Aravind Adiga in The White Tiger is the protagonist. Although he confesses to horrendous crimes, he is still engaging. His language and thoughts as well as his deeds reflect his original good nature. Balram falls prey to corruption and immorality by the end. It is not because he is corrupt or evil, but because India has caused this. The India Adiga displays is clearly divided into The Darkness & The Light. The Light, home to the highest castes, is filled with corruption and nepotism. The Darkness, home to the lowest castes, is home the poorest and has a primitive sense of duty towards their families. Balram, who was trapped in The Darkness, had to change his morality in order to escape the “roostercoop” and gain entry to The Light.
Balram is named “Munna” when he was born. By the end, he’s known as “Ashok Sharma” and has undergone a steady transformation to become the kind-hearted boy that becomes the animal that “comes once in the next generation”, the White Tiger. Balram begins his life as a child in The Darkness. He is a poor peasant and an unimportant child. His family expects him to be completely dependent on them. He is forced by his family to lose a life-changing opportunity. Instead, he takes a job working in a teashop. He realizes his family is trying to “scoop” him from the inside, making him weaker and more helpless. This realization leads him to rebel and refuses marriage. This is the start of his corruption. Balram blackmails the number-one driver into leaving. It is also his first vile act. He is guilty of this act, but it makes him happier. His ruthlessness leads to his happiness. He will be more self-aware if he is more ruthless. Balram needs ruthlessness. Balram is more concerned about individual freedom and individualism than morality. Freedom is something Balram values more than morality. Balram is not evil, but he is necessary to become a real person in India. Balram transforms into “The White Tiger” and kills Ashok. As Balram grows, the relationship between them changes throughout the book. Balram views Ashok as a man of integrity and respects him at the beginning. It all comes crashing down when Ashok makes Balram take responsibility for the traffic accident. He feels abandoned and used, which devastates his life. Ashok is made corrupt by Pinky Madam’s departure. He begins to party and sleep around, engaging in all kinds of sins from gluttony and lust. Balram sleeps with a Russian actor while Balram sits inside the car screaming “Balram. Balram is disillusioned and loses all respect to Ashok. Ironically, his disillusionment with Ashok leads him to follow his corrupt ways and steal petrol. He also uses the car as a taxi and goes to corrupt mechanics. The idea of stealing the red bags emerges. It is possible to take 700,000 rupees and get free. The bag’s red color symbolizes the wealth of his blood. He can see the freedom that he could gain by murdering Ashok. His family was his only resource and he didn’t know he would lose them. Balram starts calling Ashok “it” as soon as he kills Ashok by using the whisky-bottle. This symbol of wealth is Balram’s last step in The Light. He was an animal-like servant and a piece furniture before he became a master of The Light. He was forced to adapt to the Indian setting. He was forced to become “The White Tiger” by the Indian environment.
India is geographically divided into two realities. The Light can be found in large cities that are close to the ocean like Bangalore, where “one third” of new office blocks is being built (there). The fast-paced, high-quality social energy and huge wealth of new industries like Balram’s own company boasts “sixteen driver… with twenty-six cars”. This rich environment is conducive to entrepreneurship, corruption, as well as social mobility. Adiga illustrates the point by showing how the wealthy enjoy the Light of sun while the less fortunate sit in the offices of skyscrapers. However, the darkness cast by these shadows engulfs the poor. The Darkness is particularly prevalent in the Ganga, an inland river village, which lies along the sacred northern river system. Adiga has used zoomorphism and the symbol of the Darkness, the “Rooster Coop”, to represent it. The Roosters are in a coop and watch their fellow Roosters being slaughtered. However, they can’t or won’t rebel against the coop. India’s poor witness their neighbors being crushed by the wealthy and powerful. Balram’s liberation from this harsh environment forces him to adapt. He is forced to steal, cheat, murder and abandon his family. Balram had to change his identity and had an “amazing” success story. He wrote that “a few hundred thousands rupees of money from another person, along with a lot of hardwork, can make this country magical.” Balram was transformed by this setting into the noble and brutal “White Tiger”.
Balram is the villain in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger. His habitat is what makes him nefarious. Adiga demonstrates how the cloth of modern India’s wealth is interwoven with corruption. Balram is the result. Modern India is divided and Balram must evolve from a mere rooster to become a “The White Tiger”, a creature that “comes along just once in a century”.
