Myth Analysis in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Abstract

Aravind Adiga has used the style of ancient Indian mythology in his novel White Tiger to showcase the relationship between servants and their masters. With a great resemblance to the myth in the Ramayana in which the Valkim’s Hanuman Myth shows to show the rooster coop style of relationship in which countless servants were made to serve their unquestioned master even in the modern age. Once held captive in the rooster coop style of control the poor Indians abstain from breaking free for their freedom as they associate their fate to religion and faith as well as morality of not rebelling against their superiors. Exploiting this their masters do whatever they please with them and the servants are too amenable to resist until a character façaden the form of Balram Halwai comes and façades determined to challenge the rooster coop mentality in his individual quest for freedom. The rest of the oppressed people are not happy with the situation but they remain loyal to their masters despite all their subjugations. But Balram Halwai fights back and gains his freedom by rebelling against his master and thereby breaking the rooster coop mentality that had kept his people under siege for thousands of years. This article is a study of how Adiga has managed to associate the age old myth of rooster coop in his narration of The White Tiger and to what effect