Rooster Coop In Adiga's The White Tiger

The White Tiger

In the novel The White Tiger, Adiga points out at the corrupt Indian society, using the narrator Balram Halwai. Born in a poor village, Balram starts life in the lower caste and rises to the top later in his life. Balram uses the metaphor of the Rooster Coop to explain how oppressed the poor of the India are. Balram knows that he needs to break out of the coop to get from the Darkness to the Light. The Rooster Coop holds back Balram from making his own decisions and succeeding, but as soon as he escapes from the coop, he becomes one of the winners in society.

Balram can’t make his own decisions or succeed because he’s trapped in the Rooster Coop. In the chapter “The Fifth Night”, after taking the blame for Madam Pinky’s hit-and-run, Balram explains that his “life had been written away … I was in terror, and yet not once did the thought of running away cross my mind ...” (Adiga, 151) Balram acknowledges that he wasn’t in charge of his life. This is significant because Balram was dependent on his master Ashok’s decisions. There is also proof that he was trapped in the coop: he didn’t even think

He states, “I love my start-up -this chandelier, and silver laptop, and these twenty-six Toyota Qualises-.” (Adiga, 274) He now has all the things he never had growing up. The coop held him back from having material wealth, but now that he is out of it, he is successful in terms of money. Another example for his material wealth is when he states, “If you were sitting here with me, under this big chandelier ... You could stare at the screen of my silver Macintosh laptop and see photos of my SUV’s, my drivers, my garages, my mechanics, and my paid policemen.” ( Adiga, 258) Balram sees his “chandelier” as a proof of his richness. He uses “chandelier” as a representation that now he is out of the coop and in the Light. He has a luxurious life, and he’s not holding back from showing how opulent his life