Individualism In White Tiger

In Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, the narrator Balram portrays himself as an anti-hero; while accepting his status as a murderer, Balram also fights against the systemic poverty and oppression the poor of India face due to the corruption and simple negligence of the wealthy and powerful of India. Balram compares the plight of the poor with the image of the Great Indian Rooster Coop, where hundreds of chickens stand immobilized in a slaughterhouse, knowing full well of their futures. Balram compares those chicken to India’s poor, seeing that both do nothing to rebel against their situation. Balram then suggest that the maintenance of the systemic poverty is caused by the poor themselves and their ties to the “Indian Family” (150). Through Adiga’s distortion of the tenants of the Indian Family and Balram’s subsequent ambivalent relationship with his own family, Adiga criticizes the lack of individualism within Indian society due to the dominating role of the Indian Family. …show more content…
By taking his “money”, Kusum takes the token of Balram’s achievements, and by forcing marriage upon him, she takes his ability to decide his path for his own life. As a justification, Adiga creates an incongruent situation with the line “not to threaten you but out of love”. Adiga uses this grandma’s justification of love for her actions in order to highlight the flaws within the Indian Family that allows for this mentality. In the context of an Indian Family, Kusum’s decisions are justifiable, as her decisions do benefit the overall family. And like Gupta’s essay, Balram’s own volition and independence stand as a threat to the overall family’s success. Yet, the fact that an individual's well-being can be willingly sacrificed for the sake of tradition emphasizes the rigidity of Indian society. The Indian Family, being a monolith in Indian society, prevents substantial change from