Post modern Reading of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Abstract

Postmodernism, mainly depicts the transition of society and culture from its ‘modern’ environments to the highly complicated ‘post-modern’ period of transnationality, hyperreality, intertextuality, simulacrum and deconstruction. From a world where Nietzsche had already announced the death of God, Postmodernism announces the death of the subject and structured discourse. Such disseminating features of Postmodernism can therefore incite its description as a movement which has a unifying philosophy of individualism, dislocation of the psyche, discredited Marxism and such strategic-rhetorical practices resulting into the reinterpretation of history, identity and epistemology.

Postmodernism and social theory has always been an unbreakable connection. As a matter of fact, Postmodernist literature itself is a consequence of the deeply imbibed socio-historical struggle of the modern intellectual to justify himself in a hypocritical society. Such equation is shared between Literature and Society that this eventually breeds a complex intellectual discourse rich with ideas, ideologies and concepts. All complicated Postmodernist discourses of New Historicism, Oriental Studies and Cosmopolitanism in some way discuss the relationship between texts and reality. They critique the society in theory thereby giving vent to frustrations while also letting the world know of its deep rooted problems. This paper tries to connect literature with society and attempts to bring to light the contemporary social problems arising as a consequence of growing capitalism, consumerism and class divide with the help of The White Tiger.