An Interpretation Of The White Tiger From The Perspective Of Postcolonialism

Aravind Adiga is an Indo-Australian writer and journalist.His debut novel The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize,which makes him the fourth Indian-born author to win the prize.The White Tiger provides a darkly humorous perspective of the consciousness awakening and identity transformation of Indian subaltern in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration of Balram Halwai,a village boy of lower class.This thesis tries to study the sociopolitical problems and current situation presented in The White Tiger from the perspective of postcolonialism,and concepts of Spivak’s subaltern,Fanon’s violence,and Bhabha’s mimicry will be employed in the this thesis.The thesis unfolds in three chapters.Chapter one analyzes the causes of subaltern’s struggling life.Religion,caste and family have built an internal imprisonment for Indians and force them to obey their destinies blindly.The malpractice in politics and economy serves as the external factor because subalterns have no access to realize their self-identities in a politically corrupted society.Chapter two focuses on the presence and consequence of violence in physical,structural and psychological aspects.Some pioneers among the oppressed awaken to achieve their transformation of identity through violent resistance.The protagonist’s murdering of a symbolic colonizer in the novel is a rebellion of the colonized,and it subverts the stereotyped image of colonial people.Chapter three explores Indians’pursuit of transformation through mimicry of the West.However,amid the backdrop of nominal Greatest Democracy and fierce corruption,all the attempts to realize identity transformation are in vain.Mimicry cannot be the panacea for India’s social cancer,and Indian people and government need to do self-examination and find a new way out.