"White Tiger" tells the story of Balram Halwai, born in a village in northern India, from a low-caste boy (Halwai makes candy) to an entrepreneur in Bangalore from a first-person perspective. This is not a simple story about murder or how to turn a poor servant into a successful millionaire: it depicts the intersection of specific social, economic and political contexts in the context of neoliberal capitalism. It reflects a pervasive corruption that rots utterly in hierarchical India and the enslavement of the bottom majority. At the same time, the author diverts the audience's attention from the glossy surface of India's economic success to the stark reality behind it. It can be said that "White Tiger" is not only a "confession" of a thief and murderer, but also a testimony to what drives him to do so. of the Indian society.
The bottom people trapped in the "chicken coop", the law of the jungle and the law of the zoo and the neoliberalism behind it
The "chicken coop" that appears many times in the movie. The appearance of a village born in northern India in the Old Delhi Bazaar gives the viewer a visual impression.
The "chicken coop" in India symbolizes the origin of the caste system, and the "law of the jungle" represents global neoliberal capitalism. Kathleen Waller points out in the article Redinitions of India and Individuality in Adiga's The White Tiger that individualism in India is supported by a democratic and secular society, but also hampered by tradition and socioeconomic realities that keep most people living in poverty middle.
The caste system that exists today is believed to be the result of the development of the Mughal and British colonial regimes during the collapse of India. Dex believes that caste is the basic form and manifestation of Indian society and the soul of Indian society. It is not a remnant of ancient India, but a special colonial form of civil society. The caste system is the source of all order and the fundamental foundation of society. Indian subjects were not only organized by their castes or tribes but were included in their castes or tribes, which determined the cultural, economic, social, moral and biological characteristics of their constituent members. The individual exists only as the representative type, or rather as the body. (Risley) caste system transformed into an effective social form - the "zoo law" system. The caste system is based on lineage and occupation: after a person is born, he or she will be identified as belonging to his or her parents' class and the hereditary class of Indian society, which is believed to herald one's fate. Therefore, he or she is usually engaged in one hereditary occupation, and it is usually inappropriate to give up one occupation for another. During the British colonial period, the "Zoo Law" was part of the general strategy of the British to "divide and rule". In this system, the colonizers are the managers of the zoo, and the colonized are the domesticated "animals". The "Zoo Law" eventually became a social system with a perfect combination of caste system and colonialism, and the British Empire realized its long-term colonial rule.
Since 1950, India has enacted numerous laws and social initiatives to protect and improve the socio-economic conditions of its lower caste population. However, the caste system still exists informally, especially in some rural areas of the country. Many Indians belong to groups considered to be "lower castes" and are discriminated against in various aspects such as study, employment, etc. So the poor live in the "darkness" and the rich live in the "light" - there is a huge difference between the rich and the poor.
The "chicken coop" is a central metaphor for social organization in post-independence India. They belong to some other group to some extent because of their social status, race, religion or economic status, and they live in "permanent slavery": the lower caste are like chickens in the butcher's coop, trapped in the In a disgusting environment, people will not resist. Because they have been in a state of depression for a long time, they are also used to being enslaved and oppressed, and they have completely become a member of the numbness and drifting of the "chicken coop". Besides, those trapped in the "chicken coop" are extremely poor servants. But they don't break out of the chicken coop by the upper caste, they become part of the chicken coop. Then "the henhouse was guarded from within (p. 166)." This is the main reason why the chicken coop system can continue to operate.
Furthermore, in addition to traditional values, violent punishment is a tool used by the ruling class to stabilize its position. Despite their desperate desire for a higher life, the poor are still in poverty because breaking a chicken coop involves immoral behavior. The situation of the rich is so different from the poor that they no longer even think of the poor as people. In the eyes of the upper castes, these enslaved people are of a lower status than pets and livestock. Frantz Fanon proposes that colonialism is an inhuman discourse in which the colonized subject "reduces to an animal state". Therefore, if a servant tries to break free from his cage, by stealing or disobeying someone from a higher social class, he must "prepare to see his family destroyed, hunted, beaten and burned alive by his masters".
On the other hand, under the chicken coop system, the lower classes even become cronies of the upper castes, "the chicken coop is doing its job. Servants must stop other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters or entrepreneurs". Balram's grandmother library Soum is such an image, she is completely dominated by the logic of the chicken coop: she has struggled her whole life under such enormous oppression, unknowingly dragging her family and descendants into the system: even if Balram moves away, Kusum is still exerting influence from afar, sending Balram threatening letters and finally having his nephew Dharam bring them and asking him to take care of him in Delhi.
Balram as a "wake up" inferior, his consciousness brings fundamental power to his mind to change his life and rebel against subordination. He admits the murder helped him climb to the top of Indian society. He expresses the struggle and ultimate resistance of the lower classes. His story represents a shift in the minds of oppressed people who are no longer ready to live in the darkness of poverty, but want to deconstruct class hierarchies: Barram presents an alternative moral code and incorporates it into life for the despairing hope in. His success represented the struggle of the oppressed classes for emancipation from the social, economic and cultural constraints imposed on them by the ruling classes, and he became a powerful voice for the inferior who had gained a place in modern India.
According to Robbie BH Goh, Balram's story is really an indictment and critique of neoliberal policies that support, reinforce and perpetuate market values that destroy human and social relationships.
Furthermore, the emerging hegemony in neoliberalism should be read as built on a remnant set of cultural practices based on the corruption of elites and the exclusion and manipulation of the disadvantaged and economically oppressed, which People are used to being suppressed and suppressed. The independent Republic of India initiated economic reforms: From the 1950s to the 1980s, India followed socialist policies, but this resulted in a certain amount of corruption and slow economic growth. Beginning in 1991, neoliberal economic reforms made India the third largest and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, due to its own problems and some incompatibility with India's original social system, the neoliberal economic reform has caused a series of practical problems. Neoliberal principles and the rationality of privatization have replaced the "law of the zoo" with the "law of the jungle", so the moral values of the inferior have also changed, and the principle of the supremacy of interests has replaced traditional values to a certain extent. The "law of the jungle" can be reduced to the law of "interest comes first", which means that development projects will never benefit those who are economically oppressed and excluded, and on the contrary these people's lives will be worse off.
The characters in the novel are rendered "animals" by the social structures created by post-industrial global capitalism.
The "law of the jungle" leads to moral compromises for personal gain. Balram made an unethical choice - he became Driver No. 1 because he told his employer that former driver Ram Persad was Muslim. Ram Persad, pretending to be Hindu, got a job with Mr Ashok. When Balram told Ashok his true identity, Ram was fired immediately and Balram got his job. Balram admitted that he was saddened when Ram left, however, he felt he had no choice. Balram was able to acquire a lot of wealth and an independent identity because of his involvement in violent acts: murdering Ashok and robbing him of his money, and using that money to build a business and bribe the police.
Balram's personal narrative makes the immoral choices of the rich and the poor seem easier to understand: they are the result of the law of the jungle, not the general darkness of human nature or the evil of desire; it is the socio-economic system that compels this "modern Indian hero" Fulfill his ideals: The more violent Balram becomes, the more likely he is to accumulate wealth and succeed.
animal figures
Both the rich and the poor in the film live like animals: they both make immoral choices, out of profit or desperation.
There are mainly three types of animals: First, Balram himself is represented by the white tiger;
Second, aggressive or cunning animals, for example, Barram calls these four corrupt landowners crows, wild boars, buffaloes and storks;
Third, tragic animal images, including spiders, dogs, etc.
Each category represents a certain type of person, and the very nature of the upper classes suggests that they are inherently more savage and destructive than the poor: wild animals tend to be associated with upper classes, while lower class animals seem to be more docile and stupid.
Barram himself was unable to live as a human being due to poverty and despair at birth. Actually, Balram has different animal names. When he was poor, his friends called him Dog, a loyal animal. His grandma said he was as greedy as a pig. In New Delhi, other drivers called him a country mouse. All these animal figures show that he has been referred to time and time again as a weak animal.
However, Balram identifies himself as a white tiger, a rare animal because he is a rare person. The tiger escapes from its cage, and it's a story of the inferior who finally make themselves equal to the ruling class.
The white tiger is "the rarest animal, which only appears once in a generation".
And the image of the beast is the embodiment of the predatory power of contemporary India or capitalism.
He ended up being another capitalist who started a taxi business and used the same corrupt tactics to get rich: one capitalist replaced another with violence, and the injustice system didn't seem to change.
"White Tiger" highlights the immorality of the disparity between the rich and the poor, but also hints that things will improve.
Balram did not become numb after his success. When a Balram employee accidentally killed a poor young boy while driving, Balram took responsibility for the accident himself and went to the boy's family. He gave them money and offered their eldest son a job. While Barram was involved in corruption and certainly unethically created his company, he tried to compensate the boy's family and took responsibility for the accident.
Balram added, "I used to be a chauffeur-master, but now I'm a chauffeur-master. I don't treat them like servants - I don't hit anyone, bully anyone, laugh at anyone. I also don't treat anyone like a servant. Not insulting any of them and calling them my 'family'. They're my employees, I'm their boss, that's all."
These details suggest that a freed Barram was able to make more moral choices.
In The White Tiger, Barram nicknamed the landowners in his village: Mongoose, Stork, Boar and Raven. The names of these animals are often associated with more aggressive and cunning animals, representing "appetite traits".
According to Balram, the buffalo is the most greedy, he eats up the rickshaw and the road, so if you drive a rickshaw, or use the road, you have to pay him a third of what he earns.
"If you want to work on his (wild bear) land, you have to kneel at his feet and touch the dust under his feet..."
The stork is a fat man with a stout mustache, thick and curved, like the point of a beard... He cuts off every fisherman in the river that catches..."
On the other hand, there are many tragic animal metaphors to describe the life and work of the image laborers: for example, compared to the "pig" and "stray dog", the coachman, they "parked their vehicle in a line outside the tea shop and waited. The bus spits out its passengers.
They were not allowed to sit on plastic chairs, they had to squat in the back, and servants everywhere in India have a bent, squatting posture. Men working in tea shops are like "human spiders" who "crawl between and under tables with rags in hand, squashed people in squashed uniforms, slow moving, unshaven, In their thirties or fifties, but still 'boys'" (43); drivers are compared to monkeys squatting near hotel parking lots waiting for their owners.
These animal metaphors reflect the humble status these poor people experience in their daily lives, and a predator-prey relationship formed between these animal figures.
The white tiger is a fable, a morality tale that uses "clearly wrong" animal characters to satirize human shortcomings. Behind the story, development and progress have never improved the lives of economically oppressed people, nor have unjust systems changed.
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