BalramHalwai
-Narrator, protagonist, and anti-hero
-Rises from village peasant to successful entrepreneur
-Has significant faith in his exceptionalism, thinks of himself as a "White Tiger", not tied to conventional morality or social expectations
-It is through his alternate moral system that he is able to rearrange his life and identity
-Dark humour, cynicism, perceptiveness
-Born in Laxmangarh, into a life he considers miserable
-Despite his intelligence, forced to leave school early to work
-Continued educating himself by eavesdropping on conversations
-Progressed through the echelons of the underclass, hired as a driver
-Developed severe resentment of the upperclass, prompted him to murder Mr. Ashok
-Munna, The White Tiger, Ashok Sharma
Mr. Ashok
-Balram's principle master
-The Stork's son, brother of The Mongoose
-Handsome, generally kind and gentle
-Trusts Balram unlike the rest of his family
-Generally dislikes his family's business dealings
-He and Balram are a twinned pair, the light and the dark, but one and the same
Pinky Madam
-Ashok's wife
-Great sense of entitlement
-American, never fully accepted by Ashok's family
-Demanding, capricious, unsatisfied with life in India
-Always hoping to return to America
-Generally cruel to Balram
-Leaves Ashok and goes back to America
The Stork
-One of the four animals/landlords who control Laxmangarh
-owns the river, collects tax from fishermen and boaters
-father to Ashok and the Mongoose
-highly unethical business practices, bribes officials, evades taxes, steals coal from government mines
The Wild Boar
-One of the four animals/landlords who control Laxmangarh
The Buffalo
-One of the four animals/landlords who control Laxmangarh
The Mongoose
-One of the four animals/landlords who control Laxmangarh
-Ashok's brother
The Raven
-One of the four animals/landlords who control Laxmangarh
Vijay
-Balram's childhood hero, improved his station in life by forging his own identity, gave Balram hope he could do the same
-Bus drivers, the village boys admire his job and uniform
-Enters politics, rises in the ranks, becomes powerful politician, as corrupt and power hungry as any of the rich elites in the novel
Themes - The fundamental and often universal ideas explored in literally work.
Corruption in India
-Adiga constantly exposes the prevalence of corruption throughout India's institutions, schools, hospitals, police, elections, industries, and every aspect of government are thoroughly corrupt, bribery and fraud are commonplace
-Balram's approach to this truth involves a deeply cynical humour
-In order to escape the Darkness, and enter the Light, Balram must become a part of this system
-His victory is thus bittersweet, he has succeeded in elevating his social position, but continues to live in a country paralysed by corruption, preventing progress
-Adiga's ultimate point, corruption breeds corruption, unless a greater revolution remakes society
Globalisation
-Balram's India is in the throes of major transformation, heralded in part by globalisation
-India at the crossroads of development in technology and outsourcing
-nation adapting to address the needs of a global economy
-Balram recognises and hopes to ride this wave of the future with his business White Tiger Technology Drivers
-Force of globalisation threatens and disenfranchises those adhering to traditional way of life, like his family in Laxmangarh.
-Balram must change who is he to compete in this new world
-Adiga conjures the tension between the old and new India, suggesting that succeeding in this world requires a flurry of ethical and personal compromises
Social Mobility
-Issues of social mobility in new social hierarchy of India
-Idolising Vijay from childhood, Balram recognises the possibility of moving up in the world
-Has to confront the reality of such movement throughout story
-One big issue is how India's social system has changed
-Caste system mean people's fate was predetermined, but they were happy, believing they belonged somewhere
-The new social structure promises possibility of social mobility, while only offering two social divisions in actuality, the rich and the poor
-The poor are kept in eternal state of subservience and servitude to the rich by The Rooster Coop, now more unhappy because there is possibility of social mobility that remains out of grasp
-Balram escapes The Rooster Coop, but it requires him to compromise his ethics and personality, has to kill his master and betray his family
-That social mobility is a spectre captured only through such difficult means is a comment on the reality of a world built more on limitations than possibilities
Identity
-Story of self-fashioning
-Balram undergoes a transformative journey to construct his own identity
-Balram dedicates himself to self-improvement, willing to destroy who he once was
-Sees identity as fluid and malleable, seen in many name changes he employs throughout the story
-Novel is full of dramatic irony, Balram cannot fully repudiate the person he once was
-Remains full of unresolved guilt and provincial superstitions, reminds us, while identity may be fluid, it is also immovable
Morality
- Balram's unique perspective uncovers immorality in the servant class as well as the master class.
- He believes immorality is justified somewhat by desperation as a result of poverty
-Ultimately a tale of morality, suggesting it can be seen as rigid or flexible, Balram embraces the latter option
-To justify murdering Ashok and risking his family's lives, Balram develops an alternate moral system
-Reasons that the money he steals is rightfully his, since servants are exploited by the rich, convinces himself of his exceptionalism as "the white tiger" to rationalise his decisions
-Believing he is the only one who has woken up to the truth of the rooster coop, he feels compelled to change his life
-Balram is a manifestation of Nietzche's over-man, believing himself the moral and legal limitations of society
-Adiga suggests morality is a fluid and unfixed concept
Pairs and Dualities
-Many instances of pairs and dualities, each corresponding to one half of a central dichotomy; the rich and the poor halves of India.
-Balram thinks India is split into two halves, the darkness and the light
-The men with small bellies and the men with big bellies
-The hospital where Balram's father dies and the city hospital visited by the Stork
-Ashok's blonde prostitute and Balram's faux blonde one
-The two versions of markets in India
-Ashok and Balram
-The rearview mirror, suggests identity can be transferred across the divide, one can move from one to the other
-dualities serve to highlight Balram's transformation, the two car accidents, demonstrate how far Balram has come, was once a pawn in the game, and in the latter case he has found the power to be a representative of the more fortunate Light.
Family
-Extended Indian family plays incredibly significant role in the traditional way of life in the darkness
-Family is the core of the social unit, all members expected to act with selfless devotion to its interests
-The poor view this construct as a strength, but Balram comes to see it as a way the poor are kept in The Rooster Coop
-The expectations of family enforce limitations that can quash individual ambition, and since servants disobedience is visited upon his family, servants remain trapped by the whims of their masters, social mobility becomes impossible
-To break free, Balram must sacrifice his family
-To thrive in a modern world and embrace the potential of new India, traditional attachment to family must be relinquished in favour of newfound emphasis on individualism
Bangalore represents a new India
"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."
The Mongoose, shows desensitisation of the rich, which continues to allow them to exploit everyone.
"Here's a strange fact: murder a man, and you feel responsible for his life - possessive, even. You know more about him than his father and mother, they knew his foetus, but you know his corpse. Only you can complete the story of his life; only you know why his body has to be pushed into the fire before its time, and why his toes curl up and fight for another hour on earth."
"The teacher had a legitimate excuse to steal the money - he said he hadn't been paid his salary in six months. He was going to undertake a Gandhian protest to retrieve his missing wages...Yet he was terrified of losing his job, because though the pay of any government job in India is poor, the incidental advantages are numerous..."
The teacher is so desperate he is driven to steal from others just as poor and poorer than himself, as someone who is equally poor and desperate, Balram understands his actions.
"glistening lines of sewage"
the streets of Laxmangarh
"In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat - or get eaten up."
"half-baked"
...
"The Light and the Darkness both flow into Delhi"
"an act of entrepreneurship"
Balram describing his murder of Mr. Ashok
"Once the master of the Honda City becomes corrupted, how can the driver stay innocent?"
connection between Ashok and Balram, interconnected, pairs, twin characters, linked, the dark and the light
Symbols - Objects, characters, figures, and colours used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The chandelier
The gaudy light fixture he has in his new office after murdering Ashok and starting his own company in Bangalore.
To Balram, it symbolises both his success at becoming a wealthy businessman, and his success at moving from the Darkness to the Light.
Chandelier emphasises how desperate Balram felt to get out of poverty.
"It makes me happy to see the chandelier... Let me buy all the chandeliers I want."
Represents the wealthy who Balram has joined through murdering his master and stealing his money.
"I've got no family anymore. All I've got are chandeliers."
Balram was so desperate for wealth he not only murdered his master, but did so knowing his master's family would take deadly revenge on his own.
"I see the little man...spitting at God again and again, as I watch the black blades of the midget fan slice the light from the chandelier again and again."
Balram associates himself with the little man, so desperate he will defy God and associate with the Devil to break out of the poverty cycle. The fan represents the little man, the light of the chandelier represents the wealthy. The fan is "murdering" and "stealing from" the chandelier's light. Balram, the fan, was so desperate he saw murdering his master, the chandelier, as an "entrepreneurial" act.
The black fort
Symbol of the extreme poverty Balram is in. Represents all that fascinates and appeals to Balram about the Light of urban coastal India. Childhood fears held him back from exploring the fort and escaping the Darkness, but once he leaves and returns, wearing a uniform just like Vijay, he can see how far he has come, and feels worthy of entering the fort.
"I leaned out from the edge of the fort in the direction of my village... I spat. Again and again...Eight months later I slit Mr. Ashok's throat."
Balram broke out of the fort mentally when he spat on it from the entranceway, broke out of the fort physically when he killed his master and entered the Light. Black Fort emphasises how desperate Balram feels.
Animal Imagery
Balram sees everyone around him in terms of their animal nature and gives them animal names.
"in his place, everyone happy"
Balram arguing that the old days of a rigid caste system were easier with the multitude of identities compared to the new days of the rich and the poor
Motifs - Recurring structures, contrasts, and literally devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
The Rooster Coop - central metaphor, most pointed animal imagery that Balram uses to make sense of the world. The Rooster Coop is Balram's worldview. Allows him to justify the murder he commits, but the way it conforms to the depravity of India's underclass makes it resonate in an objective way as well.
"Can a man break out of the coop? What if one day, for instance, a driver took his employer's money and ran...Only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed - hunted, beaten... can break out of the coop."
The Rooster Coop emphasises how immorality is encouraged through the large gap between the rich and the poor.
The White Tiger - central metaphor, Balram considers himself a white tiger, a unique and exceptional creature, both trapped in the rooster coop yet poised to escape, he cannot prove his exceptionalism without breaking free, the rooster coop will never be bested by chickens, it will take a white tiger.
"The white tiger. That's what you are in this jungle."
Teacher tells Balram this. The white tiger is a rare animal, as Balram is a rare man. Balram successfully broke out of the cycle of poverty, but had to become a murderer to do so.
Purpose
The White Tiger is AravindAdiga's social commentary on the effects of the huge gap between the wealthy and the poor in India. Expose the underbelly of India. Show the paradox of modern India.
"Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence."
The wealthy and the poor live like animals because of immoral choices, due to desensitisation or desperation. Balram recognises this, calls the four corrupt landlords the Raven, Wild Boar, Buffalo, and Stork. Balram is unable to live like a human because of the poverty and desperation he was born into.
Structure
Novel is written as a series of letters to the President of China, Wen Jiabo, who intends to visit India.
Context
The White Tiger explores the tremendous disparities between rich and poor, Muslim and Hindu, that exist in post 1947 India, when the newly independent (from Britain) country is struggling to define itself and to establish its power.
Humour
Adiga uses Balram's humour and cynicism to describe the reality of democracy in India.
AravindAdiga - Born in India. Second youngest writer to win the Man Booker Prize, won in 2008. A former TIME correspondent and freelance journalist. Educated at Columbia and Oxford. Studied English Literature. Currently lives in Mumbai, India.
Context/About The White Tiger
The novel explores class struggles in India at a time of modernisation and globalisation. Major transformations in Indian society have taken place in the last half-century, from the termination of British rule in 1947, to the end of the caste system, to the economic changes accompanying the rise of new industries such as technology and outsourcing. Adiga rejects the typical "exoticised" view of India that is commonly represented in literature eg. Rudyard Kipling. Instead, the novel provides a darkly comic examination of the complications that have emerged during this period of transformation and upheaval.
"Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting in each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench -the stench of terrified, feathered flesh."
The rooster coop symbolises the cage that Balram lives in. He's dependant on his master who decides about what to do, where to go. Besides the conditions the servants are accommodated resemble to a rooster coop.
"A rooster was escaping from the coop! A hand was thrust out - I was picked up by the neck and shoved back into the coop."
Metaphor for how difficult it is for Balram to escape. Even though no one really catches him, he feels like that as he feels to have responsibility towards his master.
"But your heart has become even blacker than that, Munna."
This is how Balram himself thinks about his change of personality and character. He is conscious of that. Still he calls himself 'Munna' as he sticks to his old self.
First Person
21st century focus on the self and individualism, which Balram has moved towards by abandoning his family coincidentally. First person promotes Balram's perspective, ensures we forge a connection seeing as this is already difficult due to his murderous nature etc.
"He (the white tiger in the zoo) was hypnotising himself by walking like this - that was the way he could tolerate this cage."