The Voices of Dissent: A Critical Reading of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Volume 1 Issue 2 Monsoon Edition 2021

Abstract

Aim: The paper is a modest attempt to analyze the novel as an expression of dissent, pain and disgust raised from the marginalized section of the society. As a matter of fact, India is a country with great economic disparity where a large population is extremely poor and compelled to live a life of hand-to-mouth existence. They are considered as a being of no importance. Inevitably, they are easily silenced and subtly exploited by the elites for their pursuit of power in the society. So, these marginalized people need to awake, arise or they would forever remain unheard. An Indo-Australian writer Aravind Adiga in his debut novel The White Tiger (2008) has brought to light such a distinct and repressed voice of a subaltern in the neocolonial Indian society. The paper will also critically examine the way protagonist, Balram resists and emancipate from ‘darkness’. Methodology and Approach: The study is based on the novel The White Tiger (2008) by Aravind Adiga as a primary text. It has employed the postcolonial approach to dissect the text. Outcome: The novel satirizes the globalizing economy which is echoing the colonized era when the country was under the control of foreigners exploiting the countrymen but in the times of globalization the system is poorly structured which is making the elites exploiting their own countrymen. The novel looks at the altered version of the subaltern who is voicing his subjugation when he was a ‘slave’ and in one or the other way, is ‘writing-back’ to circumvent his suppression during his life in the ‘rooster-coop’. Conclusion and Suggestion: The paper concludes with the idea that the theme of marginalization has been the epicenter of the Postcolonial studies. In the decolonized nation like India, rich has occupied the center, as the colonizer and poor has been relegated to the margins of the society as the colonized. This neglected and trampled stratum of the society does not possess any identity of their own and their voice of pains a