Adiga, using metaphor, demonstrated how there is a lack of social justice and social rights in the lower class of the Indian society. The upper class is capable of compressing the lower class, while the lower class does not equip the ability of defending themselves toward this suppression. This lack of social justice undoubtedly represents the social inequality in India. 

 

Evidence:

In Chapter 5, "Go to old Delhi, behind the Jama Masjid, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters…They know they're next. Yet they d not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country." (147)

 

Explanation:

Balram used analogy to clearly demonstrated the situation of Indian lower class. In his description of the market, the chicken symbolized the India lower class. Their organs are taken away by the butcher, which symbolized the upper class, but their peers can't do anything to help. 

 

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This social inequality is in fact engendered by the social class system, also known as the caste system in India.

 

Adiga contends that the servant mentality is so ingrained in men from Dark India, preventing social mobility in the society.

Evidence:
In chapter 4, Adiga utilizes juxtaposition to reveal how the Indian society has shaped men in lower class. When Mr.Ashock “wonder[s]…the point of living,” Balram immediately replies in his mind that it is to “pay me[him] three and a half thousand rupees a month.” However, such thoughts contradict his actions and feelings that follow; he feels sympathy when Mr.Ashock deplores Pinky Madam’s departure, “sang[singing] a song” for him and “wiped[wiping] the vomit from his lips”(159-160).

Explanation:
While Balram regards Mr.Ashock only as a source of money, he can’t help but serve and obey him. The juxtaposition of Balram’s contrasting behaviors depicts how lower class men’s instinct to serve the powerful dominates them despite their desire of freedom as well as their despise of the corrupted. Hence, Adiga demonstrates how the intrinsic values and norms of men in Dark India further enforces the Rooster Coop.

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In other words, the Indian society forces men to act against their intuition in order to move up the social latter, which ultimately discourages social mobility.

Adiga reveals how the Indian society's unreasonable sense of morality revolving around familial duties aggravates social-breakdown. 

Evidence:
In chapter 2, Adiga includes an allusion to Iqbal’s Devil. He explains how the Devil reminds Balram of “a little black figure in a wet khaki uniform who is climbing up the entranceway to a black fort”(75). 

Explanation:
By comparing his act of denying his family’s expectations to the Devil, Balram shows how Indians regard failing to value familial duties more immoral than other unethical practices that are prevalent in the society, such as corruptions and suppression. Such culture not only aggravates and prolongs poverty in the society but also causes people to view the social breakdown in India lightly.

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Therefore, the familial obligations in the Indian culture hinders the poor from improving their lives. 

Adiga presents how the poor are suffering the most from the environmental damages induced by the rich. 

Evidence:
In chapter 4, Adiga employs point of view to demonstrate the rich’s ignorance and lack of responsibility to the consequences of their acts. When autorickshaw driver coughs and spits from the air pollution in the street, Mr.Ashok exclaims, “It’s like we’re in a concert of spitting!”(116)

Explanation:
Mr.Ashok’s response to the spitting shows how he, like many other rich people, is unaware of the severity of the pollution because he is in a car, protected from it, while the poor are out in the street, exposed to the toxic air. Adiga establishes a situation irony here, as it is the rich who have polluted the environment by no only driving cars but also leading the industrialization, yet the poor are suffering and the rich are oblivious to the pollution itself. 

Link:
Hence, Adiga tactfully exposes the rich’s egoistic nature, as they are not bothered to take responsibility of or even be aware of the repercussions of their acts.

Using various characters to represent the different forms of families, Adiga suggests the meaning of families to Indians: an impediment to one’s liberty. 

When Balram discusses the “Rooster Coop” in the letter, Adiga utilizes point of view and symbolism to depict millions of men and women in Dark trapped by the wealth in the Light. Balram explains “…the Indian family, is the reason we are trapped and tied to the coop. The answer to the second question is that only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed-hunted, beaten, and burned alive by the masters- can break out of the coop.” 

These literary devices present the oppression of India’s poor, being suppressed yet not being able to rebel against the wealth due to the domino effect that disobey would bring to their families. As a result, Indian family plays to stimulate the social inequality and corruption. While family connection and love are meant to be the strenghts of an individual- especially in India, where moralities and loyalites regarding family are emphasized- they become weaknesses in the context of rooster coop logic. In the society where countless untold rules are opposed to the poor, Balram realizes that one needs to be inclined to sacrifice everything to cherish the freedom even if that means to unattach oneself from one’s family and love.

As a result, the role of family love is evidently distinct in the Dark Indian society due to the environment where the use of power is justified.  

Through Balram’s language, tone, and rhetorical question, the author depicted India as a country that has lack social justice and equity due to the abuse of power in caste system.

Evidence:

In chapter 2, when Balram is being asked by the Stork about his caste and family, Balram explains that his future employers are asking these questions in order to pinpoint his hometown so that they can execute his family members if he did something wrong or became unloyal to his master.

The author uses a rhetorical question to show the manipulation of the higher class towards the lower class by family members’ safety. “Now, who would want this to happen to his family, sir? Which inhuman wretch of a monster would consign his own granny and brother and aunt and nephews and nieces to death? ” (40 in PDF)

Explanation:

The rhetorical question clearly reflects the inner voice of Indians in the lower caste and the social inequality within India. The question also conveys the mood of helplessness. Since no one would like their family members to die because of own mistake, the servants would work hard and follow everything that their master instructed. Furthermore, the servents, from a low caste, knew that no one can protect them when their master want to do something for them and their family. Thus, they would be trapped in their master’s manipulation for their entire life until their master let them go, which is not likely to happen. This phenomenon shows the inhumaneness of Indian society and the oppression from the riches to the poor.  Individuals obediently follow their master's instructions because they are intimidated into submission. Also, how people from higher caste have the power to execute the lower class shows a lack of an efficient and justified political system, the country’s lack of equity and justice. People of the higher classes never have to pay for their crimes. 

Link:

The social inequality and the abuse of power by higher caste had greatly contributed to the consequences of social morality being disregarded. 

Global Issue Statement:
Social morality is disregarded due to the abuse of power by the higher social class. 

Evidence: “Doesn’t the driver’s family protest? Far from it… He was loyal as a dog. He was the perfect servant.”(145)

Explanation: Through the episode of Balram being scapegoat for killing a homeless child, which it was Pinky Madame who hit her after drunk driving, the author demonstrates the social corruption of India and how the lower class people are powerless in a lawless society. On the other hand, the author criticizes through the perspective of Balram that the family of the victims doesn’t protest against this phenomena. If the people in India, who were the victims or were the family of victims, had risen to protest, the people in Darkness might not have to repeat their lives in the disordered society. This links to the symbolism of Rooster Coop referring to the Darkness society which is “guarded from inside”(166). Through the beliefs and values embedded in the people’s mind of Indian society, it makes them harder to fight against the hierarchical system because the overall societal atmosphere has oppressed them to live like a dog—a life of being faithful to its master until they die. 

Link: Therefore, the fixed values of Indian society with base of familial beliefs has successfully guarded its own kind of people from going out of the Rooster Coop

Evidence: “ The worst part of being a driver is that you have hours to yourself while……but if the driver sees his free time as an opportunity, if he uses it to think then the worst part of his job becomes the best.”(126)

Explanation: The general situation of Indians from the lower class in society merely finishes education, which Ashok and Balram calls them half-baked man. Since Balram has a servant’s experience, the reader acknowledges the effect of the lack of education has on those lower class people. In the evidence, describes how the servants especially the drivers spend their time with meaningless and monotonous activities such as reading murder and rape magazine, drink liquor, or daydream. This shows how the servants like Balram would spend time doing; this emphasizes on the paralytic effect of the poor education system and values of society has on the lower class Indian.

Link: The poor education system has continuously created the society where the whole society is paralyzed, both for poor and the rich. Furthermore, it represents how India succeed the phenomena of which the poor gets poorer and the rich gets richer. 

Evidence:”The auto rickshaw driver next to me began to cough violently……Well if you were out there breathing that acid air, you’d be spitting like him too, I thought”(116)

Explanation: The scene shows the reader that the rich people in India, no matter if they are educated in United States such as characters like Ashok and Pinky, they are still ignorant on the environmental issues that are current in India. In fact, Ashok is the character who considers the environment, since in the previous chapter, it mentioned that he is a vegan and he thinks it is reasonable for the environment; however, he still complains about how the auto rickshaw driver is spitting. This shows that being rich in a disordered society like India makes people ignorant about the issues of the surroundings. Additionally, another reason that Ashok complains is because of the antipathy he has toward the poor people, since he dislikes the people, it makes them to prefer to be ignorant about the issues surrounding the lower class society.

Link: Through the ignorance of the environmental problem of the rich people in India, it shows how the social classes keep polarizing, and that poor people are keep suffering while rich people are keep ignoring.

According to Balram’s words it shows that Indian was known as a country that goes with democracy, however lower class’s rights were being deprived by politicians.

Evidence:

In chapter 2 it mentioned “He had sold our fingerprints”, in their country for illiterate people their fingerprint was a way for them to vote. “someone else has voted for me twelve times”, Balram does see the elections but he wasn’t the one that gets the opportunity of voting, instead others voted for him. A person tried to vote for himself but because of that he got killed “he had been stamped back into the earth.”

Explanation:

Lower class’s votes were bought by the politician, for Balram he works for the teashop, and so the teashop sold his fingerprint out. To have the ability of voting, citizens has to be eighteen, at the time when government members met Balram they made his age to be eighteen just so they can buy one more vote for themselves. A person was trying to vote for himself, which was suppose to be his own right, however he got stopped and beaten up, which means citizens didn’t actually got their own right and it isn’t democracy. 

Link: 

Social inequality was presented by the suppression of politicians to lower class based on the act of voting. 

Global issue: 
The impact of social inequality on suppression to lower class.

Adiga explicitly presents how the caste system in India creates an inevitable route for one’s living. 

In the chapter “The Fourth Night”, Balram is falsely accused of killing a girl on the road, which was actually done by Mr.Ashok and Pinky Madam. Suffering the unfairness caused by the manipulation of the wealth, Balram anxiously ponders about the status he’s positioned at. “Doesn’t the driver’s family protest? Far from it. They would actually go about bragging… The judges? Wouldn’t they see through this obviously forced confession? But they are in the racket too. They take their bribe, they ignore the discrepancies in the case. And life goes on.” (pg.145)

The juxtaposition of people in Dark and Light used in this context explicitly present two ways of living: “eat or be eaten”. The people in the Dark are compelled to concede and justify all the acts of the wealth even if that means to lose a family member or one’s whole fortune. From the wealth’s position, the only way to clear oneself of a false charge or to promote oneself to a higher position in the country full of corruption and unjust, is to fight for self-advancement at the expense of the people in the Dark. Adiga reveals that having a set hierarchical system only leads the country to separate into two where fairness, rights, and organized government lack. He further stresses how the wealth inequality and political injustice expand in the country with the wealth messing around with the Dark’s fate. 

In other words, the caste system in India formed a tacit principle in India, bringing greater inequality to the system. 

Through the character’s interaction, the author depicted a social norm of the master-servant relationship in which servants cannot rebel against their master. 

Evidence:

In chapter 4, when Mukesh claimed that he lost a rupee, he ordered Balram to kneel down to find the rupee. Balram utilizes a simile to describe his posture at the time: “I sniffed in between the mats like a dog, all in search of that one rupee (80 in PDF).”When Ashok was trying to speak up for Balram by comparing the half-million rupee that they just paid in bribes to a rupee, Mukesh argues against it by saying: “That's how you corrupt servant. It starts with one rupee. Don't bring your American ways here (80 in PDF).” The event eventually ends with Balram giving out his own money and pretending that he found the money. 

Explanation:

By applying a simile of referring to Balram as a dog, the author shows to the reader a clear image of how Indian low caste servent’s status is within the society, and how their master would usually treat them. A rupee clearly does not matter that much to Mukesh who is a high-caste Indian. Even though he has no evidence that says Balram steal his one rupee, he still blames Balram by referring to Balram as a “corrupt servant” (80). His tone was disrespectful and disdainful. This also indicates that higher-class Indians believe, they think that lower-class Indians/servents are usually sneaky and unhonest. This could be not true and is a stereotype towards the lower caste population; however, when an individual is placed in a society where people around all have this similar thought, he/she would likely formulate the same thought. Thus, this shows how society’s values can affect individual values. The truth is that Mukesh overthinks and is too skeptical in this case. However, when Mukesh ordered Balram to kneel down and find the rupee, Balram kneel down without hesitation. This shows that servents know that they need to follow their master’s order. Just like how the Balram refers to his posture at the time to a dog, which dog symbolizes loyalty and obedience. In this case, it means that the servants need to obey their master's orders without question. In addition, even though Balram knew he did not take the rupee, he decided to not rebel against Mukesh, a high-caste Indian, by giving a rupee out. 

Link:

Thus, this event clearly shows how the community’s values could have effects on individual values. 

Global Issue:
The influence of community's value in shaping individual values.

Adiga explains that for one to have a self-advancement in the hierarchal structure of the country, distinctive characteristics are required. 

Evidence:
In chapter 1, the official visits the school Balram attends and calls Balram a “white tiger”. “You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals—the creature that comes along only once in a generation?” “The white tiger”.  “That’s what you are, in this jungle.” (pg.30). From then on, Balram also perceived himself as a special individual, who has qualities that are exceptional. 

The White Tiger in this context symbolizes extraordinary strength, and calling Balram a white tiger characterizes Balram as a brave, intuitive, and clairvoyant. Establishing such character, Adiga shows how Balram utilizes these attributes to both motivate and encourage himself to fight for his own advancement in the country full of iniquity. The author further exhibits Balram’s attempts to free himself from restrictions and traditional morals, entitling his own life by learning justice and corruption simultaneously.  

Hence, only the people who have exceptional qualities and adjust well to ruthless community can survive and promote to higher position.  

E : Balram mentions that in recent days, there are casts : “men with big bellies, and men with small bellies”. He mentions that only way to survive is either “eating” or “getting eaten up” (54).

E : While expressing nostalgia for the old India, Adiga uses metaphor to convey the message about India’s social breakdown. Unlike old India where people were satisfied with their positions, people in new India try to trample others. Through the metaphor, Adiga implies that in the new India, the only way to shape one’s social position is to take ethically questionable actions, compromising one self like Balram did. By describing that there is only one way to get ‘big belly’, which is destroying others, Adiga also claims that there is no room for middle class, deepening the inequality between classes. He criticizes that there is no actual way out from the ’small bellies’.

L : therefore, the author criticizes the disordered society of India that leads to further polarization between different social classes. 

E : When trying to find driver space, Balram “put a big smile on his face” and asked if the guy needed any driver. He also added that “he’ve got four years’ experience. His master recently died” (50).

E : Balram, who exaggerates that himself is a “self-made entrepreneur”, is subject to a more loose ethical and moral code. In this scene, he makes up his career and experience as a driver to get what he thinks helps to move to upper class. He lies in an indifferent way. It seems pretty normal to break laws. This scene establishes that entrepreneurs in India can almost only succeed by illegal activities. 

L : Therefore, the prevalence of lack of awareness about the illegal activities to achieve success leads to further chaos in Indian society. 

Evidence: In chapter 1, Balram’s grandmother, Kusum, takes out a big loan from the landlord to pay his cousin-sister’s wedding. The landlord commands Balram’s family to work for him. Because Balram is Kusum’s family, he is also taken out of school and sent to a teashop (31). The author juxtaposes the scene where he is being taken to the work with the previous scene where Balram becomes “white tiger”, for being intelligent and having potentials (30).

Explanation: Through the juxtaposition, the author explicitly depicts how Balram’s future is not protected but rather ruined by the familial obligations. The moment when Balram is recognized as a smart student implies that he has lots of potentials and would have been able to successful only if he is allowed to continue learning at school. However, by depicting how familial duty takes opportunities away from him and forces him to stay in his family’s social class. 

Link: In the Indian society, family is one of the things that chains people up in their original social class and restricts social mobility. 

Seyun

Evidence: The author uses irony to reveal the corruptions. In chapter 3, Balram says some politicians state that India does have “democracy” which is a better thing than China. Then he explains how the elections work in India: the Great Socialist’s Party always takes over the election and stay in power by using corrupted methods. For example, the elections are “supposed to be a close election”, but the Great Socialist’s Party buys “fingerprints” of employees to use them for the votes for the party. If there is any person who attempts to vote himself, “Vijay and a policeman had knocked” the voter and “begun beating him” (85). Also, the landlords who cooperated with the Great Socialist’s Party in the course of elections gain bigger social and political power and uses the power to control lower class people and therefore protect their wealth.

Explanation: The author depicts corruption in political system using the irony: in India, the nation of democracy, the corruption in the election always happen. Also, the author shows how the people are oppressed due to the party’s corrupt actions in elections using another irony where policemen who are supposed to protect citizens harm the citizen for the political party. 

Link: There is a cycle of corruption and social injustice that perpetuated in India for long.

Seyun

Evidence: “…only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed - hunted, beaten, and burned alive by the masters - can break out of the coop. That would take no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of nature" (148)

Explanation: The author used the symbols to explain his point. The Rooster Coop symbolizes the oppression of lower class (the poor) that has perpetuated in the Indian society. Balram writes that going against the coop is immoral as it leads to punishment or death of family and on the other hand, obeying to their masters is safe and moral. Through the quote, the author contends that to free oneself from servitude to the wealthy people, harms to one’s family must be risked and therefore it takes “white tiger” which symbolizes someone who fights for oneself and one’s freedom. 

Link: Escaping from the Rooster Coop or the oppression of poor associates big dangers and requires bravery in this Indian social system.

Seyun

People in India were presented as that they were honest and they obey their master when there are attractions, but truly it is because they are in the same community, Rooster Coop.

Evidence

In chapter 5, lower class were ones that transfer money from places to places, however they do not steal the money for its own good “he never takes a rupee of it”, they wouldn’t make the money that is already in their hand, instead they would bring it back to their masters. 

Explanation:

The servants didn’t choose to not take the money away because of their honesty, which the Narrator mentioned that the prime minister informed Mr. JiaBao. It was because 99.9 percent of people were trapped in the Rooster Coop, people in it barely has any freedom, so they have to follow what they were told by ones in higher status. They can try to escape, however people in their family will suffer. 

Link

Most people in India were stuck together in the Rooster Coop, the honesty mentioned doesn’t truly exist, it is more of them being forced to do so.

Global issue: 
The caste system classifies people’s identity and the community they belong to. 

In Balram’s perspective he does feel honored and values with what he has when being as a driver, an air-conditioned car rather than being on the buses. 

Evidence:

On the way to Delhi, Balram unlike others was in air-conditioned car, instead of being in the crowd with others “who packed the insides, and hung out the doors, and even got on the roofs.” Every time when he sees the bus and that he thinks himself in the car he would want to show off of how different he is compared to others “Each time we passed by one of these buses, I had to grin”. 

Explanation:

Even though being a driver in some ways they are still servants, they do get treated better than others that are in the same caste. Balram does enjoy the treatment of him being in a car, he values his position and the act of him being in the car, it shows by how he wants to tell others and using the word “had to”, it shows that based on what he have he must show a grin, he must show his happiness.

Link:

Being as a driver makes Balram value what he owns, he compared to other people in the same caste does show being delighted. 

E: “Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored rooster, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space”, “the roosters in the coop smell the blood from above…. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel.”, “the very same thing is done with human beings in this country.” (147)

E: The author uses symbolism to point out that the roosters in the coop are those who belong to the darkness and are from poor and rural India. The grinning young butcher is people from the light, who are from the urban, wealthy part of India. In the story, it clearly shows that the poor people do not have any hope for their life they are powerless, since they already know their final fate is to work for the rich, listen to them and always be honest to them, even though the rich are surprising them, they will still accept how the rich treated them because they do not have any power to fight back. This metaphor points out the relationship between the rich and the poor and reflects the inequality in Indian society. 

L: The wealthy oppress the poor to the extent that the poor can only act obedient to the wealthy.

Point：

Through the contrast of different-class characters’ language and tone, the author highlights how the lower class population is the ones who pay off for the rich's environmental devastation.

Evidence：

When the autorickshaw began “cough violently”, Ashok said, “It's like we're in a concert of spitting (80 in PDF)!” While Balram’s inner voice further emphasizes the ignorance of the higher class population on environmental issues: “Well, if you were out there breathing that acid air, you'd be spitting like him too, I thought （80 in PDF). ”

Explanation:

The contrast between Ashok’s disdainful tone and Balram’s sarcastic tone highlights the higher class ignorance on environmental issues. Even though Ashok went to America and had accepted better education/ influenced by the open-minded ideas in America, his nature is still like any other higher-class Indian in which he is blissfully unaware of the extent of pollution. Ashok probably had never accounted for Balram’s thoughts of how serious the consequences of pollution are. This is because Ashok has been protected in the car, away from pollution, so he would never know the extent of pollution. While Balram, who is from the lower class would know better because the lower class does not have cars and need to be exposed to pollution. While it was also the higher class people who pushes industrial development that caused pollution, it’s very ironic that they are protected away from the consequences they led to and led lower class people to suffer from it. 

Link:

Through this phenomenon of environmental issues in India, it draws out another issue in India which is social inequality. 

E: In chapter two, Balram mentioned that “Many of my best ideas are, in fact, borrowed from my ex-employer or his brother or someone else whom I was driving about."

E: Balram points out that by eavesdropping on Ashok and Pinky Madam, he learns about the Indian society and life in  America, gathers new ideas and makes himself an original listener, and even though he is a driver, he can enrich himself in another way. Moreover, when he works in a tea shop he also learns information from the guests. Balram believes that being able to learn and gather information from their environment is a crucial part of being an entrepreneur.

L: In Balram’s perspective being a “half baked” Indian still have the opportunity to become a entrepreneur, instead of being a servant for rest of their life, or give up with education.