Representation of Subaltern Children in Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup

Abstract

This research paper aims to focus on micro narrative of the novel Slumdog Millionaire (originally titled as Q and A) written by the novelist Vikas Swarup to explore the realistic representation of poor street children moving around the big cities of India. In recent times, child poverty poses to be a catastrophe of serious magnitude for many developing countries around the world. Children unable to meet minimum acceptable standard of life for the nation where they live are called poor. Their poor condition is sometimes caused by the poverty of their own families or the weak economy of the state where they live. The child poverty causes the nation great harm as it is then linked with forced labor, lack of education and health facilities and also involvement in criminal activities. These subaltern children are repressed and exploited by adults as well as elite class of the society. Differing from the hegemonic depiction of poor class subordinated by elite the novel Slumdog Millionaire tries to portray the realistic image of subaltern street children. In this paper the researcher aims to explore how subaltern children are represented as marginalized, who still recover and claim mechanism of control in the adult’s political and economic sphere.