Analysis Of Redefinitions Of India And Individuality In The White Tiger

Introduction

Globalization is perhaps the most important, defining and pervasive phenomenon of our times. It certainly has far-reaching consequences and extends its influence in various forms to almost every part of the world. As Suman Gupta puts it, the phenomenon has achieved “an absolute embrace of the core word, the ‘globe’ itself” and appears relentless in its march, co-opting or crushing everything that stands in its way. Globalization has assumed protean qualities so much so that defining it or restricting it to a handful of characteristics have become a perilous task. George Ritzer provides a comprehensive description of this phenomenon as

“a transplanetary process or set of processes involving the increased liquidity and the growing multidirectional flows of

This essay contrasts the value systems pertaining to individuality portrayed in the novel; the system of values Balram grows up in, that is oriented upon family, caste and community, and the individualist, modernist system he encounters in Delhi and finally learns to thrive in (Waller). This thesis tries to understand how these different value systems contribute to ideas of modernity and the modern nation in a global age. Further, studying the shift and contrasts between these systems are important to understand the formation of habitus and the individual Self in the global societies portrayed in Adiga’s works.

Notes

The Global City

It is now well known that the city has become the central collective and social formation in the twenty first century. A lion’s share of growth in human population revolves around the city . The amount of human and commodity traffic that courses through the major cities of the world is unprecedented in human history and the volume does not look like reducing any time soon. The city has also been