Assignment of The New Literature
Name :- Jagruti R. Vasani
Semester :- 4
Roll No. :- 15
Enrollment No.:- 2069108420180054
Batch :- 2017-2019
Paper :- The New Literature
Topic :- Significance of the title The White Tiger
Email-Id :- jagrutivasani17@gmail.com
Submitted To :- Smt S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Significance of the title THE WHITE TIGER:-
The White tiger novel written by Arvind Adiga.
The title is significant because both balram and the tiger are distinctive and
are different beings.Balram earns this nickname when he impresses a
visiting school official with his intelligence and reading skills. The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in 10000 Bengali tigers
is white. The white tiger is a rare breed, and Balram was also marked
different and rare because of his intelligence. “That’s what you are (the
white tiger), in this jungle.” As you can see above, the school inspector
marked Balram from the beginning as unique (like the white tiger), and
Balram succeeded in showing the inspector to be right by achieving success
against all odds (poverty). Adiga says his novel "attempt[s] to catch the
voice of the men you meet as you travel through India the voice of the
colossal underclass.
Arvind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger, is a commentary on the
contemporary and almost universal theme of poverty and frustration of modern
man. Marginalized people are usually discriminated, ignored and often
suppressed on the basis of race, caste, gender, culture, religion, ethnicity,
occupation, education and economy by the mainstream. The same happened to
Balram, the son of Vikram Halwai, a rickshaw puller, who was born in
Laxmangarh, in the district of Gaya. Through the novel, the author presents the
subaltern voice through the voice of Balram Halwai, a self-styled successful
entrepreneur. Written in the epistolary form, the novel is a series of letters
written over the period of seven nights from Balram Halwai alias Ashok Sharma, a
self-styled ‘Thinking Man and an entrepreneur’ to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese
Premier who is ‘on a mission’ who ‘wants to know the truth about Bangalore’.
The novel depicts the story about a compelling, angry and darkly humorous
man’s journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. The
representation of Balram’s status in the beginning of the novel is like subaltern
destitute. However, at the end of the novel we find him holding the position,
which was ideologically and socially restricted for him. He achieved this higher
status through manipulation, murder and acquisition of wealth. The
metamorphosis in the life of the protagonist of the novel from Munna Balram
Halwai White Tiger Ashok Sharma clearly presents the degradation of humanity as
a compulsory trait of modernization. The novel is a remarkable study of politicosocio and cultural life of India.
The metaphors like ‘the white tiger’, ‘the darkness’, ‘the black fort’, the
chandelier’, ‘the rooster coop’ etc. highlights the extreme reality of India. In fact, The White Tiger is a metaphor of contemporary Indian reality with all its colors.
Animals are the best metaphors inter alia in the white tiger. The metaphors of
animals used sharply fit the situation and they depict the psyche of the people
briefly. The most striking aspect of the language in the novel is the use of
metaphor, of which the title is the most obvious example. Balram, around whom
the story of the novel revolves, is referred to as ‘the white tiger’ which signifies
power, freedom and individuality. The metaphor used in the title, The White Tiger
reveals the psyche of the central character, Balram Halwai. The White Tiger is
kingly, predatory, harmful and a rare species, resembling the nature of the
character here.
He is the one who got out of the “darkness” and found his way into the “light”.
There is an interesting story behind how Balram earns this nickname, ‘the white
tiger’, the symbol for rare talent. In his school at Laxmangarh, he impresses a
visiting school official with his intelligence and reading skills. The inspector also
presents a parting gift a book entitled Lessons for Young Boys from the Life of
Mahatma Gandhi.
The inspector praised Balram calling an intelligent, honest and vivacious fellow in
the crowd of thugs and idiots: In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals the
creature that comes along only once in a generation? I thought about it and said:
‘The White Tiger’. That’s what you are in this jungle. The metaphor of the white
tiger is in the stark contrast with the other metaphors
of ‘the human spiders’ as the protagonist himself puts
, are the tea-shop workers who never get anything in life, not even the healthy
body far to talk of materialistic things and comfortable life.
Adiga’s novel ‘The White Tiger ’is multilayered. The book is exotic, beautiful,
mysterious, colorful land mystical.
The novel The White Tiger is about a poor villager called Balram. The boy lost his
mother in his early age and while studying in school he lost his father. An
inspector who visited his school calls him as White Tiger. Unfortunately, at an
early age Balram is forced to earn money. Then he becomes a taxi driver in Delhi. Only then he sees the world of glamour and fake personalities. He decides to kill
his master. He takes away Ashok’s money by killing him and leaves to Bangalore.
India’s major problem is vast and ditched between rich and poor. A white
tiger is the rarest creature in the jungle that comes along only once in every
generation. When Balram attends his school in village, he is named by a school
inspector as the “The White Tiger’’, of his contemporaries. He is the only child in
the class who can read and write. The inspector even promises him to give him
scholarship for his further study to fulfill his potential. But his bright future is
spoiled. His family is in debt and he is forced to leave the school. He starts
working in order to pay his family’s depts.
The lordship ruined the poor not only in India but also everywhere. Adiga uses an
effective technique in the novel. Balram’s life story revealed to the readers
through a letter.Balram comes to know about the Chinese premier’s visit to India.
As soon as Ashok returns from America, Balram becomes his driver. Apart from
driving he cooks, cleanse, and does all sorts of work that are demanded by his
master. Balram points out the master-servant relationship to be the “Rooster
Coop’’ syndrome. In the markets of New Delhi, hens are stuffed into wire cages
and they shit and stamp on each other. According to Balram , the condition is
same to the poor.
Balram represents the poor, the subaltern, the illiterate, and the lower class of
India. Adiga shows the ‘darker’ and the ‘brighter’ sides of India. The title is
significant because both balram and the tiger are distinctive and are different
beings.Balram earns this nickname when he impresses a visiting school official
with his intelligence and reading skills.
The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in 10000 Bengali
tigers is white. This shows the rarity of the species. Similarly, Balram –the white
tiger is also symbolic in many ways. His actions, deeds and thinking reflect the
rarity within him. The way he encounters problems and situations in life is
different from that of others. He is brave enough to break out of his coop, in
which a massive people similar to him have been trapped in. This is evident of his
uniqueness.The entire novel is narrated through seven letters by Balram Halwai, an
exceedingly charming, egotistical admitted murderer, to the Premier of China,
who will soon be visiting India. Adiga simply uses India and the corruption and
poverty within it as a backdrop to comment on vast complex aspects of human
nature and psychology. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished
background, born into the „darkness‟ of rural India. His family is from the Halwai
caste, a caste that indicates sweet makers. His village is dominated and oppressed
by four landlords. There are currently no white tigers in the wild. Color
morphs are typically associated with rarity and separate endangered
species, which is not the case for white tigers. They possess a double
recessive gene that expresses a white coat. In China, the White tiger
represent one of the four cardinal points and the animal gods who
represent the Emperor. It is the symbol of strength, courage and war. Every
time a white tiger is born, it means that there is a right man on the throne.
The novel mirrors the exact life scenario of the downtrodden and the poor.
They suffer a lot within their limitations and are unable to come out of it. They do
not dare to break their bars because of their trapped nature under the rich
landlords and masters. If they attempt to come out of their slavery, they might be
forced to face many dangers and threats by the authoritative people. So they are
stuck in their situations. But, apart from all these people, Balram is very
courageous and different, and has made an attempt to overcome his obstacles to
idolize himself as the “White Tiger’’. He has other ways but to kill his master and
steal the money. Though these two crimes are deadly sins, Balram makes use of
these crimes be weapons, as his situation is even more tragic and pathetic. He has
not thought of creating his identity. He has remained as an unidentified and an
unworthy man. Everyone in this earth has his own rights to live his life. But in the
present contemporary world, it is not so. Only the rich can survive and the poor
always suffer. Therefore, the author has kept a suitable title to his novel.
Thus, the title is significant to the incidents connected to the novel as well as
relevant to the topic. The title is significant because both balram and
the tiger are distinctive and are different beings.Balram earns this nickname
when he impresses a visiting school official with his intelligence and
reading skills. The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in
10000 Bengali tigers is white.
Name :- Jagruti R. Vasani
Semester :- 4
Roll No. :- 15
Enrollment No.:- 2069108420180054
Batch :- 2017-2019
Paper :- The New Literature
Topic :- Significance of the title The White Tiger
Email-Id :- jagrutivasani17@gmail.com
Submitted To :- Smt S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Significance of the title THE WHITE TIGER:-
The White tiger novel written by Arvind Adiga.
The title is significant because both balram and the tiger are distinctive and
are different beings.Balram earns this nickname when he impresses a
visiting school official with his intelligence and reading skills. The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in 10000 Bengali tigers
is white. The white tiger is a rare breed, and Balram was also marked
different and rare because of his intelligence. “That’s what you are (the
white tiger), in this jungle.” As you can see above, the school inspector
marked Balram from the beginning as unique (like the white tiger), and
Balram succeeded in showing the inspector to be right by achieving success
against all odds (poverty). Adiga says his novel "attempt[s] to catch the
voice of the men you meet as you travel through India the voice of the
colossal underclass.
Arvind Adiga’s debut novel, The White Tiger, is a commentary on the
contemporary and almost universal theme of poverty and frustration of modern
man. Marginalized people are usually discriminated, ignored and often
suppressed on the basis of race, caste, gender, culture, religion, ethnicity,
occupation, education and economy by the mainstream. The same happened to
Balram, the son of Vikram Halwai, a rickshaw puller, who was born in
Laxmangarh, in the district of Gaya. Through the novel, the author presents the
subaltern voice through the voice of Balram Halwai, a self-styled successful
entrepreneur. Written in the epistolary form, the novel is a series of letters
written over the period of seven nights from Balram Halwai alias Ashok Sharma, a
self-styled ‘Thinking Man and an entrepreneur’ to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese
Premier who is ‘on a mission’ who ‘wants to know the truth about Bangalore’.
The novel depicts the story about a compelling, angry and darkly humorous
man’s journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. The
representation of Balram’s status in the beginning of the novel is like subaltern
destitute. However, at the end of the novel we find him holding the position,
which was ideologically and socially restricted for him. He achieved this higher
status through manipulation, murder and acquisition of wealth. The
metamorphosis in the life of the protagonist of the novel from Munna Balram
Halwai White Tiger Ashok Sharma clearly presents the degradation of humanity as
a compulsory trait of modernization. The novel is a remarkable study of politicosocio and cultural life of India.
The metaphors like ‘the white tiger’, ‘the darkness’, ‘the black fort’, the
chandelier’, ‘the rooster coop’ etc. highlights the extreme reality of India. In fact, The White Tiger is a metaphor of contemporary Indian reality with all its colors.
Animals are the best metaphors inter alia in the white tiger. The metaphors of
animals used sharply fit the situation and they depict the psyche of the people
briefly. The most striking aspect of the language in the novel is the use of
metaphor, of which the title is the most obvious example. Balram, around whom
the story of the novel revolves, is referred to as ‘the white tiger’ which signifies
power, freedom and individuality. The metaphor used in the title, The White Tiger
reveals the psyche of the central character, Balram Halwai. The White Tiger is
kingly, predatory, harmful and a rare species, resembling the nature of the
character here.
He is the one who got out of the “darkness” and found his way into the “light”.
There is an interesting story behind how Balram earns this nickname, ‘the white
tiger’, the symbol for rare talent. In his school at Laxmangarh, he impresses a
visiting school official with his intelligence and reading skills. The inspector also
presents a parting gift a book entitled Lessons for Young Boys from the Life of
Mahatma Gandhi.
The inspector praised Balram calling an intelligent, honest and vivacious fellow in
the crowd of thugs and idiots: In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals the
creature that comes along only once in a generation? I thought about it and said:
‘The White Tiger’. That’s what you are in this jungle. The metaphor of the white
tiger is in the stark contrast with the other metaphors
of ‘the human spiders’ as the protagonist himself puts
, are the tea-shop workers who never get anything in life, not even the healthy
body far to talk of materialistic things and comfortable life.
Adiga’s novel ‘The White Tiger ’is multilayered. The book is exotic, beautiful,
mysterious, colorful land mystical.
The novel The White Tiger is about a poor villager called Balram. The boy lost his
mother in his early age and while studying in school he lost his father. An
inspector who visited his school calls him as White Tiger. Unfortunately, at an
early age Balram is forced to earn money. Then he becomes a taxi driver in Delhi. Only then he sees the world of glamour and fake personalities. He decides to kill
his master. He takes away Ashok’s money by killing him and leaves to Bangalore.
India’s major problem is vast and ditched between rich and poor. A white
tiger is the rarest creature in the jungle that comes along only once in every
generation. When Balram attends his school in village, he is named by a school
inspector as the “The White Tiger’’, of his contemporaries. He is the only child in
the class who can read and write. The inspector even promises him to give him
scholarship for his further study to fulfill his potential. But his bright future is
spoiled. His family is in debt and he is forced to leave the school. He starts
working in order to pay his family’s depts.
The lordship ruined the poor not only in India but also everywhere. Adiga uses an
effective technique in the novel. Balram’s life story revealed to the readers
through a letter.Balram comes to know about the Chinese premier’s visit to India.
As soon as Ashok returns from America, Balram becomes his driver. Apart from
driving he cooks, cleanse, and does all sorts of work that are demanded by his
master. Balram points out the master-servant relationship to be the “Rooster
Coop’’ syndrome. In the markets of New Delhi, hens are stuffed into wire cages
and they shit and stamp on each other. According to Balram , the condition is
same to the poor.
Balram represents the poor, the subaltern, the illiterate, and the lower class of
India. Adiga shows the ‘darker’ and the ‘brighter’ sides of India. The title is
significant because both balram and the tiger are distinctive and are different
beings.Balram earns this nickname when he impresses a visiting school official
with his intelligence and reading skills.
The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in 10000 Bengali
tigers is white. This shows the rarity of the species. Similarly, Balram –the white
tiger is also symbolic in many ways. His actions, deeds and thinking reflect the
rarity within him. The way he encounters problems and situations in life is
different from that of others. He is brave enough to break out of his coop, in
which a massive people similar to him have been trapped in. This is evident of his
uniqueness.The entire novel is narrated through seven letters by Balram Halwai, an
exceedingly charming, egotistical admitted murderer, to the Premier of China,
who will soon be visiting India. Adiga simply uses India and the corruption and
poverty within it as a backdrop to comment on vast complex aspects of human
nature and psychology. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished
background, born into the „darkness‟ of rural India. His family is from the Halwai
caste, a caste that indicates sweet makers. His village is dominated and oppressed
by four landlords. There are currently no white tigers in the wild. Color
morphs are typically associated with rarity and separate endangered
species, which is not the case for white tigers. They possess a double
recessive gene that expresses a white coat. In China, the White tiger
represent one of the four cardinal points and the animal gods who
represent the Emperor. It is the symbol of strength, courage and war. Every
time a white tiger is born, it means that there is a right man on the throne.
The novel mirrors the exact life scenario of the downtrodden and the poor.
They suffer a lot within their limitations and are unable to come out of it. They do
not dare to break their bars because of their trapped nature under the rich
landlords and masters. If they attempt to come out of their slavery, they might be
forced to face many dangers and threats by the authoritative people. So they are
stuck in their situations. But, apart from all these people, Balram is very
courageous and different, and has made an attempt to overcome his obstacles to
idolize himself as the “White Tiger’’. He has other ways but to kill his master and
steal the money. Though these two crimes are deadly sins, Balram makes use of
these crimes be weapons, as his situation is even more tragic and pathetic. He has
not thought of creating his identity. He has remained as an unidentified and an
unworthy man. Everyone in this earth has his own rights to live his life. But in the
present contemporary world, it is not so. Only the rich can survive and the poor
always suffer. Therefore, the author has kept a suitable title to his novel.
Thus, the title is significant to the incidents connected to the novel as well as
relevant to the topic. The title is significant because both balram and
the tiger are distinctive and are different beings.Balram earns this nickname
when he impresses a visiting school official with his intelligence and
reading skills. The White Tiger is a symbol for rare talent and only one in
10000 Bengali tigers is white.
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