POOR-RICH DIVIDE IN ARAVIND ADIGA’S THE WHITE TIGER

AMITKUMAR G. SONVANE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,R. K. DESAI COLLEGE OF COMMERCE & MANAGEMENT, VAPI

Abstract:

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, which was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2008, is singular in its fictionalised portrayal of the relationship between Balram Halwai and Mr. Ashok. The story exposes the poor-rich divide that surrounds India in the backdrop of economic prosperity, in the wake of the IT revolution. Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize winning debut novel The White Tiger is sharp, fascinating, attacks poverty and inequality without being sentimental. For this reason it is a ground breaking Indian novel. It is completely from the perspective of a servant. To describe the present Indian conditions in which poor people try to make both ends meet, the narrator uses this strange word ‘the darkness’. The novel conveys the lives of India’s poor in a realistic and sympathetic manner. Adiga held The White Tiger the best fictional writing on his home land, as this novel went beyond the organized outset of the natives and attempted to illustrate the multifarious, often conflicting and mostly aggressive impact of imperial rule in modern India. This paper attempts to analyze Adiga’s point of view about, how in India, in the present scenario the poor are more invisible than ever before; be it the resurgent Naxalite, armed rebellion in the heart of India, or the communist guerrillas, fighting in the name of the poor, are waging a brutal war against the state. The White Tiger is a story about a man’s quest for freedom. Balram, the protagonist in this novel is the victim of poverty and injustice who worked out his way out of his low caste and overcame the social obstacle that curtailed his family in the past and completed his mission by killing his master, stealing his money, and become a successful entrepreneur. This is Adiga’s painful and realistic picture of modern India.

 Keywords: White Tiger, servant, poverty, darkness, multifarious, injustice.

Works Cited:

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Websites:

  1. http://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/aravind-adigas-the-white-tiger-english-literature
  2.  http://siddharthdesai121011.blogspot.in/2012/04/depiction-of-poor-rich-conflict-in.html
  3. http://www.sanskarforutube.webs.com/ebooks/The%20White%20Tiger%20By%20Arvind%20Adiga.pdf

http://www.humanities.uci.edu/collective/hctr/trans-scripts/2012/2012_02_12.pdf