Redefining Morality. The Concept of Dharma in Aravind Adiga's 'The White Tiger'

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Kassel (Anglistik/Amerikanistik Literaturwissenschaft), course: Visions of India, language: English, abstract: The guiding question of this paper is how Balram justifies his criminal acts and on which moral concept he bases his decisions. In the course of this paper, I will attempt to show that the protagonist is a gritty anti-hero who does not act in accordance to dharma and reinvents his own concept of morality. The first chapter will give a brief explanation of dharma, one of the four purushartas, a significant concept in Indian philosophy, especially in Hinduism when talking about morality. 'Dharma is inextricably linked with the ethos of India and the entire personal, social, ecological, and spiritual life is guided by it for ultimate liberation' (Mathew, 2015:131). In the following chapter, the criminal acts committed by the protagonist and the circumstances and reasons leading to it will be analyzed in terms of morality, taking the concept of dharma into consideration. This chapter underlies the difficulty of how to cope with the paradox issue of the protagonist being a murderer and a victim at the same time. Subsequently, the strategies employed by the protagonist to justify his immoral acts will be discussed in detail, attempting to find out how Balram distinguishes between right and wrong. Firstly, the depiction of other humans in the novel will be examined since the narrator strategically portrays them as being immoral and corrupt in order to comparatively put himself on a higher level. Secondly, his heroic self-image will be analyzed, considering his name 'the white tiger'. The third subchapter will focus on how the protagonist employs the metaphor of the rooster coop as a justification for the murder, taking the consequences of the murder into account and discussing Balram's ultimate aims.