Different Perspective of Poverty

In discussion, it was pointed out that Balram did not realize his actions (those that are considered wrong or nasty) until they were pointed out to him by Mr. Ashok and Pinkey. Examples of things pointed out to him were his scratching and not taking care of his teeth. I think this is an exceptionally remarkable point and it led me to think of other circumstances that are pointed out to him throughout the book. Even though most of the drivers (just like Balram) are “slaves to their masters”, they even bring things to his attention. They critique him for “wearing his uniform”. To see this from drivers who are similar to him and are ranked the same as him really confirms how diverse the life that Balram came from compared to where he is now. This uniform was in fact a big deal to him at the start of the job (and of course before) and continues to be a major deal to his relatives and associates where he comes from. In my opinion, the spotlight Adiga places on these tiny (in our eyes) lessons portrays poverty in a dissimilar way than the other novels. It allows a larger portrayal of some perspectives that underlie the circumstances in the life of poverty.

the spiritual transcendent versus the skeptical realist in the novels of Roy and Adiga

The Aesthetics of “White Tiger” strike me as pretty unique compared to the other novels so far. Adiga rarely, if ever, seems to break into the poetic mode to reveal knowledge of some expansive truth like Roy. Two passages really drive this home for me; Roy’s history house/Earth Woman passage(50-54) and Amiga’s Great Indian Rooster Coop (147-150). Roy moves through time discussing the past and later a place outside of time survey all of existence. More importantly she explores innerworlds and inner-meanings from Anglophilia to the insignificance of humanity (as it Humbles along). She rights with a sense of innocence and the spiritual. Even the way she plays with language and allusions is expansive and abstract. It lends a disembodied quality, authority beyond the speaker/narrator and seems to offer a look into deeper truth. In stark contrast Adiga’s mode is the skeptical realist. The Roster Coop isn’t a symbol, it is a metaphor. Furthermore is mechanical and structural even man-made opposed to Roy’s Earth Woman. Roy’s history house has no single meaning but rather a serious of interwoven, even contradictory themes. For Instance the forces of colonialism and their decay, a neoliberal sort of regional flavor, the refuge of little worlds apart from dominant society, physical dominance as history’s henchmen are a few themes couched in the history house. In contrast the Roster Coop is directly allegorical. It takes place in the contemporary world in the specific sphere of the (global?) marketplace. It takes a number of forces and boils them down to an image that simplifies (perhaps tries to demystify) the hugeness of peoples’ complacency in the face of economic oppression.

Morality? Define Morality...

First and foremost, I find The White Tiger to be a refreshingly humorous novel. I have only made it through the first 100 pages at this juncture, but I have been waiting for a character to match the immorality that is found in the ridiculously stratified societies that we continue to be presented with in this course. Balram's sardonic nature makes him an unpredictable character in a literary realm where the only characteristic that matters is the size of your belly. Another reason this book is so appetizing might be the fact that we have just finished a novel that evokes an overwhelmingly futile outlook on the possibility of altering the inequities of our world. Adiga deviates from this viewpoint just a bit. With Balram, Adiga seems to be saying, "Sure, there are ways to make a splash when your swimming up from the bottom with feet kicking you in the mouth...you just have to slit some tendons." I don't mean to sound disturbed, I just find this approach to the question of agency in poverty to be more effective than most attempts found in literature. Maybe I am a sucker for shocking, unpredictable, and just a bit on the wild-side characters, or possibly my fascination with this book is due to the timing of our reading it. The only problem I see with Adiga's approach at this point is the chance that many readers won't be able to identify with a character whose upward mobility is grounded in criminal behavior. Is anyone feeling that way?

A Camera's Journey

My last thoughts about Roy's novel is that it was really interesting to see that it ended with the cause of all the troubles in the novel and not with the Rahel-Esta scene. I think that by ending with the Ammu love scene it gives the novel a completely different feel, I mean if I look back at the novel from that point it is not as gruesome as it was as I was reading it. If it would have ended with the Rahel-Esta scene then the whole novel takes on a different meaning, for me, than if it ends with a beautiful moment.
The final scene with Ammu really focused on the point that we had talked about in class which was Roy's attention to the smaller parts of the whole. The novel began with a, to put it in movie terms, wide shot like from a helicopter or some place far off. We were introduced to these characters, to Sophie Mol's death, but it was not until later that the camera closes in on the individual events that shaped that introduction. The final scene was a close-up of this forbidden couple that knew the consequences of their actions, but still did it anyway. It made it seem like the whole book was an attempt to focus in on the small part, as if the camera was in a constant zoom. It zoomed pretty close sometimes, like when they talk about what happened to Esta, the moment when Ammu blames her children for her misfortune, and the passage that described Baby Kotchamma's diary. Those were pretty close shots, but when you try to zoom in too fast the picture becomes blurry and out of focus and it takes all the way until Ammu's love scene to gain back its focus and put the camera's journey in perspective.
Its weird that since Q&A all I can think of are movie metaphors.

Stymied Progress

There are many tragedies in Roy's book and not least among them is the separation of the twins and the effects they feel from the breaking of the love laws. Injustice is often cured over generations as the children learn from the parents and hopefully set their minds to do the right thing with their future, and the future's children. In evidence are the waning of the backwards walking days of the Untouchables. Society had come at least that far and will as likely progress. The twins however are marred by history and its clinging to its old ways. Their tragedy lies in separation and inability to overcome, socially, the love laws that ruined Ammu and Velutha. Had their love remained secret or nonexistent, the twins would have grown harboring their love for Velutha regardless of caste. They would have taught this to their children and slowly the love laws are rewritten over generations. With their separation and his death, they are turned inward and leave no effect on the greater social history, but rather consummate themselves and become whole again. They can overcome the love laws for themselves, but as far as we know (and can surmise) it is likely that their love will not positively affect the world around them. They may have healed a part of themselves by coming together, but the larger societal change they could have been a part of was stymied through the events of Roy's narrative. it's a novel about small things, but it is the nature of small things to gradually move mountains.

Adiga's White Tiger

Here's a picture of the fort in Laxmangarh:

Futile? I hope not.

Roy's technique creates a dilemma in my eyes. On the one hand, her writing style allows for disheartening tragedies to be recounted without completely drowning the reader in despair. However, focusing on the minute details of a travesty through poetic aestheticism causes the real societal problems to fade into the background as the "small things" encapsulate the reader in a realm of often overlooked sensibility. I loved this novel. I feel it is important to stress this fact. Roy is obviously a young master of a style that she has freshly carved from longstanding formulas, but the effect of her writing seems to disrupt the underlying intent of her novel. Is the novel much more pleasurable to read than most fictional critiques of class and caste systems? Yes. But is Roy so successful in beautifying the abysmal reality of her novel that the caste system no longer appears problematic? Possibly. The novel's ending illustrates this predicament created by her literary strategy. The sex scene between Ammu and Velutha is wonderfully stimulating in its intricate sensualization of a scene that we know, as readers, results in the decay of an entire network of individuals. Roy's novel continues to suggest that the obstacles set in place by the caste system, among many other marginalizing structures, are so great that one must focus on the infinitesimal wonders of life lest they be smashed by the overbearing inequities of the world around them. I realize that this is only a novel, and in order to truly appreciate its value you can't expect it to have palpable, real-world applications at every turn. However, as a social activist who obviously understands the power of allegory, Roy employs a style that dances dangerously along the line of depicting social change as an exercise in futility.