Critique of Capitalism in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger

Abstract

This paper examines the critique of capitalism in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger from a Marxist perspective. The novel revolves around the story of the protagonist, Balaram Halwai, who initially works in a tea stall, later becomes a servant of Ashok, and ultimately kills Ashok, turning out to be a businessman. Balaram confronts challenges on the way to his success; he is demoralized and instrumentalized by Ashok and his wife, pinky, to name a few, asking him to take responsibility for the road accident encountered by Pinky because of her carelessness. However, the suppressed character: Balaram, in the novel, has turned out to be revolutionary. The rise of Balaram at the end of the novel has altered the story, making the threat of the bourgeois, Ashok, alive. Holding the pattern of alteration, Adiga has satirized the prevailing concept of capitalism. Through the novel, he projects the triumph of the suppressed group and also tries to claim that even common people have the power to change social assets. This research paper, therefore, focuses on three specific questions: why did Adiga portray a sinful character as the protagonist of the novel? Why the novel ultimately shows the victory of the insane protagonist? And what does the triumph of the protagonist symbolize? To analyze the issues, this research paper uses the concept of the class structure of classical Marxists Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles dominantly and Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony. The paper claims that the novel is a critique of capitalism and argues that capitalism is an instrumental feature of human society that makes an individual morally degraded and mentally impaired because of the economy. Moreover, it is the economy that determines ethics rather than moral principles. Keywords: Capitalism, Class-Struggle, Bourgeoise, Proletariat, and Communism