1. Prac SAC – The White Tiger

2. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Decide whether you agree with the topic of your don’t
Your choices are either YES he does succeed or NO he does not succeed…but either way you must acknowledge the aspects that go against your contention
You MUST address the topic with your contention and preview your discussion
Quote – use it in your essay
Key words – ‘rest of my life’, ‘succeeds’, ‘quest’, ‘freedom’ and ‘Granny’

3. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Sample introduction (Yes)
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger depicts the restrictive caste system of Indian society. Through the complex character and narrator Balram, Adiga presents the reader with an individual who manages to escape the ‘rooster coop’, successfully achieving freedom after undertaking a quest of transformation to escape the ‘darkness’ of the life he was born into. Unlike the rest of his family, Balram chooses to take action by seizing opportunity, making sacrifices and being prepared to partake in acts of corruption, to free himself from a ‘life in a cage’.

4. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Points for YES
Balram succeeds in escaping from Granny’s cage of no financial freedom, organised marriage and a life ‘darkness’.
Balram Halwai, the protagonist, was a village boy from the ‘sweet-maker’ caste who became a successful businessman, succeeding in changing his identity and moving to a much higher level of society.
Balram was annoyed with his society, thinking that the poor men in his county were ‘half-baked’, comparing them with the chickens who are kept in the Rooster Coop, unable or unwilling to escape, driving him to continually look for ways of getting out.

5. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Points for YES
Balram’s is prepared to resort to acts of corruption, such as: murder, cheating, bribery and stealing, to successfully earn his freedom.
A ‘White Tiger’ symbolizes power, freedom and individuality, qualities that Balram sees as necessary to successfully get out of the “darkness” and find a way into the “Light”.
Balram’s quest is a reaction against the “haves” and those who oppress the poor, he becomes a criminal but also successful entrepreneur, who is free from living in a cage of poverty.
Although Balram escapes the ‘cage’ of his caste and obtains freedom from his family and the master-servant relationship, there are suggestions of some connections to his past life that could threaten his future freedom.

6. Quotes and metalanguage
“The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave”
“I was looking for the key for years, but the door was always open”
“I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.”

7. Quotes and metalanguage
“Yet even if all my chandeliers come crashing down to the floor – even if they throw me in Jail and have all the other prisoners dip their beaks into me-even if they make me walk the wooden stairs to the hangman’s noose- I’ll never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my master’s throat. I’ll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour, just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant”. (The White Tiger 321)
- Hyperbole, symbolism, animal imagery, metaphors – Balram has escaped the role and feelings associated with being oppressed
“They are the human spiders that go crawling in between and under the tables with rags in their hands, crushed humans in crushed uniforms” (The White Tiger, 51).
- Metaphor, repetition, imagery used to highlight what Balram wants to escape
“I rammed the bottle down. The glass ate his bone” (The White Tiger 61).
- Personification used the emphasise the lack of empathy in Balram, he successfully disassociates himself from feeling remorse or responsibility for the act

8. Quotes
“So I went looking, from house to house, house to house, house to house” … “I was walking from house to house, knocking on gates and on front doors of the rich asking if anyone wanted a driver-a good driver-an experienced driver –for their car” (The White Tiger, 59).
- Modifiers and repetition used to emphasise desperation and drive to escape in Balram
“Understand, now, how hard it is for a man to win his freedom in India.”
“All I wanted was a chance to be a man--and for that, one murder is enough.”
‘I’ve made it! I’ve broken out of the coop! (…) I’ve given myself away.’ (p.295)
Besides the murder Balram had to take the loss of his family for becoming what he has become. He has accepted the death of his family for his own good. His family who made possible that he could leave off into the Light.

9. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Sample introduction (No)
Aravind Adiga’s construction of the character of Balram in The White Tiger emphasizes the dilemma faced by many Indians, trying to escape their position in a society that still follows caste system values. Although Balram succeeds in escaping the poverty and ‘darkness’ that his family must endure, he creates a different type of cage for himself. He becomes a lonely fugitive who has given in to corruption and materialism, becoming a paradoxical individual, representative of the complexity of the culture clash in a changing India. Quite simply, Balram will live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, a slave to being an ‘entrepreneur’ and is no more free than his former self.

10. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Points for NO
Balram has not succeeded in his quest for freedom because he is not free to be who he wants to be and becomes what he detested the most, someone who is corrupt and is willing to do anything for opportunity.
Adiga constantly reminds the reader of Balram’s connection to his past in spite of escaping the darkness, Balram’s internal thoughts reveal he may be trapped by guilt, never free from thoughts of killing Ashok or sentencing his family to suffering or death.
At the end of the novel, Balram has chosen to take his nephew Dharam with him into his new life and this is a connection to his old life that symbolises he is not really free. This connection could ultimately undo all Balram’s efforts and bring about his downfall.

11. Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”
Topic 1 – “I can’t live the rest of my life in a cage, Granny”. Balram succeeds in his quest for freedom. Discuss.
Points for NO
Balram thinks he is better and more intelligent than someone else but he is still uneducated (‘half-baked’) and a product of corruption, with a made up identity.
Balram adopts the name “Ashok”, indicating that he is still part of the rooster coop and has simply reversed roles.
Balram is of the opinion that in time the “Rooster Coop” will be destroyed and consequently the hierarchy between master and servant will change, too; however, he still assumed the new role of a master, indicating that he has not fully succeeded in breaking free from these values but India is a changing society.

12. Quotes and Metalanguage
“A White Tiger keeps no friends. It's too dangerous.”
“A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent—as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way—to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man's hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse.”
"Do we loathe our masters behind a facade of love - or do we love them behind a facade of loathing? “We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.”
“Mr. Premier, I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten- thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time.”
“But without a family, a man is nothing.”
“There is no end in India, Mr. Jiabao,as Mr. Ashok so correctly used to say. You'll have to keep paying and paying the fuckers. But I complain about the police the way the rich complain; not the way the poor complain. The difference is everything.”

13. Quotes and Metalanguage
“The Rooster Coop was doing its work. Servants have to keep other servants from becoming innovators, experimenters or entrepreneurs. The coop is guarded from the inside.”
“An Indian Revolution? No Sir. It won't happen. People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom from somewhere else - from jungles, from the mountains, from China, from Pakistan. That will never happen.”
‘A rooster was escaping from the coop! A hand was thrust out – I was picked up by the neck and shoved back into the coop.’(p.234)
- Metaphor for how difficult it is for Balram to escape. Even though no one really catches him, he feels like that as he feels to have responsibility towards his master.
‘He (the white tiger in the zoo) was hypnotizing himself by walking like this - that was the way he could tolerate this cage.’ (p.259)
Between the White Tiger and Balram there is shown the parallel again and again during the whole book. As himself the White Tiger is caught in a cage. Balram is kind of caught, too. Like the tiger Balram accepted his destiny for a long time. He did his job every day and did yoga to calm down.

14. Quotes and Metalanguage
“We have left the villages, but the masters still own us, body, soul and arse.” (p. 169)
Balram is just not free in India. Regardless how often he changes the location he just can not be free when being under the control of his master. So there is just one chance to be completely free: to be your own master.
“In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.” (p. 54)

15. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree?
Decide whether you agree with the topic of your don’t
Your choices are either YES he does succeed or NO he does not succeed…but either way you must acknowledge the aspects that go against your contention
You MUST address the topic with your contention and preview your discussion
Author’s name mentioned – his message, his point of view
Key words – ‘Adiga’s India’, ‘Survive’, ‘Corruption’

16. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree?
Sample introduction for YES
Aravind Adiga presents an India that is full of contrasts, contradictions and completely corrupt through all social levels. The White Tiger is depicted as a vast and dark jungle where caste hierarchy, syncophancy, corruption and ruthlessness are needed to survive or break free from oppression. It is an environment characterised by the black river Ganga of death and people who have no name or change their name, religion and identity to get a job. Balram represents a changing India, one that has become corrupt to survive in a volatile global world.

17. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree? Points for YES…
Balram Halwai, the protagonist, grows up learning about his country’s corruptness first hand when the Landlords who lived in his village stole most of every family’s money, leaving them to starve or send their young children to work to pay off their debt. (Exploitation of children, exploitation of the poor) References to the black river ‘Ganga’ of death and ‘the darkness’, emphasise Balram’s experiences of the plight of the poor in India and how difficult it is to survive. (References to death) Balram represents a changing, evolving and advancing new India, one that has become corrupt to survive in a global economy which is really just filled with greed and self-serving, arrogant men chomping at the bit to get their hands dirty and climb up the social and political ladders. (Character symbol for country, reference to China and global economy)

18. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree? Points for YES…
Balram didn’t learn in school because the education system was so corrupt and the villagers supported the teacher because they also looked at it as a justified rebellion against a corrupt system. (Education needed to escape the ‘darkness’)
Balram learns about the corrupt medical system when his father died, witnessing the lack of medical care for the poor, further illustrating the extent of a corrupt system. (Health care needed to avoid death)
Adiga shows the reader how even the Government and officials can only survive through corruption. The police dip their corrupt hands in everything, accepting bribery and using violence to enforce a fraudulent voting system and protect a corrupt Government that even includes the Prime Minister. The entire voting system has been corrupted to ensure a certain party wins. The other ministers accept bribes from rich, influential families as long as the price tag is high enough.

19. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree? Points for YES…
In order to thrive in the modern world and embrace the potentials of a New India, this traditional attachment to the family must be relinquished in favour of a newfound emphasis on individualism and doing whatever one needs to do for ones own survival.
Balram dismisses religion and spirituality to survive and becomes ultimately morally corrupt and capable of anything.
“Like most people who live in India, I complain about corruption, but know that I can live with corrupt men. It is the honest ones I secretly worry about.” (Quote from the author)

20. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree?
Sample introduction for NO
The author of The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga depicts the changing, contradictory landscape of modern India and an environment of moral ambiguity. The narrator Balram represents an individual who succumbs to corruption to escape the oppressive ‘rooster coop’ of the caste system and the fate of an early death, similar to that of his parents. Although Balram is all too aware of his own corruption, Adiga uses the character’s reflection to suggest a better future for India, one that holds on to identity, values but embraces technology and innovation – and a better concept of democracy.

21. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree? Points for NO
Adiga is not advocating corruption, he wants us to consider through Balram, that we should not blame a criminal for his decisions but we should try to understand those decisions as reactions to an overly oppressive and restrictive society. Balram sees the current age as one which promises social mobility but his anger at it not being equitable and still a corrupt system leads him to foresee an eventual birth of a new revolution. There are signs that Balram may enjoy a brighter future if he takes responsibility for his actions and starts the long process towards regaining his humanity and Adiga parallels the two car accidents to show how individuals must accept responsibility for their transgressions or crimes. Whilst Balram is doomed to loneliness and isolation because of his material ambitions, his ability to take responsibility for his actions perhaps paves the way for a new system of family, evident when he tells Mr Jiabao that he is ‘ready to have children now’.

22. Topic 2 – In Adiga’s India, the only way to survive is through corruption. To what extent do you agree? Points for NO
Adiga suggests at the end of the novel that Balram is prepared to act more responsibly towards his workers and show greater moral leadership than his own corrupt bosses. The author appears to use Balram’s narration to China as a way of paralleling his country to India, in terms of trying to make both countries accountable for allowing systems and cycles of corruption to continue to exploit the lower classes. Adiga also seems to indicate that Indian’s should take back their own country, instead of being influenced by Western corruption.

23. “India's great economic boom, the arrival of the Internet and outsourcing, have broken the wall between provincial India and the world.”
“At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society.” (Quote from the author)