Analysis of Theme Through The Protagonist in Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger' and Vikas Swarup's 'Slumdog Millionaire'.
ABSTRACT
Penulis menganalisis dua buah karya sastra dalam bentuk novel. Novel
yang dibahas dalam skripsi ini adalah The White Tiger karya Aravind Adiga dan
Slumdog Millionaire karya Vikas Swarup. Dalam skripsi ini, penulis membahas
tema melalui protagonis. Dengan menganalisis karakteristik para tokoh
protagonis, kita dapat mengetahui tema cerita dalam kedua novel tersebut.
Protagonis novel The White Tiger adalah seorang pelayan miskin yang
berhasil mengatasi berbagai kesulitan hidupnya dan menjadi seorang pengusaha
sukses. Karakteristiknya yang pintar, egois dan berkeinginan kuat telah membawa
sang protagonis melewati kesulitan hidup dan meraih kesuksesan.
Protagonis novel Slumdog Millionaire adalah seorang anak yatim piatu
yang harus berjuang seorang diri untuk bertahan hidup. Karakteristiknya yang
jujur, setia dan peduli kepada orang lain telah membantunya melewati masa-masa
sulit dan akhirnya memenangkan hadiah utama di sebuah kuis.
Hasil analisis penulis mengungkapkan bahwa tema kedua novel tersebut
berhubungan dengan pentingnya karakteristik seseorang dalam menghadapi
kesulitan hidup. Meskipun karakteristik dari para protagonis sangat berbeda,
mereka berdua dapat bertahan dari kesulitan hidupnya dan mendapatkan hasil
yang baik di akhir novel.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................ 2
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................... 2
Method of Research ................................................................................ 3
Organization of the Thesis ...................................................................... 3
CHAPTER TWO:
DISCUSSION OF THEME THROUGH THE PROTAGONIST IN
THE WHITE TIGER ........................................................................... 4
CHAPTER THREE:
DISCUSSION OF THEME THROUGH THE PROTAGONIST IN
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE ............................................................... 17
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ............................................................... 28
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 32
APPENDICES:
Synopsis of The White Tiger................................................................... 33
Synopsis of Slumdog Millionaire............................................................ 34
Biography of Aravind Adiga ................................................................... 35
Biography of Vikas Swarup .................................................................... 36
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APPENDICES
Summary of The White Tiger
Balram Halwai comes from a poor family in a remote village of
Laxmangarh, India. His father is a rickshaw puller who is too poor to pay for
Balram‟s education. Even though Balram is a smart boy, he could not finish his
schooling. Instead, he must work at the teashop, wiping tables and breaking coals
since a very young age to help his family.
When Balram gets older, he goes to Dhanbad to learn how to drive. He
knows that a driver‟s salary is higher than that of a servant in a small teashop.
After making a lot of efforts, he finally gets a job as a driver for a rich landlord‟s
family. He moves to New Delhi to serve the family‟s second son, Ashok, who has
recently returned from America.
Working for Ashok, and his wife, Pinky, Balram learns about political and
economic matters. He pays attention to his master‟s family business and realizes
that corruption is very common in this world. Being a driver of a rich and
powerful family also makes him aware of the wealth gap between the rich and the
poor. Balram becomes ambitious; he wants to live the life of a master and does
not want to be a servant anymore.
To get his independence and start a new life, Balram decides to kill Ashok
and steal his money. He abandons his responsibility for protecting his family from
his master‟s family who obviously will take revenge. He becomes a fugitive and
finally is settled in Bangalore, one of the largest business centres in India.
32
With the money he has stolen, he starts a new business with a new identity.
No one in his new place realizes that he is a murderer whom the police are
looking for. Using his knowledge and lessons from his experiences when working
as a servant, Balram manages to become a successful entrepreneur with many
employees. He is finally a master.
Synopsis of Slumdog Millionaire
An orphan boy named Ram Mohammad Thomas is abandoned in the
Church of St. Mary, Delhi. Ram ends up being raised by the parish priest of the
church, Father Timothy Francis, until the age of six when Father Timothy is
killed.
After that time, Ram gets sent to a juvenile home in Delhi. The condition
of that home is terrible, but there he meets his best friend, Salim. They are very
close like brothers, and together they escape from a criminal gang who tries to
make them earn money as handicapped beggars in Goregaon, Mumbai. They live
together and work hard to survive on their own in another side of Mumbai city,
Ghatkopar.
At the age of thirteen, Ram and Salim get separated. Ram leaves Mumbai
to Delhi and does various jobs to survive. Ram experiences so many things and at
the age of seventeen he lives in Agra, working as a tourist guide at the Taj Mahal.
He is happy living in Agra with his friends and his girlfriend who is a prostitute,
Nita.
Ram needs a large amount of money to free Nita from her pimp.
Moreover, Nita is badly injured by the violent action done by one of her
customers. The man is the host of the TV quiz show Who Will Win a Billion? In
revenge for Nita‟s suffering, Ram plans something by participating in the show.
33
Luckily, he can answer all the questions on the quiz because they are related to the
real events that have happened in Ram‟s life. He wins the top prize of the quiz,
one billion rupees.
The producers of the show do not believe that Ram really knows the
answers because he is not educated. They also do not really have one billion
rupees so they do not want to pay Ram. They ask corrupt police officers to arrest
Ram and force him to admit that he has cheated. A lawyer comes to help Ram.
Finally, Ram can claim his prize, marry Nita, and helps friends and the people he
cares about with the money.
Biography of Aravind Adiga
Born in the year 1974 in Madras, present day Chennai, Adiga grew up in
Mangalore and received his basic education at Canara High School and at St.
Aloysius High School from where he graduated in 1990. He studied at James
Ruse Agricultural High School in Sydney, Australia where he and his family
emigrated to during the 90s. He further went on to study English Literature at
Columbia College, Columbia University in New York, from where he graduated
in the year 1997.
Adiga's career in journalism began as a financial journalist as an intern at
Financial Times, Money and the Wall Street Journal. His area of coverage was the
stock market and investment. He wrote a review on Peter Carey's book; he also
wrote about the winner of Booker Prize 1998, Oscar and Lucinda. The article
appeared in an online literary review called The Second Circle. He was eventually
appointed by TIME, where he worked as a South Asia correspondent for about
three years before he started freelancing. This was the time when he wrote The
White Tiger. Adiga currently lives in Mumbai, India.
34
Winning the Man Booker Prize of 2008 for his debut novel, The White
Tiger, made Adiga the fourth Indian born author to win the prize since Arundhati
Roy, Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai.
Between the Assassinations, Adiga's second book featuring 12 short stories
was released in India on the 1st of November 2008.
Source: “Biography of Aravind Adiga”
Biography of Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup was born in Allahabad (India) in a family of lawyers. After
his schooling, Vikas attended Allahabad University and studied History,
Psychology and Philosophy. He also made his mark as a champion debater,
winning National level competitions. After graduating with distinction, he joined
the Indian Foreign Service in 1986, motivated by an interest in international
relations and a desire to explore different cultures.
In his diplomatic career, Vikas has been posted to various countries such
as Turkey (1987-1990), the United States (1993-1997) Ethiopia (1997-2000), the
United Kingdom (2000-2003) and South Africa (2006-2009). Since August 2009,
he has become the Consul General of India in Osaka-Kobe, Japan.
He penned his first novel, Q&A, in two months, when he was posted in
London.
Published
in
2005
by
Doubleday/Random
House
(UK
&
Commonwealth), Harper Collins (Canada) and Scribner (US), it has been
published in 42 languages. It was short listed for the Best First Book by the
Commonwealth Writer‟s Prize and won South Africa‟s Exclusive Books Boeke
Prize 2006 as well as the Paris Book Fair's Reader's Prize, the Prix Grand Public,
35
in 2007. It was voted the Most Influential Book of 2008 in Taiwan, and winner of
the Best Travel Read (Fiction) at the Heathrow Travel Product Award 2009.
The film version of Q&A, titled „Slumdog Millionaire‟, directed by Danny
Boyle, took the world by storm, winning more than 70 awards including four
Golden Globes, 7 BAFTAs and a staggering 8 Oscars, including Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Picture.
Vikas's second novel, Six Suspects, was released in the UK and the
Commonwealth by Transworld in August 2008. Published by Harper Collins in
Canada and St Martin‟s Press in the US, it has sold translation rights in 27
languages.
He has written for TIME, The Guardian, The Telegraph (UK), Outlook
magazine (India) and Liberation (France).
Source: “Vikas Swarup Biography”
36
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
There are many developing countries in Asia and India is one of them.
With its richness of culture, tradition and religion, India is facing a changing
society caused by modernization. As a result, there is a wide gap between the rich
and the poor, as portrayed clearly in The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and
Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup. The authors of the novels describe the
reality of India through the eyes of their protagonists and how they survive the
world of poverty in India.
Balram Halwai is the protagonist of The White Tiger, a novel set in
modern India. As a poor man that has served the rich since he was a young boy,
Balram lives a very tough life. He sees the life of the rich and wants to live like
them, taste the fancy and modern things that he never has in his poor life. Aravind
Adiga has developed Balram to be a strong character in the corrupt world of India,
a character who survives poverty and is willing to do anything, even commit a
crime, to succeed. Balram becomes a winner in the end, starting from a lowly
servant to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Ram Mohammad Thomas, the protagonist of Slumdog Millionaire, is
another character who lives in the rough parts of India. He is a poor boy who has
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had to struggle alone since his childhood. However, his life experiences have
brought him to a big fortune, winning the top prize of a television game show. In
this novel, Ram manages to survive the cruel life in India and reaches happiness
in the end.
The characteristics of both protagonists are formed by the situation and
condition of their lives, and they manage to improve their living condition while
struggling for survival. My reason for choosing these two novels is that they tell
stories about people who can survive difficult situations and reach their goals. I
admire some of the protagonists’ characteristics that bring them to success and
happiness. How the protagonists live their lives is defined by their characteristics.
I would like to discuss the themes of The White Tiger and Slumdog
Millionaire through the protagonists. Analyzing the characteristics of the
protagonists is significant in revealing the theme. The themes of the two novels
are related to someone's characteristics in deciding the way of living, especially in
surviving difficulties. In How to Analyze Fiction, Kenney states, “Theme is the
meaning of the story. By a theme we mean some sort of comment on the subject,
whether the comment is stated explicitly or remain implicit” (88-90). Based on
Kenney's statement, I would like to analyze what is implied in the novels through
the portrayal of the protagonists. I will reveal the themes so that I can see the
meaning of the stories and learn from the protagonists' life experiences.
Statement of the Problems
The problems of this study are stated as follows:
1. What are the themes of the two novels?
2. How are the themes of the two novels revealed through the protagonists?
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Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problem, this study is conducted
1. to reveal the themes of the two novels.
2. to show how the themes of the two novels are revealed through the
protagonists.
Method of Research
The method I use in writing this thesis is library research. I begin by
reading Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger and Vikas Swarup's Slumdog
Millionaire as the primary texts. Afterwards, I read William Kenney's How to
Analyze Fiction to widen my knowledge and to reveal the theme through the
protagonists. All the information and knowledge gathered is then used to analyze
the theme of the novels. As a final point, I draw some conclusions of the research
I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
I divide this thesis into three chapters, which are preceded by the
Acknowledgments, Table of Contents and Abstract. Chapter One contains the
Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problems, the Purpose of the Study,
the Method of Research and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two contains
the analysis of theme through the protagonist in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.
Chapter Three contains the analysis of theme through the protagonist in Vikas
Swarup's Slumdog Millionaire. The last chapter, Chapter Four, is the Conclusion
of what has been discussed in the previous chapters. The thesis ends with the
Bibliography and the Appendices, which contain the synopses of the novels and
the biographies of the authors.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
After analyzing Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger and Vikas Swarup’s
Slumdog Millionaire, I would like to draw some conclusions. I conclude that
one’s characteristics can help him or her to survive his or her difficulties in life.
The theme of The White Tiger is ‘Being smart, selfish and highly
determined can help someone to survive the difficulties in life.’ Balram Halwai,
the protagonist, is a poor servant who has a big determination to leave his life as a
servant and become a succesful entrepreneur. He must face so many difficulties
on his way to success because of poverty. However, Balram is a man who does
not mind committing a crime and sacrificing his own family to achieve his goals.
He kills his master and steals his money to start a new business and a new life in
some new place. He also puts his family in danger as the consequence of his
crime. He is so selfish and highly determined that he only cares about himself. In
the end, because he is smart, he can manage to survive his difficulties and
eventually become a successful entrepreneur in the end.
The theme of Slumdog Millionaire is ‘Being honest, loyal and caring can
help someone to survive the difficulties in life.’ Ram Mohammad Thomas, the
protagonist, is a poor orphan boy who successfully survives his difficulties in life
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and wins the top prize of a quiz show. He manages to survive his hard life without
being a criminal and to stay honest. He is also very loyal and caring to the people
around him, especially his girlfriend and best friend. His valuable characteristics
bring him advantages in surviving difficulties and lead him to one billion rupees.
After winning a lot of money, Ram does not change into a big headed person and
does not abandon his friends. He uses the money wisely so he and the people he
cares about can have a better life.
There is a similarity between the two novels, which concerns the
protagonists' background. They are both poor men who come from the lower class
of Indian society. They both struggle to survive a hard life and to improve their
economic condition. In the end, the protagonist of both novels can survive their
difficulties in life and have a good life.
However, their characteristics are very different. Balram in The White
Tiger is selfish and highly determined. He is so determined to become a
successful entrepreneur that he decides to commit a crime and sacrifice his own
family. On the other hand, Ram in Slumdog Millionaire is a good person that
never commits any crime for selfish reasons. He gets his fortune by coincidence
and he decides to stay honest, loyal and caring to the people he cares about.
The differences in their characteristics are influenced by their situation and
condition. Balram comes from a big family with a lot of needs to fullfil. They are
poor because there are too many mouths to feed in the family. Balram never gets a
chance to improve the quality of his own life, financially and socially, because he
is controlled by the family. This fact makes him selfish and highly determined. He
is tired of his responsibility for his family and he wants to focus on his own life.
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On the other hand, Ram is an orphan boy with no relatives at all. He has
had nobody to rely on since he was a little kid. He depends on himself to survive
poverty. Friends are very important for Ram since he has no family. He is very
caring and loyal to the people he cares about.
In my opinion, the authors’ purpose in making such stories is to show the
readers about the struggle for life. We can learn that we have to struggle to survive
the difficulties and achieve the important things in our lives. So many people in
this world suffer from poverty and try to survive every single day. They try to
improve their economic condition. However, man usually never feels satisfied;
they tend to seek for more and more wealth.
For Ram, the protagonist of Slumdog Millionaire, the key to a happy life is
to be grateful for what he has and to realize that being with the people he loves is
more important than being rich. Even if he can be a rich person, he will not be
happy if he does not have friends and family. But Balram, the protagonist in The
White Tiger, is the type of person who sees wealth as the only symbol of success.
He is highly determined and will do anything in order to become a rich person. He
does not care if he has to lose his family as long as he can be rich. However, at the
end of the novels, both protagonists manage to survive and reach their goals in
spite of their poor background and all the difficulties they face.
I think The White Tiger is more realistic than Slumdog Millionaire. It is
very good to have such valuable characteristics like Ram’s in Slumdog
Millionaire, but it is very unlikely for anyone to be as lucky as him. Ram becomes
a rich person after winning the top prize of a quiz show, in which all the questions
are luckily related to the real events that happened in his life so he can answer all
of the questions. In the real world, this is almost impossible to happen. On the
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other hand, there are so many people that commit a crime in order to be rich like
Balram in The White Tiger. Highly determined people who want to be rich can
lose their good characteristics and commit criminal acts. This fact happens in
daily life.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text(s):
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. New York: Free Press, 2008.
Swarup, Vikas. Slumdog Millionaire. New York: Scribner International, 2005.
References:
“Biography of Aravind Adiga.”, squidoo.com, 2009. 29 Oct. 2009.
< http://www.squidoo.com/Aravind-Adiga>
Cambridge
Advanced
Learner’s
Dictionary.
Third
Edition.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Kenney, William. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press, 1996.
“Vikas Swarup Biography.”, Vikasswarup.net. 29 Oct. 2009.
31
Maranatha Christian University
Penulis menganalisis dua buah karya sastra dalam bentuk novel. Novel
yang dibahas dalam skripsi ini adalah The White Tiger karya Aravind Adiga dan
Slumdog Millionaire karya Vikas Swarup. Dalam skripsi ini, penulis membahas
tema melalui protagonis. Dengan menganalisis karakteristik para tokoh
protagonis, kita dapat mengetahui tema cerita dalam kedua novel tersebut.
Protagonis novel The White Tiger adalah seorang pelayan miskin yang
berhasil mengatasi berbagai kesulitan hidupnya dan menjadi seorang pengusaha
sukses. Karakteristiknya yang pintar, egois dan berkeinginan kuat telah membawa
sang protagonis melewati kesulitan hidup dan meraih kesuksesan.
Protagonis novel Slumdog Millionaire adalah seorang anak yatim piatu
yang harus berjuang seorang diri untuk bertahan hidup. Karakteristiknya yang
jujur, setia dan peduli kepada orang lain telah membantunya melewati masa-masa
sulit dan akhirnya memenangkan hadiah utama di sebuah kuis.
Hasil analisis penulis mengungkapkan bahwa tema kedua novel tersebut
berhubungan dengan pentingnya karakteristik seseorang dalam menghadapi
kesulitan hidup. Meskipun karakteristik dari para protagonis sangat berbeda,
mereka berdua dapat bertahan dari kesulitan hidupnya dan mendapatkan hasil
yang baik di akhir novel.
iii
Maranatha Christian University
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... iii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study ......................................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................ 2
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................... 2
Method of Research ................................................................................ 3
Organization of the Thesis ...................................................................... 3
CHAPTER TWO:
DISCUSSION OF THEME THROUGH THE PROTAGONIST IN
THE WHITE TIGER ........................................................................... 4
CHAPTER THREE:
DISCUSSION OF THEME THROUGH THE PROTAGONIST IN
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE ............................................................... 17
CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ............................................................... 28
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................. 32
APPENDICES:
Synopsis of The White Tiger................................................................... 33
Synopsis of Slumdog Millionaire............................................................ 34
Biography of Aravind Adiga ................................................................... 35
Biography of Vikas Swarup .................................................................... 36
ii
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APPENDICES
Summary of The White Tiger
Balram Halwai comes from a poor family in a remote village of
Laxmangarh, India. His father is a rickshaw puller who is too poor to pay for
Balram‟s education. Even though Balram is a smart boy, he could not finish his
schooling. Instead, he must work at the teashop, wiping tables and breaking coals
since a very young age to help his family.
When Balram gets older, he goes to Dhanbad to learn how to drive. He
knows that a driver‟s salary is higher than that of a servant in a small teashop.
After making a lot of efforts, he finally gets a job as a driver for a rich landlord‟s
family. He moves to New Delhi to serve the family‟s second son, Ashok, who has
recently returned from America.
Working for Ashok, and his wife, Pinky, Balram learns about political and
economic matters. He pays attention to his master‟s family business and realizes
that corruption is very common in this world. Being a driver of a rich and
powerful family also makes him aware of the wealth gap between the rich and the
poor. Balram becomes ambitious; he wants to live the life of a master and does
not want to be a servant anymore.
To get his independence and start a new life, Balram decides to kill Ashok
and steal his money. He abandons his responsibility for protecting his family from
his master‟s family who obviously will take revenge. He becomes a fugitive and
finally is settled in Bangalore, one of the largest business centres in India.
32
With the money he has stolen, he starts a new business with a new identity.
No one in his new place realizes that he is a murderer whom the police are
looking for. Using his knowledge and lessons from his experiences when working
as a servant, Balram manages to become a successful entrepreneur with many
employees. He is finally a master.
Synopsis of Slumdog Millionaire
An orphan boy named Ram Mohammad Thomas is abandoned in the
Church of St. Mary, Delhi. Ram ends up being raised by the parish priest of the
church, Father Timothy Francis, until the age of six when Father Timothy is
killed.
After that time, Ram gets sent to a juvenile home in Delhi. The condition
of that home is terrible, but there he meets his best friend, Salim. They are very
close like brothers, and together they escape from a criminal gang who tries to
make them earn money as handicapped beggars in Goregaon, Mumbai. They live
together and work hard to survive on their own in another side of Mumbai city,
Ghatkopar.
At the age of thirteen, Ram and Salim get separated. Ram leaves Mumbai
to Delhi and does various jobs to survive. Ram experiences so many things and at
the age of seventeen he lives in Agra, working as a tourist guide at the Taj Mahal.
He is happy living in Agra with his friends and his girlfriend who is a prostitute,
Nita.
Ram needs a large amount of money to free Nita from her pimp.
Moreover, Nita is badly injured by the violent action done by one of her
customers. The man is the host of the TV quiz show Who Will Win a Billion? In
revenge for Nita‟s suffering, Ram plans something by participating in the show.
33
Luckily, he can answer all the questions on the quiz because they are related to the
real events that have happened in Ram‟s life. He wins the top prize of the quiz,
one billion rupees.
The producers of the show do not believe that Ram really knows the
answers because he is not educated. They also do not really have one billion
rupees so they do not want to pay Ram. They ask corrupt police officers to arrest
Ram and force him to admit that he has cheated. A lawyer comes to help Ram.
Finally, Ram can claim his prize, marry Nita, and helps friends and the people he
cares about with the money.
Biography of Aravind Adiga
Born in the year 1974 in Madras, present day Chennai, Adiga grew up in
Mangalore and received his basic education at Canara High School and at St.
Aloysius High School from where he graduated in 1990. He studied at James
Ruse Agricultural High School in Sydney, Australia where he and his family
emigrated to during the 90s. He further went on to study English Literature at
Columbia College, Columbia University in New York, from where he graduated
in the year 1997.
Adiga's career in journalism began as a financial journalist as an intern at
Financial Times, Money and the Wall Street Journal. His area of coverage was the
stock market and investment. He wrote a review on Peter Carey's book; he also
wrote about the winner of Booker Prize 1998, Oscar and Lucinda. The article
appeared in an online literary review called The Second Circle. He was eventually
appointed by TIME, where he worked as a South Asia correspondent for about
three years before he started freelancing. This was the time when he wrote The
White Tiger. Adiga currently lives in Mumbai, India.
34
Winning the Man Booker Prize of 2008 for his debut novel, The White
Tiger, made Adiga the fourth Indian born author to win the prize since Arundhati
Roy, Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai.
Between the Assassinations, Adiga's second book featuring 12 short stories
was released in India on the 1st of November 2008.
Source: “Biography of Aravind Adiga”
Biography of Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup was born in Allahabad (India) in a family of lawyers. After
his schooling, Vikas attended Allahabad University and studied History,
Psychology and Philosophy. He also made his mark as a champion debater,
winning National level competitions. After graduating with distinction, he joined
the Indian Foreign Service in 1986, motivated by an interest in international
relations and a desire to explore different cultures.
In his diplomatic career, Vikas has been posted to various countries such
as Turkey (1987-1990), the United States (1993-1997) Ethiopia (1997-2000), the
United Kingdom (2000-2003) and South Africa (2006-2009). Since August 2009,
he has become the Consul General of India in Osaka-Kobe, Japan.
He penned his first novel, Q&A, in two months, when he was posted in
London.
Published
in
2005
by
Doubleday/Random
House
(UK
&
Commonwealth), Harper Collins (Canada) and Scribner (US), it has been
published in 42 languages. It was short listed for the Best First Book by the
Commonwealth Writer‟s Prize and won South Africa‟s Exclusive Books Boeke
Prize 2006 as well as the Paris Book Fair's Reader's Prize, the Prix Grand Public,
35
in 2007. It was voted the Most Influential Book of 2008 in Taiwan, and winner of
the Best Travel Read (Fiction) at the Heathrow Travel Product Award 2009.
The film version of Q&A, titled „Slumdog Millionaire‟, directed by Danny
Boyle, took the world by storm, winning more than 70 awards including four
Golden Globes, 7 BAFTAs and a staggering 8 Oscars, including Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Picture.
Vikas's second novel, Six Suspects, was released in the UK and the
Commonwealth by Transworld in August 2008. Published by Harper Collins in
Canada and St Martin‟s Press in the US, it has sold translation rights in 27
languages.
He has written for TIME, The Guardian, The Telegraph (UK), Outlook
magazine (India) and Liberation (France).
Source: “Vikas Swarup Biography”
36
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
There are many developing countries in Asia and India is one of them.
With its richness of culture, tradition and religion, India is facing a changing
society caused by modernization. As a result, there is a wide gap between the rich
and the poor, as portrayed clearly in The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga and
Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup. The authors of the novels describe the
reality of India through the eyes of their protagonists and how they survive the
world of poverty in India.
Balram Halwai is the protagonist of The White Tiger, a novel set in
modern India. As a poor man that has served the rich since he was a young boy,
Balram lives a very tough life. He sees the life of the rich and wants to live like
them, taste the fancy and modern things that he never has in his poor life. Aravind
Adiga has developed Balram to be a strong character in the corrupt world of India,
a character who survives poverty and is willing to do anything, even commit a
crime, to succeed. Balram becomes a winner in the end, starting from a lowly
servant to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Ram Mohammad Thomas, the protagonist of Slumdog Millionaire, is
another character who lives in the rough parts of India. He is a poor boy who has
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had to struggle alone since his childhood. However, his life experiences have
brought him to a big fortune, winning the top prize of a television game show. In
this novel, Ram manages to survive the cruel life in India and reaches happiness
in the end.
The characteristics of both protagonists are formed by the situation and
condition of their lives, and they manage to improve their living condition while
struggling for survival. My reason for choosing these two novels is that they tell
stories about people who can survive difficult situations and reach their goals. I
admire some of the protagonists’ characteristics that bring them to success and
happiness. How the protagonists live their lives is defined by their characteristics.
I would like to discuss the themes of The White Tiger and Slumdog
Millionaire through the protagonists. Analyzing the characteristics of the
protagonists is significant in revealing the theme. The themes of the two novels
are related to someone's characteristics in deciding the way of living, especially in
surviving difficulties. In How to Analyze Fiction, Kenney states, “Theme is the
meaning of the story. By a theme we mean some sort of comment on the subject,
whether the comment is stated explicitly or remain implicit” (88-90). Based on
Kenney's statement, I would like to analyze what is implied in the novels through
the portrayal of the protagonists. I will reveal the themes so that I can see the
meaning of the stories and learn from the protagonists' life experiences.
Statement of the Problems
The problems of this study are stated as follows:
1. What are the themes of the two novels?
2. How are the themes of the two novels revealed through the protagonists?
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Purpose of the Study
Based on the statement of the problem, this study is conducted
1. to reveal the themes of the two novels.
2. to show how the themes of the two novels are revealed through the
protagonists.
Method of Research
The method I use in writing this thesis is library research. I begin by
reading Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger and Vikas Swarup's Slumdog
Millionaire as the primary texts. Afterwards, I read William Kenney's How to
Analyze Fiction to widen my knowledge and to reveal the theme through the
protagonists. All the information and knowledge gathered is then used to analyze
the theme of the novels. As a final point, I draw some conclusions of the research
I have done.
Organization of the Thesis
I divide this thesis into three chapters, which are preceded by the
Acknowledgments, Table of Contents and Abstract. Chapter One contains the
Background of the Study, the Statement of the Problems, the Purpose of the Study,
the Method of Research and the Organization of the Thesis. Chapter Two contains
the analysis of theme through the protagonist in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.
Chapter Three contains the analysis of theme through the protagonist in Vikas
Swarup's Slumdog Millionaire. The last chapter, Chapter Four, is the Conclusion
of what has been discussed in the previous chapters. The thesis ends with the
Bibliography and the Appendices, which contain the synopses of the novels and
the biographies of the authors.
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CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
After analyzing Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger and Vikas Swarup’s
Slumdog Millionaire, I would like to draw some conclusions. I conclude that
one’s characteristics can help him or her to survive his or her difficulties in life.
The theme of The White Tiger is ‘Being smart, selfish and highly
determined can help someone to survive the difficulties in life.’ Balram Halwai,
the protagonist, is a poor servant who has a big determination to leave his life as a
servant and become a succesful entrepreneur. He must face so many difficulties
on his way to success because of poverty. However, Balram is a man who does
not mind committing a crime and sacrificing his own family to achieve his goals.
He kills his master and steals his money to start a new business and a new life in
some new place. He also puts his family in danger as the consequence of his
crime. He is so selfish and highly determined that he only cares about himself. In
the end, because he is smart, he can manage to survive his difficulties and
eventually become a successful entrepreneur in the end.
The theme of Slumdog Millionaire is ‘Being honest, loyal and caring can
help someone to survive the difficulties in life.’ Ram Mohammad Thomas, the
protagonist, is a poor orphan boy who successfully survives his difficulties in life
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and wins the top prize of a quiz show. He manages to survive his hard life without
being a criminal and to stay honest. He is also very loyal and caring to the people
around him, especially his girlfriend and best friend. His valuable characteristics
bring him advantages in surviving difficulties and lead him to one billion rupees.
After winning a lot of money, Ram does not change into a big headed person and
does not abandon his friends. He uses the money wisely so he and the people he
cares about can have a better life.
There is a similarity between the two novels, which concerns the
protagonists' background. They are both poor men who come from the lower class
of Indian society. They both struggle to survive a hard life and to improve their
economic condition. In the end, the protagonist of both novels can survive their
difficulties in life and have a good life.
However, their characteristics are very different. Balram in The White
Tiger is selfish and highly determined. He is so determined to become a
successful entrepreneur that he decides to commit a crime and sacrifice his own
family. On the other hand, Ram in Slumdog Millionaire is a good person that
never commits any crime for selfish reasons. He gets his fortune by coincidence
and he decides to stay honest, loyal and caring to the people he cares about.
The differences in their characteristics are influenced by their situation and
condition. Balram comes from a big family with a lot of needs to fullfil. They are
poor because there are too many mouths to feed in the family. Balram never gets a
chance to improve the quality of his own life, financially and socially, because he
is controlled by the family. This fact makes him selfish and highly determined. He
is tired of his responsibility for his family and he wants to focus on his own life.
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On the other hand, Ram is an orphan boy with no relatives at all. He has
had nobody to rely on since he was a little kid. He depends on himself to survive
poverty. Friends are very important for Ram since he has no family. He is very
caring and loyal to the people he cares about.
In my opinion, the authors’ purpose in making such stories is to show the
readers about the struggle for life. We can learn that we have to struggle to survive
the difficulties and achieve the important things in our lives. So many people in
this world suffer from poverty and try to survive every single day. They try to
improve their economic condition. However, man usually never feels satisfied;
they tend to seek for more and more wealth.
For Ram, the protagonist of Slumdog Millionaire, the key to a happy life is
to be grateful for what he has and to realize that being with the people he loves is
more important than being rich. Even if he can be a rich person, he will not be
happy if he does not have friends and family. But Balram, the protagonist in The
White Tiger, is the type of person who sees wealth as the only symbol of success.
He is highly determined and will do anything in order to become a rich person. He
does not care if he has to lose his family as long as he can be rich. However, at the
end of the novels, both protagonists manage to survive and reach their goals in
spite of their poor background and all the difficulties they face.
I think The White Tiger is more realistic than Slumdog Millionaire. It is
very good to have such valuable characteristics like Ram’s in Slumdog
Millionaire, but it is very unlikely for anyone to be as lucky as him. Ram becomes
a rich person after winning the top prize of a quiz show, in which all the questions
are luckily related to the real events that happened in his life so he can answer all
of the questions. In the real world, this is almost impossible to happen. On the
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other hand, there are so many people that commit a crime in order to be rich like
Balram in The White Tiger. Highly determined people who want to be rich can
lose their good characteristics and commit criminal acts. This fact happens in
daily life.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Text(s):
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. New York: Free Press, 2008.
Swarup, Vikas. Slumdog Millionaire. New York: Scribner International, 2005.
References:
“Biography of Aravind Adiga.”, squidoo.com, 2009. 29 Oct. 2009.
< http://www.squidoo.com/Aravind-Adiga>
Cambridge
Advanced
Learner’s
Dictionary.
Third
Edition.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Kenney, William. How to Analyze Fiction. New York: Monarch Press, 1996.
“Vikas Swarup Biography.”, Vikasswarup.net. 29 Oct. 2009.
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