The Price of Freedom: Business, Class and Morality in Adiga's The White Tiger
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2008, is a bold and unsettling novel that holds a mirror to contemporary India. The novel gives a picture of India as a nation that boasts of economic growth while concealing deep-rooted class and caste inequalities. Through the voice of Balram Halwai, a driver turned into an entrepreneur, Adiga crafts a darkly satirical tale of ambition, servitude and rebellion. The novel explores the contradictions of a society striving for modernity yet bound by ancient hierarchies. This paper examines how the pursuit of freedom, business success and self-worth in The White Tiger comes at a moral cost. Balram’s journey from the "Darkness" of rural India to the glitzy streets of Bangalore is not just a personal transformation but a commentary on the price one pays to escape the invisible shackles of caste and poverty in a post-liberalized India.
Author: Miss. Samata Anil Jagtap
Institution: Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil University, Satara
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6912062152
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