Points of Views
In White Tiger Adiga’s criticize
the cultural point of view like the Village vs. City , The Landlords Corruption, Political dogma,
The concept true Indianness, Rooster coop of Indian society, American Dream,
the Indian caste system.
“In the old days there were 1,000 castes...in India. These
days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and men with small
Bellies.”
The White Tiger is the discussion of the India caste system. The caste system in India is a social system
that divides the Indian population into higher and lower social classes.
Although said to be disappearing in urban India, the caste system still remains
in rural India. A person is born into a caste, and the caste one belongs in
determines his or her occupation. Balram gives his own breakdown of the caste
system in India, describing that it was “……clean, well-kept orderly zoo”. But
no longer because that caste system broke down, and powerful with the big
bellies took over anything they could and how there are only two castes in
India the haves and the have nots. Balram was born into the Halwai caste,
meaning “sweet-maker”, and was the son of a rickshaw puller- not a sweet maker,
because someone with power stole his destiny of being a sweet-maker from him.
Adiga brings awareness to the corrupt India caste system by
having Balram work the country’s system to get what he wants and to become an
entrepreneur by any means necessary, including murdering his boss. Balram
educates the Chinese Premier throughout his letters about the corruption and
immoral ways of India’s caste system and its economic gap. Although it may seem
that Balram’s position in society will forever remain the same, he manages to
go from a sweet shop worker, to a personal driver for a rich man, and finally
to an owner of a small business.
Balram’s quest to becoming an entrepreneur shows the
oppression of the lower caste system and the superiority of the upper caste. He
tells the story of how India still has a caste system and political and
economic corruption is still present. Balram shows the country of India in
which a person high on the caste system can bribe people such as police
officers with money to cover up murders, sabotage political opponents by
rigging votes and money, and have privileges such as shopping in a mall specifically
for those of high social and economic importance. He also shoes the side of
India in which those who are born into
poverty and low castes may forever remain there and so will their
children. Balram is a rare exception, as he experiences both sides of the caste
system and manages to move up the social ladder.
The
Darkness : Balram talks about the Darkness of India by saying that India is two
countries in one An India of Light An India of Darkness...
This line comes in the novel time and again. It first comes
in the novel like this:
“I am talking of a place in
India, at least a third of the country, a fertile place, full of rice fields
and wheat fields and ponds in the middle of those fields choked with lotuses
and water lilies, and water buffaloes wading through the ponds and chewing on
the lotuses and lilies. Those who live in this place call it the Darkness. Please
understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of
Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings light to my country.
Every place on the map of India near the ocean is well off. But the river
brings darkness to India—the black river.”
And right from this it comes recurrently in the novel. But
mainly Balram tells about the ‘India of Darkness”. He is one of those who
emerged from the India of Darkness and then enters into India of Light. At the
time of writing the letter to Chinese Premier, Balram is in India of Light; but
he recalls all his experiences of India of Darkness. In fact in the whole
novel, Balram’s deep anger for the ‘India of Darkness’ is in center. There are
two ‘Indias’ living in one India. The concern of author is to show and to
clarify the difference between these both images if India. Because the world
and even most of the people of India can only see the shining India, the ‘India
of Light’, but then what about the other India ? The other, dark India, which
is still backward with stale ideas and traditions, which is like dung-hill,
full of (invisible) garbage of superstition, poverty, unemployment, crimes,
corruptions and many other such dirt.
Ø Poor and rich divide in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger
India has always been land where extreme of wealth and
poverty have existed side by side .Ancient inequalities still exists in our
Indian, and throughout the novel we see that difference between Poor and rich
through the perspective of Balram Halwai.
Adige has presented the two opposite side of India: India: of
Darkness & Light, in which Poor people represented Dark side of India while
Rich people represents light side of Indian. But this metaphor “goes in
changing its meaning with different situation. Light & darkness go “.
In India two things are increasing together and it is
increasing speedily and that is poverty of poor and richness of rich people. In
this novel we find that how Balram Halwai suffers as poor and how Mr.Ashok who
represents rich class made him to suffer with the power of money. Through
various symbols like water buffalo, Dog, Pan, Rooster coop Adige has tried to
show the poor and rich class conflict of India.
Balram Halwai is the white tiger of the
book’s title-a title he earns during his schooling. He is the son of rickshaw-puller, his family is too poor for him
to be able to finish school and instead he has to work in teashop .and at that
point of time he asks himself that.
“Why did I grow up
breaking coals and wiping tables, instead of eating Gulab jamuns and sweet
pastries when and where I chose to? Why was I lean and dark and cunning, and
not fat and creamy-skinned and smiling, like a boy rose on sweets would be”
The Rooster Coop
The Rooster Coop
All Roosters are trapped in the Coop. When Roosters are
together they feel uncomfortable. When rooster is taken away to
slaughter other roosters become happy. But the roosters in the coop
don’t know that their turn is the next one.
Balram
considers the Rooster coop a unique symbol for the situation of India’s
underclass. It is symbolizes master- slave relationship .Balram a typical voice
of underclass man who is lived in fictive village Laxmangarh in India.A
metaphor Balram employs to describe the Indian servant/master system. One day
in the marketplace, Balram sees roosters being slaughtered next to other live,
caged roosters. The roosters know they are next, but they do not rebel. Balram
observes that servants in India remain trapped in servitude – but no one breaks
out of the “Rooster Coop” because of family honor . Servant/master system.
Balram considers the Rooster coop a unique symbol for the
situation of India’s underclass. It is symbolizes master- slave relationship
.Even though servants have frequent a lot of opportunities to chit their master
or escape from their slavery they don’t
do this and remain slave to their master like Rooster in The Cage. They feel
very happy as they get food and live in cages even though every rooster knows
he will soon meet an equally vicious fate , none of them ever try to escape. A
metaphor Balram employs to describe the Indian servant/master system. One day
in the marketplace, Balram sees roosters being slaughtered next to other live,
caged roosters. The roosters know they are next, but they do not rebel. Balram
observes that servants in India remain trapped in servitude – but no one breaks
out of the “Rooster Coop” because of family
The “Rooster Coop” then is a servant mindset which Balram
believes enslave the underclass. He explains how the Indian family ties people
to the coop, since they know that any disloyalty could harm their families. As
a result, Balram reasons, a few men in power have condemned of the Indian
population
Ø Subaltern Theory
Gayatri
Spivak in her essay "Can Subaltern speak?" (1985), does not seem
quite hopeful about the future of the subaltern. She argues, "Can we touch
the consciousness of the people, even as we investigate their politics? With
what voice consciousness can the subaltern speak?". It shows subaltern
cannot speak because they do not have consciousness. She might be indicating
that the subaltern can speak but their subjectivity needs to come out by
themselves but not by others. To speak, they need freedom, courage and
consciousness. In front of the colonizers, "The subaltern cannot speak."
The
end of brutality and the advent of subaltern consciousness is the major issue
of the novel. The reflection of the successive attempts of the subaltern
reveals the rise of enlightenment and the end of darkness through
entrepreneurship. It seems, as the novel describes that Twenty First century is
the end of repression and brutality if subaltern rise from every nook and
corner following the path of Balram Halwai. Furthermore, the birth of new name
with new identity is the outcome of awareness and consciousness that is
possible only through working space and opportunity. In addition, the novel is
the true testament that raises the voice of the voiceless, the subaltern and it
justifies that the subaltern can speak.
The
subaltern can speak if they act just like Balram Halwai in Arvind Adiga's The
White Tiger. In this sense, Balram can speak because he has the sense of
freedom, courage and consciousness. So Spivak's point is that subaltern can
speak if they emerge with consciousness. But the problem is that west (Europe)
becomes the source of subaltern consciousness. Balram developed consciousness
through different modes of production of the west. Balram listens All India
Radio, goes to shopping mall with Ashok and Pinky Madam and he is quite
fascinated with the modes of productions of the west. Balram is appointed as a
car driver in Ashok's house. He learns so many things from their life styles
and becomes conscious. At last Balram murders Ashok. Here, the surprising thing
is that how Balram became so bold and killed Ashok. He learnt a lot from their
family. The source of Balram's success is the source of Europe (West). This is
the major idea of Spivak. For Spivak postcolonial identity is not completely
new. The success of the postcolonial world depends on the western mode of
thought. All India Radio became one of the major sources of enlightenment in
Balram's life. He is quite facilitated with the means of this media as he
exposes, "All India Radio is usually reliable ..."(4). Here, his
ambivalent nature is quite clear because he hates western technological
advancement but he is using the radio developed by the west. (Panthi)
Ø Homi K. Bhabha: ‘Introduction:
Narrating the Nation’ (Nation and Narration)
• Nation
– the modern Janus: the uneven development of capitalism
inscribes both progression and regression, political rationality and
irrationality in the very genetic code of the nation – it is by nature, ambivalent.
• Nation
is narrated in ‘terror of the space or race of the Other; the comfort
of social belonging, the hidden injuries of class, the customs of taste, the
powers of political affiliation; the sense of social order, the sensibility of
sexuality; the blindness of bureaucracy, the strait insight of institutions;
the quality of justice, the commonsense of injustice; the langue of the law and
the parole of the people’.
• It
is to explore the Janus-faced ambivalence of language itself in the
construction of the Janus-faced discourse of the nation.
• Nation
is an agency of ambivalent narration that holds ‘culture’ at its most
productive position, as a force for ‘subordination, fracturing, diffusing,
reproducing as much as producing, creating, forcing and guiding’.
• The
ambivalent, antagonistic perspective of nation as narration will establish the
cultural boundaries of the nation so that they may be acknowledged as
‘containing’ thresholds of meaning that must be crossed, erased and translated
in the process of cultural production.
• What
kind of cultural space is the nation with its transgressive boundaries and its
interruptive’ interiority?
The
post colonial critic Homi K. Bhabha argues, "memory is the necessary and
sometimes hazardous bridge between colonialism and the question of cultural
identity... remembering is never a quiet act of introspection and
retrospection. It is a painful remembering...". It shows Bhabha's hybrid
personality. For him postcolonial identity is a painful remembering. The past
of the colonized people was painful. Past cannot be totally forgotten and
totally new identity cannot be created due to painful memory of the past. In
this sense the protagonist Balram's present status is just hybrid and his
identity is nothing new but just the mimicry of the west. Balram's identity is
new in the sense that he is not a servant now. He murdered Ashok. How did
Balram learn to murder? He learnt it from the acts of Pinky Madam who killed a
child hitting by her car. Isn't it mimicry? At last Balram's name is changed
into Ashok Sharma. Isn't it mimicry as well? Balram is the man of right action.
He has been a successful entrepreneur now but his memory of the past is
painful.
Here, he remembers Lord Buddha and he is proud
of being his disciple. Balram glorifies the richness of Indian culture. He
argues, "We live in a glorious land. The Lord Buddha received his
enlightenment in this land. The river Ganga gives life to our plants and our
animals and our people. We are grateful to God that we were born in this
land" . Balram believes that change is possible only being enlightened
like Buddha and even Ganga river is the source of inspiration for Indian to be
enlightened. So the Indian should not forget the path of justice. Balram became
quite radical and killed Ashok due to unbearable justice upon him. He was given
new name Balram by a school teacher as he argues, "I came home that day
and told my father that the school teacher had given me a new name...".
The issue is quite interesting here because the writer shows some sort of
consciousness that was emerging at least in school teacher. At least, the
school teachers are aware about their identity. So 'Balram' was the name which
was given by his own teacher and this name was chosen according to Indian
culture. Balram was the sidekick of the God Krishna. Balram's source of
enlightenment was his school though he studied there just for three years.
v Globalization
:-
The White Tiger takes place in a time in which increased
technology has led to world globalization, and India is no exception. In the
past decade, India has had one of the fastest booming economies.
Ø Global
Phenomena
Ø The
Novel in modern time
Ø American
atmosphere in India
Ø Balram
plans to keep up with the pace of globalization and change his trade when need
be.
Ø “I am always a man who sees “Tomorrow “when other sees “Today.”
Ø Individualism in Globalization
Ø “I am always a man who sees “Tomorrow “when other sees “Today.”
Ø Individualism in Globalization
Specifically in India has played its
role in the plot, since it provides an outlet for Balram to alter his caste. To
satisfy Pinky’s want for American culture, Ashok, Pinky, and Balram simply move
to Gurgaon instead of back to America. Globalization has assisted in the
creation of an American atmosphere in India. Ashok justifies this move by
explaining “Today it’s the modernist suburb of Delhi. American Express,
Microsoft, all the big American companies have offices there. The main road is
full of shopping malls- each mall has a cinema inside! So if Pinky Madam missed
America, this was the best place to bring her”.By blackmailing Ram Persad, the
other driver, Balram is promoted and drives Ashok and Pinky to their new home.
Ashok is even convinced India is surpassing
the USA, “ There are so many more things I could do here than in New York
now…….. The eay thimgs are changing in India now, this place is going to be
like America in ten years”. Balram is noticing the rapid growth as well. From
the beginning of his story he knows that in order to rise above his caste he
should become an entrepreneur. Although his taxi service is not an
international business, Balram plans to keep up with the pace of globalization
and change his trade when need be. “ I’m always a man who sees ‘ tomorrow’ when
others see ‘today’”. Balram’s recognition of the increasing competiton
resulting from globalization contributes to his corruption.
Arjun
Appadurai views postcolonial
identity is created through globalization. He argues in favour of a,
"globalization from below or grass root globalization...".
Appadurai's argument is that we are living in the world of globalization and
global economy flourishes through grass root level. Balram, in The White Tiger,
is successful in the global market through entrepreneurship that he started
through working in the teashop, smashing coals, wiping tables and later on he
became driver to Ashok and Pinky Madam and finally he became the master of a
car company. In the past, he was nameless and identity less 'Munna' and now he
is Ashok Sharma, a successful entrepreneur in the world of global market.
Balram seems to bring change using modern technology as he views, "we
drive technology forward". His point is that we cannot deny technology in
the process of development. Balram knows postcolonial Indian identity depends
on technology and progress is outcome of technological advancement.
v Nietzche’s
“Ubermensch” In Literature
Balram Halwai can be understood in the literary
tradition of the Nietzchean “ubermensch,”
and as such, it is useful to understand the nature of that trope. Nietzche’s
concept of the “ubermensch,” usually translated as “super-man” or “over-man,”
is a central concept of Nietzchean philosophy, most significantly discussed in Thus
Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85).
Nietzche’s ubermensch is a man of superior potential
who has thrown off the shackles of the traditional Christian “herd morality,”
instead constructing his own moral system. Having moved beyond the confines of
moral thought, the ubermensch furthers the interests of humanity by pursuing
the realization of his own singular moral code, and hence acting as a model for
those who follow.
Balram’s actions in The White Tiger can be
understood within the framework of the Nietzchean ubermensch. Balram considers
himself to be superior to his fellow men, an extraordinary and rare “White
Tiger” in the jungle of the Darkness.He believes his fate to be separate from
others of his background, since he has awoken while they remain sleeping.
“Accordingly, he breaks free of the system of
morality that binds the other people of the Darkness to the Rooster Coop.”
He constructs his own system of morals, in which
theft, murder, and a deadly betrayal of his family become acceptable and
justified actions. Finally, he rationalizes his choices by believing that he
will serve as a model to those who follow. The question of selection between
‘suraj’ or ‘swaraj’ – has become more acute now. Now the alternative is no more
visible.
•
Why letter to
Chinese premiere?
•
Is it an
anguish for the failure of Nehruvian socialism?
•
Is it an
eye-opener for both China and India against neo-colonialism of ‘capitalism’?
•
Is Balram’s
rise an ‘x-ray’ image of super-neo-rich-indifferent-middle-class and their morality?
•
Is this what
the ending of novel suggest?
•
Why no regret?
Why no poetic justice?
•
Are we living
Balram’s story in real world – the novel ended – life continues thereafter . .
.
•
The Balrams –
are rampant in our society: Global Capitalism, Corporate Youth Icons,
Corpo-friendly Political Icons!
To sum up Adiga’s The White Tiger is about Indian Culture and society. It
is open for all interpretation like Globalization, poor V\S rich and Subaltern Theory.
Works Cited
Ø Wikipedia
contributors. "White tiger." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 Mar. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2016.
Ø Panthi,
Dadhi Ram. "Quest for New Identity in Adiga's The White Tiger." 5.4
(n.d.).
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