The White Tiger: India’s Progression towards Equitable Living Standards
Shagun Kukreja
ENG3U1-08
Miss. K Attwell
May 15, 2014
Every individual has to face the challenge of making plenty of difficult decisions in their life that can cause varying degrees of impact. __________. Arvind Adiga's book, The White Tiger, portrays a character named Balram Halwai, through which we learn conditions of the different social classes in India. In the beginning of the book, Balram feels conflicted with his life as a servant and later on makes decisions that ultimately lead to his escape of servitude. Societal disputes dealing with public inequalities, corruption and conflict between social classes continue to interfere with India's progression towards equitable living standards for all citizens. Some of these factors include political corruption, globalization and social mobility.
To start off, corruption is one of the main disputes in society that make it difficult for appreciable living standards. Corruption is prevalent throughout the story in many different Indian institutions such as schools, police, and hospitals etc., many of which are governmental institutions. The corruption in India is hugely due to the desire to get ahead and take advantage in society. Throughout Adiga's book, the prevalence of corruption in different Indian industries are greatly exposed. When Balram says, “the school teacher had stolen our lunch money”(Adiga 30) it shows that he has seen this dishonest behaviour from a very young age. Instead of trying to create a fairer and less corrupt nation, India and its leaders show no desire to do so. Growing up he gets to see more about how the society works and shows he recognizes this when he says, “They’...
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...s a chance to escape the “rooster coop”. When Balram says, “Its because 99.9 per cent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market”(pg 168) he is referring to “us” as the servants and the rest of the 0.01 per cent is the rich earning society. He later on finds a way to break out of this rooster coop but he has to compromise his cultural views, and ethics. This shows that instead of the world being a place for amazing possibilities, the reality is that the world is built more on limitations.
There are many factors that contribute to prevent India from having a more sustainable and equitable living for all citizens. Corruption to take advantage of society, globalization; introducing a new way of living and socital classes that bring limitations are only some of the factors that interfere with India's progression. ___________.
In Annawadi, the slum setting of the book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” nearly everything falls under the law of the free market. Things that most countries deem “basic rights,” the Indian people of Annawadi have to pay for. Clean water, education, and medical attention from hospitals are just a few things that are exploited by police officers, gangs and slumlords. The liberalization of India caused the country to begin a process of economic reform. People from the countryside flocked to the cities to find work in the new booming economy that no longer depended on its agriculture. With the increase in population around the bustling cities, came competiveness for opportunity. This competiveness made poverty rates skyrocket, making corruption (and corrupt activities) in Annawadi the only clear way of making it out of the slums. “In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of the country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corrupti...
Characters: The main character in The Sign of the Beaver is Matt. Matt’s character traits are responsibility, brave, sense of humor, respectful, smart, and curious. Attean is another main character and his character traits are responsibly, brave, serious, bold, mysterious, smart, resourceful, and light on his feet. Saknis is another character; his character traits are kindness, trustworthiness, fair, respectful, and brave. Next is Attean’s grandmother. His grandmother was stubborn, strict, hateful and prejudice, she hated white people. The final character is Matt’s father his character traits are to be loving, caring, honest, and faithful.
Though the world economy as a whole has grown in recent years, a factor that is not taken into account is that the number “of the poor in the world has increased by 100 million” (Roy 3). In other words, the gap between rich and poor is widening. For India, this has startling implications. Though it is a nation that is developing in many ways, it also is a nation blessed with over one billion citizens, a population tally that continues to grow at a rapid rate. This population increase will greatly tax resources, which can create a setback in the development process. The tragedy, of course, is that the world is full of resources and wealth. In fact, Roy quotes a statistic showing that corporations, and not even just countries, represent 51 of the 100 largest economies in the world (Roy 3). For a country struggling to develop, such information is disheartening. However, there is also a more nefarious consequence of the growing disparity between rich and poor, and power and money being concentrated in the hands of multinational corporations: war is propagated in the name of resource acquisition, and corruption can reign as multinationals seek confederates in developing countries that will help companies drive through their plans, resulting in not only environmental destruction but also the subversion of democracy (Roy 3).
Corruption occurs in many forms and several types of corruption are displayed in the movie. To understand some of the corruption and practices seen in the movie we need to look at some of the different types of corruption I have identified. There appear to be four main types (themes) of corruption and each type can be associated with specific characters and the people associated with them. The Characterisation of the individuals in the movie each support one of the types of corruption
Before going to Alaska, Chris McCandless had failed to communicate with his family while on his journey; I believe this was Chris’s biggest mistake. Chris spent time with people in different parts of the nation while hitchhiking, most of them whom figured out that McCandless kept a part of him “hidden”. In chapter three, it was stated that Chris stayed with a man named Wayne Westerberg in South Dakota. Although Westerberg was not seen too often throughout the story, nevertheless he was an important character. Introducing himself as Alex, McCandless was in Westerberg’s company for quite some time: sometimes for a few days, other times for several weeks. Westerberg first realized the truth about Chris when he discovered his tax papers, which stated that “McCandless’s real name was Chris, not Alex.” Wayne further on claims that it was obvious that “something wasn’t right between him and his family” (Krakauer 18). Further in the book, Westerberg concluded with the fact that Chris had not spoken to his family “for all that time, treating them like dirt” (Krakauer 64). Westerberg concluded with the fact that during the time he spent with Chris, McCandless neither mentioned his
Suppose you had a 12-year-old son who had gne with you to the woods to build a log cabin, and then had to return home to bring the rest of your family there to live. Would you leave your son to stay at the cabin while you retrieve the rest of your family? This was the issue Matt's father had to deal with in the novel, The Sign of the Beaver. I personally believe that Matt's father should not have left Matt alone in the cabin for three reasons: Matt was not prepared to be left alone, the Indian presence was unknown, and Robinson Crusoe offended Attean when read to him by Matt.
... world that Balram lives in is harsh and cruel, mainly because of the Rooster Coop. The Rooster Coop kept Balram from discovering his own potential in life, until finally he realized that he could leave the Coop. The fear and hatred the poor felt kept them in line, and kept others around them from becoming White Tigers. If the people of India were to realize that they were in a Rooster Coop, India’s slums would most likely disappear, and the poor of India would finally realize their true potential. The government would be forced to fulfill its promises and the rich would no longer rule India. Adiga has a lot of agility. Balram was a very dutiful servant. Balram repulsed the whore. He went through a period of florescence. This is an odd genre. Balram was their chaperon. Mrs. Pinky was quite in fashion. Balram uses a lot of sarcasm. In Mythology there are Centaurs.
For all Annawadians except Asha, corruption ingrained in society prevents the impoverished citizens of a Mumbai slum from being able to become successful in life. Despite working hard, saving money, and only wanting to better the life of their family, the Husains’s story is demonstrative of the fact that an unintentional entanglement in the “great web of corruption” “in which the most wretched tried to punish the slightly less wretched” could easily lead to near ruin (Boo 115). Over the course of her narrative, Boo shows that Annawadians recognize the issues of corruption present in their society, and the fact that they lack the power to change the system. For Annawadians, the courage and aspiration to become more successful in life meant taking a gamble, and Boo shows that their gamble could only be made in a system where the odds were forced against their
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