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  • Essay / The impact of environment on identity in The White Tiger

    Aravind Adiga adopts an epistolary form in The White Tiger, describing the plight of a low-caste servant, trying to escape physical chains and mentalities that shape one’s destiny. Adiga initially presents a protagonist in Balram, who is engaging, despite having confessed to horrific crimes. His language, his thoughts and his actions reflect his original good nature. However, this honest nature is also a huge weakness in his transformative journey to freedom, as the India Adiga presented is sharply divided into two, Darkness and Light. The upper castes reside in the Light, filled with malfeasance and nepotism; a hotbed of corruption; while the Darkness is home to the lower castes, filled with poverty and an archaic sense of duty to family. This environment forces Balram to transform himself to build his “own” identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay India's polarized realities are represented geographically. The Light is found in major cities close to the ocean, like Bangalore which “is the future” with “one in three new office buildings…being built” there. The Light radiates the rapidly changing social energy and massive wealth of new industries, such as Balram's own company of "sixteen drivers" and "twenty-six vehicles." In this wealthy environment, entrepreneurial activity, corruption and social mobility thrive. Illustrating this, Adiga points out that while the infamous few sitting in offices inside skyscrapers enjoy the sunlight, the darkness cast by the shadows of these towering buildings engulfs the poor. The Dark are found in inland river villages, particularly along the traditionally sacred northern river system, the Ganga. The Darkness is symbolized by Adiga as a "Rooster Coop", using zoomorphism to bestow animal characteristics on people. Roosters in a henhouse watch each other being slaughtered one by one, but cannot or will not rebel and escape the henhouse. Similarly, India's poor find themselves crushed by the rich and powerful, defeated by the staggering inequalities of Indian society, but cannot escape the same fate. This environment forces Balram to adapt, abandoning his kind nature for an immoral one. With this, Adiga explains that to succeed in post-partition India, one must be corrupt. Born as "Munna" (literally meaning boy), and eventually known as "Ashok Sharma", Balram goes through a constant transformation from a sort of boy at heart to the animal that "only happens" once in a generation”, the White Tiger, by constructing its own identity. He begins as a simple child and peasant in the Darkness, completely unimportant and unloved, and expected to be completely submissive to the will of his family. Forced to give up a lifetime of opportunities without even having a say, he gets a job in a tea shop, working without pride for little pay. After being hired as a driver, he recognizes that his family wants to "take him out from the inside and leave (him) weak and helpless" by using him for monetary gain. Learning of this, he rebels, refusing to marry and refusing to devote his life to their ends. This means a major transition for him, the beginning of his corruption. He blackmails the number one driver into leaving, making Balram the new number one driver, while also marking his first malicious act. Although he feels.