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Essay / The importance of settings in Native Son and The White Tiger
When writing The White Tiger and Native Son, Aravind Adiga and Richard Wright used the setting to influence the plot of the novels, making so that their characters' stories unfold in very regulated and controlling societies. Their extreme conditions push the protagonists to want to break out of the cycle they find themselves in and the only way to achieve this, in their opinion, is to commit negative actions and extreme crimes. While Balram Halwai manages to escape the "Rooster Coop" of Indian society, Bigger Thomas fights within the racist community of Chicago in the 1930s. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The White Tiger shapes a visual representation of corruption in Indian society. Voter fraud is a common practice in India; Rich landowners or business leaders are expected to give the big socialist either money or the fingerprints of the people who work for them. The impecunible population has no say in what happens in the nation, even if the country is considered democratic. People are forced to follow the instructions of their bosses: “There were elections coming up and the tea shop owner had already sold us out. He had sold our fingerprints – the fingerprints that the illiterate leaves on the ballot to indicate his vote. . . he had obtained a good price for each of us from the party of the Great Socialist” (Adiga 81). Because most of the poor population is illiterate, either because they are taken out of school very early or because they simply do not have access to school. If there is not enough money to pay for school, it is easier for educated people in power to crush and manipulate those in social classes lower than them. The government is taking advantage of the country's poor educational situation by giving money to business owners to regulate elections, because the latter only care about receiving money to support their families. Such actions by the government make the cycle of corruption and poverty unbreakable, as no change can be achieved when the same people are in the position of power. Adiga creates a strong contrast between the rich people of India and the poor people who live in the country. the so-called “Rooster Coop” and working for the rich all their lives: the caste system in India. While the rich swim in their plethora of wealth with luxury residences, huge shopping malls and personal chauffeurs; the working class suffers from extreme poverty where the only thing they can rely on is their water buffalo and giving birth to many children to be able to work and bring some money to the family for food : “At the door of my house, you will see the most important member of my family. The water buffalo. . . She was the dictator of our house! (Adiga 17). Balram's family cherishes the buffalo not only because it is the sacred symbol of India, but also because it is their main financial resource. The more milk the buffalo produces, the more money the family receives. This involves a high risk of losing everything they rely on, which could very well lead to death from starvation. Location plays an important role in character development and the Balram's mindset. While Balram is taken out of school, he is forced to work at the tea shop in order to get extra income for the family. He observes the lives of other peoplein poverty and realizes that if he doesn't change anything, he will follow in his family's footsteps and stay in this poverty for the rest of his life. Balram is certain that when he leaves the Darkness to travel and work in the Light, he will escape poverty and have a better life for himself and his family. But when he arrives in New Delhi, his dreams do not exceed his reality. What he witnesses is the opposite of what he imagined: “These people were building houses for the rich, but they lived in tents covered with blue tarpaulins and divided into walkways by sewer pipes. It was even worse than Laxmangarh” (Adiga 222). For Balram, it has always seemed that big cities bring people success and wealth, when in reality the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich, whether they are in Laxmangarh or New Delhi. Native Son's Bigger faces social discrimination in his community that forces him to commit extreme acts in order to express his anger against racism. Movies and newspapers suppress Bigger's self-image and make him believe in white superiority: "Here are the daughters of rich people sunbathing on the sands of Florida!" This small collection of debutantes represents more than four billion dollars of American wealth and more than fifty of America's largest families. . .” (Wright 31). Pop culture always depicts beautiful, rich, happy white people. Revealing the amount of money white people live on makes Bigger feel crushed and weak because he could never compete with them. White people are also described as being highly educated and good at financial management, which would be an acceptable reality for Bigger: “They were intelligent people; they know how to get their hands on money, millions” (Wright 33). Pop culture makes him believe that because of his skin color, he will never have a lot of money or have a well-paying job. Bigger spends his entire life in poverty, like all other black people in Chicago. South Side is a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Black people are forced to live there because they cannot afford to rent or buy another home, or because white landlords are unwilling to rent it to a black person. This leads to horrible living conditions in households: overcrowding, lack of natural resources like water and gas, and lack of privacy: “He crawled to the fireplace, seeing before his eyes the image of a room of five people, all black. naked in strong sunlight, see through a sweaty window: the man and woman moving jerkily in a tight embrace, and the three children watching” (Wright 247). He had to avoid seeing little naked children watching their parents have sex, because he knows it's not something little children should see, but they have no other solution to their conditions in which they are located. Such a situation resembles that of Bigger. childhood, because he experienced the same kind of restrictive scenario. This situation makes Bigger even angrier at the white population, because he knows that it is because of them that black people are segregated and forced to conform to the living conditions in which they live. As Bigger changes locations and social contexts, his mindset changes with them. The Dalton house was an extreme shock to him after seeing the luxurious and powerful life these white people lived, which in turn made him feel very self-conscious and even more pressured and uncertain about his race. On the smooth walls were several paintings. the nature of which he tried to understand, but failed. He would have liked to examine them, but he didn't dare. Then he listened; a slight sound of piano music reached him from somewhere