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When we read Ryan West's views on Charles Dickens who wrote with the express intention of moving people to do something and he was able to affect individuals and institutions alike, and that his novels take us to the most miserable London underworld, with its jails, opium-dens, slums and work-houses. In this setting, Dickens exposes the failure of the Victorian social system, ineffective justice and bureaucracy, the power of money, the cruelty and stupidity of the school system, and above all, the exploitation of children. Basically, this Dickensian spirit can be clearly seen in Aravind Adiga's 2008 Man Booker Prize-winning novel 'The White Tiger'. Both have achieved a considerable reputation as a TRUE CRITIC OF SOCIETY. Dickens wrote about England and Adiga about India. Both share a perfect similarity of presenting the ideally harsh and gloomy darkness of the place.
‘THE WHITE
TIGER’
This blog post aims to explore certain points assigned by our professor as a thinking activity task as the productive and worth pondering end of the unit. Click here to enjoy in-depth reading of the text and to navigate to the teacher's blog titled- Presentation and Quiz on Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger'.
1. How far do you agree with India represented in the novel The White Tiger?
The novel 'The White Tiger' shows the true and realistic picture of India. According to Adiga, there are two Indias in one India in this 21st century. One is dark and the other one is light. Adiga has successfully portrayed the struggling journey of a man with serious servitude, from darkness to light taking the path of amorality. The novel dealt with some utter malign nature of dark India and the sociocultural rottenness. It can best be put to words in this manner-
"Aravind Adiga kind of writers are necessary. They awaken us from our sleep. They break the frozen snow of our 'sukoon'. And such writers are found in all countries, cultures and languages. U.R. Anantmurty does same in Kannada language. Not for awards from West, Dickens (England), Dostoevsky (Russia), O'Neill, Tennesse Williams (both in America), Taslima Nasrin (Bangladesh) - and innumerable film-makers have tried to clean the gutters of their socio-cultural rottenness. Thus, Adiga cannot be discarded on the ground of postcolonial process of decolonizing the mind - and thus stop to flatter the egos of Westerners."
I thoroughly agree with India represented in the novel. It fulfils all the requirements of true art. The dark part of India unconsciously is subjugated under the service of the light. One of the harsh things that the novel brings to light is the great divide of a democratic nation like India- the poor-rich divide that surrounds India in the backdrop of economic prosperity. Adiga believes that the servant-master system implies two things: One is that the servants are far poorer than the rich—a servant has no possibility of ever catching up to the master. And secondly, he has access to the master—the master’s money, the master’s physical person. Yet crime rates in India are very low. The reason for this may be what Adiga writes is -
"with black intertwining snakes painted on all its sides—the temple. Inside, you will find an image of a saffron-coloured creature, half man half monkey: this is Hanuman, everyone's favourite god in the Darkness. Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was the faithful servant of the god Rama, and we worship him in our temples because he is a shining example of how to serve your masters with absolute fidelity, love, and devotion."
(Adiga, 19)
Adiga further questions this mentality of servitude very brilliantly by saying if we are foisted by these kinds of gods than how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India? If the gods, whom we devote sincerely are already in deep servitude than how will be able to make ourselves capable to achieve freedom- freedom from mental slavery, freedom to fight back against tradition, freedom to act rationally and not emotionally, How?
Hence, it can be said that the gods which we have created are responsible for the poor-rich divide in India. We can't easily escape from our narrow religious wall. It can be assumed to an extent that Democracy and Religion in India are responsible for this poor-rich divide. Democracy, merely because India's democratic system makes the rich more richer and the poor more poorer, and rooted religion is making people submissive or dependent on it as it is explained above. Along with other issues like poverty, disease, corruption, injustice, bribe, politics, these two institutes are severely criticized in the novel, which actually is ruling a country like India and Adiga has clearly observed this through the critical lens in 'The White Tiger'.
In a nutshell, Adiga paints a snide and dull picture of India in order to bring out the grave truth behind his delineation of the country.
2. Do you believe that Balram's story is the archetype of all stories of 'rags to riches'?
I believe that Balram's story is the archetype of one of the stories of 'rags to riches'. Balram Halwai represents everyman. His struggle is the struggle of every human being.
Rags to riches refer to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. Balram's story is the story of all half-baked Indians trying to achieve success. Moreover, he struggles with the conflict of instinct versus desire in order to rise above the darkness and step on the light. His conflict leads him to an unethical and amoral way to murder his employer (the son of one of the landlords).
Rags to riches fall under the category of Bildungsroman. It records the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, or Tom Jones, is a comic novel by Henry Fielding. The novel falls under the category of 'rags to riches' which is surrounded by the theme of 'virtue rewarded and evil punished' and provides a moral lesson of virtue. But Balram's story moves with a different pace and texture. The protagonist, Balram takes a shortcut to reach the height of richness. The deep urge to survive in the dark in order to reach the light motivates him to choose the wrong path, which according to him is the prefect plan. Like bildungsroman, Balram's story has the element of psychological growth but lack morality. It serves the spirit of the time that if one wants to survive in today's world then he can follow an amoral way. But again, it is an utter threat to humanity.
Just because Balram Halwai was able to travel the "rags to riches" road, being the great observer and a fast learner, helped him in becoming an entrepreneur doesn't mean that the poor class masses shall follow Balram's story to achieve a steady life. Halwai's success is achieved through amoral acts.
3. "Language bears within itself the necessity of its own critique, deconstructive criticism aims to show that any text inevitably undermines its own claims to have a determinate meaning, and licences the reader to produce his own meanings out of it by an activity of semantic 'freeplay' (Derrida, 1978, in Lodge, 1988, p. 108). Is it possible to do a deconstructive reading of The White Tiger? How?
“The is nothing outside of the text”
The above-mentioned statement by Derrida can be read as any text possesses within itself the meanings to be constructed by the readers. A text can therefore have a multitude of meanings.
One of the statements from the novel can prove the whole story as an imaginative thing that partially can be true or untrue. Halwai states that he is a half-baked Indian. He couldn't complete schooling and therefore he keeps assuming what others are thinking/talking about him.
"The Autobiography of a Half-Baked Indian." That's what I ought to call my life's story.
-(Adiga)
Hence, this statement may destroy the essence of the novel that what we have seen through Balram's narration may be partly true.
4. With ref to the screening of the Netflix adaptation:
(i) write a review of the film adaptation of The White Tiger
From the perspective of the movie watcher, Raman Bahrani's film 'The White Tiger' has highlighted several hidden elements of the New India of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The film opens up with a car accident and leaves the viewers gobsmacked to correspond the situation. Watching the film alone without reading the book, gives an insight of the dark facades of the New India as well as certain scenes like the slums behind the highrise buildings, the metropolitan areas where some interesting activities happen directly or indirectly related to corruption. Hence, the camera plays a vital language in the film in highlighting the scenes.
Well, the film is adapted from Aravind Adiga's 2008 novel 'The White Tiger'. So, from a reader's perspective, the film lacks certain subtleties which the book minutely explores.
(ii) Have you identified any difference in the novel and the adaptation? Does it make any significant difference in the overall tone and texture of the novel?
Raman Bahrani's film 'The White Tiger', though a very insightful attempt of adaptation, cannot be considered as a faithful adaptation. The tone and the texture of the film is comparatively similar to that of the book but there are some aspects that the film fails to portray. Additionally, the director has used artistic liberty in some scenes.
The novel opens with the introduction of Balram Halwai whereas the film opens up in 2007 Delhi with Pinky madam driving car which hits a child causing its death.
Furthermore, Adiga has successfully captured the real essence of blind belief and hypocrisy of people. At one point he even makes a very critical comment on Buddha, which reads as-
"It was a story of the Buddha. One day a cunning Brahmin, trying to trick the Buddha, asked him, "Master, do you consider yourself a man or a god?" The Buddha smiled and said, "Neither. I am just one who has woken up while the rest of you are still sleeping." I'll give you the same answer to your question, Mr. Jiabao. You ask, "Are you a man or a demon?" Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are still sleeping, and that is the only difference between us. I shouldn't think of them at all. My family."
Moreover, Adiga also attacks the tradition. On one side there are great poets from Islamic traditions and on the other side, today we don't witness such liberating ideas practiced by the community.
"By the way, Mr. Premier: Have you noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It's a puzzle, isn't it? If you ever figure these people out, send me an e-mail."
The film fails to capture these nuances and locates the texture in a different manner. The real essence of the book is in the words-
"You were looking for the keys but the door was always open".
The Muslim bookseller explain this lines to Balram Halwai and in the film this line is uttered by Pinky madam. So, the shift from the bookseller to Pinky madam can be considered as overrated step.
(iii) David Ehrlich in his review write this - Ramin Bahrani’s Netflix Thriller Is a Brutal Corrective to ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Why is it a 'corrective'? What was the error in Slumdog Millionaire that it is corrected? (Read here - https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/the-white-tiger-review-netflix-1234607623/ )
David Ehrlich in his review write this - Ramin Bahrani’s Netflix Thriller Is a Brutal Corrective to ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Slumdog Millionaire provides a clear picture of the slums of India and the struggle to survive in the dark side of the developing country. But the film also moves with a love story element which perhaps makes it a similar movie like of a Bollywood cinema. The White Tiger does not have that theme and is faithfully drawing the dark India. In Slumdog Millionaire, the ending of the films seems somewhat unrealistic because of the change of heart of the Salim. This change is sudden and accidental- without any cause or effect and hence, the ending of the film is happy- infavour of the protagonist, which rarely can happen in real life. Whereas in The White Tiger, Balram Halwai haven't got caught but there's a constant fear of him getting caught by the police. It ends with no surity. Therefore, the end is realistic. Hence it can be said that Slumdog Millionaire had an error of a fairy tale ending which The White Tiger corrects.
References-
Adiga, Aravind, and Andreas Petermeier. The white tiger. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2010.
West, Ryan. English Literature: Nineteenth Century. Scientific e-Resources, 2018.
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