Balram as Postmodern Schizo-Fragmented Subject in Adiga’s The White Tiger

Abstract

Our society is full of diverse ideas, theories, beliefs, codes, and moral values. It is not possible in the postmodern age to construct an integrated view of the world.  Knowledge is taken as a set of perspectives. Different people have different points of view about the world, without anyone being "right" or "wrong" and this is because of the psychological impact of late 20^th-century capitalism. Jameson (1991) defines a postmodern schizo-fragmentation as a new dominant consciousness that is the result of local dislocations caused by globalization, the strong impact of mass media on our consciousness, and the standardization of our surroundings. A postmodern schizo-fragmented subject can be defined as a person who has fluctuating emotions and an inability to connect his past and future into coherent experience because of unconnected mental regions where information gets to settle in different compartments of mind. The researcher has used Jameson’s concept of postmodern schizo-fragmentation to analyze Adiga’s novel The White Tiger. The purpose of this study is to highlight the impact of postmodernism and late capitalism on Balram’s personality.  This study concludes that Balram is a man of ever-changing temperament. This is because of his association with Dark India and Light India simultaneously. Hence, he has different opinions about the persons and events in the novel, he comes across which results in his (personality) fragmentation.