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SOCIETAL PRESSURE eassay
What is the importance of character development in literature
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Society often tells us what to eat, drink, wear and even what social class we belong to. In the book The White Tiger written by Aravind Adiga, the situation is much similar. The book follows the life of Balram Halwai, a child born into poverty, yet he has the drive of one born into wealth and renown. During his time as a servant/driver for a wealthy Indian family the reader is exposed to the disadvantages of those born into darkness. Throughout the text the reader bears witness to numerous occasions of great tension between the protagonist and society. Balram is born into what is called the darkness. In India there are two castes, one is the darkness the other is the light, one represents poverty while the other represents wealth. In the early years of his life, Balram Halwai grows up in the village of Laxmangarh. His father is a rickshaw-puller and Balram is forced to work in a tea shop along with other members of his family. The school he attends does not …show more content…
Balram from time to time would take the Honda City without Mr. Ashok’s knowledge and drive others around. As his time in Delhi progressed, the reader is able to see this once innocent country boy turn into a greedy city driver. Balram would begin to stop sending his family money and cut contact with them all together. Despite all the unconventional actions Balram had done in Delhi, there was no act more heinous than the killing of his employer Mr. Ashok. Balram knew it was the perfect time to do it because of the amount of money Mr. Ashok had with him. “I rammed the bottle down. The glass ate his bone. I rammed it three time into the crown of his skull, smashing through to his brains.” (Adiga 244-245). In that moment Balram knew the life he lived would never be the same. Balram showed the reader part of his old self when he returned to the city to pick up his nephew before
In the beginning of Beah’s memoir, the tone was suspenseful. When Beah’s village was under attack by rebels, his family had to escape, while he was with his brother and friends in another city. During that time, he had to fend for himself and try to survive out in the open, without his parents, along with his brother and friends. Eventually, Beah was separated from his brother and friends and was all alone. “I walked for two days
Minor White was an American Photographer and considered one of the most influential photographers of the post WWII era. He was not only a photographer but a teacher of the medium as well as one of the founders of Aperture Magazine which is still around today (Stamberg).
Conformity, the act of changing to fit in. Conformity can completely change a person whether it be their looks, such as their the way they dress, or their personality, like the way they act around certain people. In The Sociology of Leopard Man Logan Feys argues that being human has a right to it, and that right is to be who you are. Society pushes out certain people for not fitting in with everyone else, but also says that nobody should fit in, because everyone has a different personality.
The struggle to rise above the opinions of others was one of the major problems both Junior and Bone fought to overcome. In the case of Junior, racial discrimination was a constant reminder that he belonged to a low social class. His identity as Native American was a good enough reason for people of other races to look down on him. Stereotypes claimed Native Americans were lazy, uneducated alcoholics who did not attempted to overcome poverty. Due to the years of suppression that resulted from stereotyping, the Indian characters in this novel have a strong sense of hopelessness. The inhabitants of the reservation recognize that it is easier to accept injustice rather than face the adversity that comes with challenging their offenders. When Junior asks his parents which kinds of people have the most hope, without a hesitation they tell him "white people." (p. 45). Throughout the book, Junior comments on the fact that the white people belong to the most prestigious clubs, hold the highest paying jobs, and attend the best schools. The Native Americans assume the easiest thing to do is give up. They have come to believe that success belongs to the whites and that Indian life is sy...
Themes are central to the plot of any story. In fact, themes are the purpose to an author writing anything. By definition, a theme is the subject or topic of a work. Some themes, like that in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” are more obvious, while others, such as, “Hills Like White Elephants” are less clear and require readers to do some deep reading and critical thinking in order to identify the purpose of it, and through strong reading techniques, audiences will find valuable lessons embedded within the themes can enlighten and even revive our thinking.
Growing up on a reservation where failing was welcomed and even somewhat encouraged, Alexie was pressured to conform to the stereotype and be just another average Indian. Instead, he refused to listen to anyone telling him how to act, and pursued his own interests in reading and writing at a young age. He looks back on his childhood, explaining about himself, “If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity” (17). Alexie compares the life and treatment of an Indian to life as a more privileged child. This side-by-side comparison furthers his point that
White privilege are privileges that are given to white people who they do not earn, it 's an asset they get; on daily basis just because of their skin color.; White. Peggy McIntosh describes the white privilege as "an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code-books, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks (McIntosh 1988, p175).” I believe that the white privilege is the same as racism because the word white privilege itself explains it. It is privilege given and offered towards only the white people. If someone is given a special privilege because they are white then that is racism.
As my role of becoming a justice based social worker and being exposed to new knowledge about oppression and privilege, I want to focus on the topic of race and White privilege to strengthen my knowledge and the knowledge of others on multidimensional levels. There are a few reasons why I have chosen an action plan focused on race and White privilege. I believe it to be a longstanding issue in our society, it is rarely discussed because of the uncomfortable territory that comes along with it, and more importantly, I would like to expand my awareness of how race affects individuals on different systemic levels and my awareness of my privileges can affect my role as a social worker. “Teaching about White privilege is fundamental to understanding
In the novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga the main character, is Balram, one of the children in the “darkness” of India. Adiga sheds a new light on the poor of India, by writing from the point of view of a man who was at one time in the “darkness” or the slums of India and came into the “light” or rich point of view in India. Balram’s job as a driver allows him to see both sides of the poverty line in India. He sees that the poor are used and thrown away, while the rich are well off and have no understanding of the problems the poor people must face. The servants are kept in a mental “Rooster Coop” by their masters. The government in India supposedly tries to help the poor, but if there is one thing Adiga proves in The White Tiger, it is that India’s government is corrupted. Despite the government promises in India designed to satisfy the poor, the extreme differences between the rich and the poor and the idea of the Rooster Coop cause the poor of India to remain in the slums.
Racism, stereotypes, and white privilege are all concepts that affect all of us, whether we believe it or not. If an adolescent of a minority can distinguish these concepts in his society, then we all should be aware of them. These concepts are all clearly demonstrated in “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”. Anyone and everyone could clearly understand this novel, but the intended audience is middle school to college level students. The novel’s goal is to help white students understand the effects of white privilege in an easier, more understandable way.
It was almost as if somebody had flicked the glass bottle with a finger. When they turned to look at the ledge where it was, the bottle suddenly fell down – or as one man reported, it looked as if it had been thrown down and smashed
Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger published in 2008, and a winner of Booker Prize examines the issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption, urbanization and poverty in India. The novel besides receiving critical acclaim was also lambasted by some in India for giving in to western prejudices and playing up to their image of a poverty stricken, slum governed country. Some even went to the extent of calling it a western conspiracy to deny the country’s economic progress. It seems ...
In the film, “Slumdog Millionaire” showed the world how India is a society that is filled with violence and abuse. Slumdog Millionaire exposes the tragic effects of poverty in many different cities of India. The film talks about a Mumbai boy, Jamal, who grew up in the slums that became a contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” During the contest, Jamal were arrested under suspicion of cheating. Jamal was being interrogated by the police, and revealed events from his life history to explain why he knew the answers on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”
Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger highlights his views of the injustice and poverty present in India’s class system. He does this through the perspective of Balram Halwai, a fictional village boy from Laxmangarh. In this epistolary novel, Balram narrates his life in the form of a seven-part letter addressed to Wen Jiabao, the premier of China. He describes how he escaped his caste, which was thought to be impossible, and became a successful entrepreneur after killing his own master. The inequality between rich and poor is an important motive of the story. This paper will go in depth into the representation of the poor, the motivation for it and the effects it has on the interpretation of the story.
Aravind Adiga in his debut novel The White Tiger, which won the Britain’s esteemed Booker Prize in 2008, highlights the suffering of a subaltern protagonist in the twenty first century known as materialism era. Through his subaltern protagonist Balram Halwai, he highlights the suffering of lower class people. This novel creates two different India in one “an India of Light and an India of Darkness” (Adiga, p. 14). The first one represents the prosperous India where everyone is able to dream a healthy and comfortable life. The life of this “Shining India” reflects through giant shopping malls, flyovers, fast and furious life style, neon lights, modern vehicles and a lot of opportunities which creates hallucination that India is competing with western countries and not far behind from them. But, on the other side, the life nurtures with poverty, scarcity of foods, life taking diseases, inferiority, unemployment, exploitation and humiliation, homelessness and environmental degradation in India of darkness.