The White Tiger

by Aravind Adiga

📝 SUMMARY

🐯The White Tiger is the story of Balram Halwai’s life as a self-declared “self-made entrepreneur”. He as a rickshaw driver’s son who skilfully climbs India’s social ladder to become a chauffeur and later a successful businessman. Balram recounts his life story in a letter to visiting Chinese official Premier Wen Jiabao, with the goal of educating the premier about entrepreneurship in India.

Balram writes letter from his luxurious office in the city of Bangalore, but the story begins in his rural ancestral village of Laxmangarh. Throughout his childhood, Balram’s destitute family lives at the mercy of four cruel, exploitative landlords, referred to as “The Animals”: The Raven, The Stork, The Buffalo, and The Wild Boar. Despite the difficult life he is born into, Balram excels in school. His academic potential and personal integrity distinguish him from his classmates, bringing him to the attention of a visiting school inspector who nicknames him “the White Tiger,” after the most rare and intelligent creature in the jungle.

After being pulled out of school at an early age, Balram is left with only bits and pieces of a formal education. This leads him to refer to himself as a “half-baked” or “half-cooked” Indian. He sees his “half-cooked” education not as a weakness, but rather as one of the preconditions for an entrepreneurial spirit. He believes that having to take responsibility for one’s own education requires and builds an inventive, resourceful mind, and responds to the abrupt end of his schooling by learning what he can on the job. He claims he is not an original thinker, but rather an original listener, and pieces together an understanding of India by eavesdropping at work which transforming the dead-end and low-grade jobs into learning opportunities.

🛕BACKGROUND THEME & MARXISM IN THE WHITE TIGER

What is the Background Theme?

The White Tiger is a novel by Aravind Adiga, published in 2008. The novel does not talk about the charming, wonderful, and magical India as idealized by Western readers, but rather talks about the corrupted side of India. The story revolves around a man attempting to escape the Darkness, which is a place where a vast majority of Indians live in. In addition, these people are hindered with the constrictions of class and caste in India. According to Balram, these vast majority of Indians were deceived and was sold to serve the wealthy. The novel exposes the unpleasant attitudes and deep injustices in the Indian society, and it shows that something is about to break from all that pressure. It is an extremely critical novel, while having dark humor here and there.

What is Marxism?

According to Economic Times, Marxism refers to a social, political, and economical philosophy that analyses the impact of the ruling classes on the laborers which leads to uneven distribution of wealth in society. The philosophy was formulated by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels.

In the Capitalist society, there are two divisions or classes, which are called the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariats. The former is the upper class, who had the power to control the masses’ wages and work. As for the latter, they are burdened with low wages. Marxism is important because it encourages one to question the ideologies of a capitalistic society.

How Marxism works in The White Tiger?

In the novel, Balram himself stated that India is divided into two, which are India of Light and India of Darkness. India of Light are filled with rich people who can live their life to their desire simply because they have the money. India of Darkness, however, is the total opposite. It is filled with poverty, a green and fertile land full of paddy and wheat. Devastatingly, all this richness benefits the India of Light. Marxism works in this novel by sympathizing with the people of India of Darkness, which also includes Balram. The novel emphasizes on Balram’s journey to escape the India of Darkness by working with the people in India of Light, which is Mr. Ashok. It tells that Balram realizes and fights the injustice that occurred to him in his childhood by killing Mr. Ashok and becoming an entrepreneur.

Balram expresses his excitement as a local businessman to Mr. Jiabao who personally wants to understand the culture of Indian entrepreneurship, plus claims that his life story is all Mr. Jiabao needs to hear in order to learn “the truth about India”. He also warns Mr. Jiabao not to believe what politicians tell him, and not to buy the bootlegged American business books that children sell in the street.

From the book, Balram constantly bragging about "the truth about India" on his defeat experiences before becoming the successful entrepreneur and owner of White Tiger Drivers, a taxi company under the name of Ashok Sharma his former boss who was later murdered by him. Balram sees himself as a someone from The Darkness side of India that will be the first to end the norm of belonging in lower caste specifically as Halwai whose traditional occupation was confectionery and sweet-making.

· Reference dialogue on page 42:

The Old Driver: "What caste are you?”

Balram: “Halwai.”

The Old Driver: “Sweet-makers", shaking his head. "That's what you people do. You make sweets. (1) How can you learn to drive?" (2) "Only a boy from the warrior castes can manage that, you think sweet-makers can last long in fourth gear?" (3)"Why don't you stick to sweets and tea?"

WHAT ARE BALRAM'S MOTIVES ON WRITING LETTERS TO MR. JIABAO?

TO WHAT EXTEND DOES MARXISM DOMINATES INDIA?

· Reference dialogue on page 46:

The Stork: "What’s your last name again?”

Balram: “Halwai.”

The Stork: “Halwai…” He turned to the small dark man. “What caste is that, top or bottom?”

Balram (monologue): And I knew that my future depended on the answer to this question.

Based on the reference dialogue, his apprehension towards the future interconnected with his own caste that is brutally powerless in becoming someone successful more than a supposed sweet-maker. This alone corrupted mentality has made Balram to be even more eager in becoming the first servant to "start his life again" as someone who has power and upper hand in social class dilemma.

🧠LOGICAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MARXISM & THE WHITE TIGER

IN GENERAL;

i. The White Tiger novel's major concern on the crucial issues that are happening in India such as the Marxism and how does the biased treatment of the rich is very different when compared to those who are in the lower castes in Indian society. Moreover, the said novel depicts a chaos and survival mode of the poor to be as normal as other human beings whom deserve the social equality and fair distribution of main resources but impossible due to the Marxism that controls the system in India, specifically heavy influence on the problematic of political system itself. Additionally, it affects the mentality of the society in India regarding their meaning of life, occupation, education, social class belief, hospitality etc. Furthermore, Balram Halwai, the sadist poor also the protagonist in the novel shares his involvement with the obstacles taken to become an entrepreneur who owned a company. Ironically, the action that had been taken was an evil murder and remorseless to him as he sees that the only chance to start a new better life is by eliminating his boss, Mr. Ashok and run away with his bag full of money.

Reference dialogue on page 211 (the last page of the e-book)

Balram (monologue): I’ll never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my master’s throat. I’ll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant. I think I am ready to have children, Mr. Premier.

Based on the reference dialogue, it has been proven that Balram Halwai never regretted his killing and see it as an opportunity to not be a servant even just for a short time.

ii. The poor lower-class people in India have realized that they are just a bit above the level of slaves and that this is their destiny. They believe that the poor are born to serve the rich. Balram can only aspire to become Mr. Ashok’s driver. Even if he faced verbal abuse from his employers sometimes, he never dirtied Mr. Ashok’s name. He never tells his master’s secrets to anyone. It shows that Balram's loyalty and obedience could be equated to those of dogs. The relation from this context to Marxism is that the rich want their dogs to be treated like human beings, while the poor human beings live like dogs. It reflects the exploitation of the poor by the rich because the poor people are living a harsh life, with struggles to find jobs and basic needs. The rich live life according to their desire, robbing the poor, and expect their dogs to be taken care of with luxury and proper pamper.

Reference dialogue on page 44

There were two white Pomeranians in the house—Cuddles and Puddles. The rich expect their dogs to be treated like humans, you see they expect their dogs to be pampered, and walked, and petted, and even washed! And guess who had to do the washing? I got down on my knees and began scrubbing the dogs, and then lathering them, and foaming them, and then washing them down, and taking a blow dryer and drying their skin. Then I took them around the compound on a chain while the king of Nepal sat in a corner and shouted, “Don’t pull the chain so hard! They’re worth more than you are!” By the time I was done with Puddles and Cuddles, I walked back, sniffing my hands—the only thing that can take the smell of dog skin off a servant’s hands is the smell of his master’s skin.

From the text above, it is proven that while Balram struggles with his life being a servant who barely gets to take care of himself, his masters’ pet dogs are better taken care of. It reflects that the rich view the poor as mere servants, and that their dogs are worth more than the servants.

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