Abstract

RECOGNIZABLE IMAGES OF ‘DARK INDIA’: ORIENTALISM AND ADIGA’S THE WHITE TIGER

Dr Deepak Upadhyay

Volume: 3 Issue: 4 2013

Abstract:

Orientalism is a much discussed and debated term in postcolonial studies. It has acquired many shades of meaning through centuries. Starting off as a scholarly discipline in the Western academia, orientalism went on to achieve notoriety as a hegemonic discourse that produced the ideological basis for the European colonization. Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger unsparingly captures the imaginative geography of the orientalist thought as it undermines India’s postcolonial achievements and accomplishments. In spite of dismantling and decolonizing the narrative structure, it depicts how indigenous culture and tradition are forced to bow under a colonial tendency to legitimize the stereotypical image of India. This paper will endeavour to study how Arvind Adiga could not resist the colonial tendency or framework to see the native traditions and cultures as something inferior and subservient, and how he meekly grabbed the Eurocentric model of dominating discourse and, thus, reinforced the discrimination and stereotypes instead of deconstructing them.

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