Sunday, March 7, 2010
India needs to know?
In terms of audience, I’d like to know who Adiga is speaking to in his letters. There is a great deal of effort in devising a dialogue that identifies the disruption of the caste system in India since British colonization and civil wars. For instance, Adiga’s description of the orderly zoo prior to British colonization and the cage doors being left open after the British withdrawal and civil war describes the beginnings of caste disruption and corruption of the few over the many. Additionally, the novel states that 99.9% of the country is the poverty-stricken, “half-baked” class (stuck in the rooster coop) and the remaining 0.01% are the corrupt landlords and politicians running the country, collecting wealth, and burdening the poor with all the debt. Balram, the entrepreneur/assassin/white tiger (“one born per generation”) is the exception; or the example of how the lower classes can improve conditions and defeat prejudices? Maybe not so much the example of success, but the example of the types of oppressive barriers still in place in a country that has evolved into a global economic power. I’m not going so far as to suggest that Adiga tries to incite the lower-class to civil war. But Balram’s “education” continues throughout the text. His ability to “see” and the actions of the poor and the rich results in these connections that allow him to understand the ingrained servitude that supports the condescension of the rich.
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