Class Delineation as Portrayed in Arvinda Adiga's "The White Tiger"

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to analyze the issue of class delineation in Arvind Adiga’s debut and Booker Prize winning novel The White Tiger. It showcases the path breaking journey of a chauffeur:  Balram Halwai who proclaims to have come from the ‘rotting darkness†to escape village and move to Delhi after being hired as a driver by a wealthy landlord. His story has been narrated by Balram himself in crude prose with a witty and sarcastic edge to it that endears him to the readers, even when a simpleton village boy turns into a cold blooded murderer. The story exposes the poor-rich divide that surrounds India in the backdrop of economic prosperity, in the wake of the IT revolution. Adiga has graphically portrayed the different images of India— India of Light and India of Dark. But his focus is on the latter and as a communist manifesto, pleads strongly for the classless society. He had wanted to write about the ordinary the routine life of Indians who are not Kings and Gods. The White Tiger exposes the division between the rich and the poor that rule India even as India is becoming one of the economically forward country