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The White Tiger

Decent Essays

“The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga is a piece of literature that talks about India left and right. A book that can be half fiction half true. It talks about the fortunate and the unfortunate, the rich and the poor. The irony shown in this book about corruption, oppression of the poor, reality of India vs. the images foreigners have of India help portray our understanding of this novel. The irony in “The White Tiger” shows the corruption in India. Balram Halwai is a student in a school with a teacher that does nothing but sleeps and lay around because he hasn’t gotten his wages for six months. While Balram is looking at this teacher he thinks “You can’t expect a man in a dung heap to smell sweet. Every …show more content…

Therefore because there is corruption in the government system, there would oppression of the poor. When Balram had to take his master Ashok to the imperial hotel he dropped him off and he went to the train station. In the train station he saw a woman on the floor sleeping peacefully and thought “Why couldn’t things be so simple for me?”(213). Balram envies the homeless woman asleep on the floor is irony. Balram which a place to live, food to eat, a job to do every day, is much more fortunate than a homeless woman asleep on the ground yet Balram wanted to be like her. When the elections results were coming up the great socialist said that “The election shows that the poor will not be ignored” (230) but the poor are still living in sewage and on subway platforms. This shows oppression of the poor. The Great Socialist makes promises to the poor but never keep them fully. In conclusion The irony shown in this book about corruption, oppression of the poor, reality of India vs. the images foreigners have of India help portray our understanding of this novel. The corruption shown in the book is the teacher stealing the student’s money and the school inspector getting a question that he asked wrong. The reality of India vs. the images foreigners have of India is shown in the book there was framing involved and no doctors in government hospitals. last but not least is the oppression of the poor is

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