LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:9 September 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Selvi M. Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Nathan Mulder Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Honorary Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Dialectics of Darkness and Light: Deconstructing Ethical Ambivalence and Social Mobility Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger

Prakash Chandra Patel

Abstract

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger challenges the illusion of upward mobility in modern India, laying bare the contradictions of economic advancement within a system rooted in inequality and corruption. Through Balram Halwai's ethically complex journey from servant to entrepreneur, the novel offers a pointed critique of capitalism, entrenched power dynamics, and the moral compromises demanded for survival. This paper examines the symbolic use of light and darkness, the inversion of conventional success stories, and the precarious nature of individual agency in a rigidly divided society. In exposing the false promise of meritocracy, Adiga delivers a disquieting vision of contemporary India.

Keywords:The White Tiger, social mobility, capitalism, corruption, power dynamics, class struggle, agency, ethical ambivalence

Introduction

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger presents a scathing critique of India's embedded socio-economic hierarchies, tearing apart the myth of meritocratic mobility within a structurally unequal country. Through Balram Halwai's morally compromised journey, embedded within dialectics of servitude and self-determination, the novel questions capitalism's exploitive machinery, which makes ethical transgression a necessary wage for upward ascent. The subversive narrative structure of the novel, which is presented as a confession before a Chinese Premier, further emphasizes the performative aspect of success within a meritocratic order that values ruthlessness over goodness. In agreement with critics such as Kanishka Chowdhury, The White Tiger reconfigures the traditional paradigm of rags-to-riches within India's dystopian landscape of neoliberalism, wherein social ascendancy is inevitably coupled with moral concession (Chowdhury 84). This paper presents a deconstructive reading of Adiga's novel, unspooling its ethical ambivalence, systemic suppressions, and paradoxical agency within a strict analytical gaze with the following arguments.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Prakash Chandra Patel
Lecturer in English
Kuchinda College, Kuchinda
prakash.patel121@gmail.com

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