They Have Come From The Fire

Balram, was a middle-aged man working hard to make something out of himself. The actions that Balram took were greatly affected by his desire to overshadow the fact that he was from the darkness, where only destitute and impoverished people come from. In the novel The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, Balram’s origin and culture drove him to take drastic measures to remove the label of The Darkness, that said,”You’re only a stupid servant.” According to Balram’s culture, his destiny was to be a sweet-maker.. Nobody expected more than that from him. Also, Balram received relentless taunting from some of his employers due to them believing that since they were rich, they could do anything to lesser people.
Balram was a man from The Darkness. Nobody expected much Balram of him because of this. Balram himself said,”They have come from the Darkness too - you can tell by their thin bodies, filthy faces, by the animal-like way they live under the huge bridges and overpasses.” This is Balram speaking of his own home. He knew that the people that came out of the Darkness were the poor and destitute that the rich
wanted nothing to do with, except enslave them. Countless times in the story, he is mocked because of his origin. One time, his employer said that he is just an idiot from the Darkness after Balram had made a mistake while driving. Mr. Ashok, at first, only saw him as a somewhat useful idiot from the Darkness, nothing more. Things like this throughout the story drove him to want to be more. He wanted to show those people that he was more than where he came from. His future actions were dictated and molded by these instances.
Halwai, Balram’s caste, meant sweet maker. In his culture, people were defined by their caste. When he was in the Darkness, he would only be able to get jobs at sweet shops. People instantly heard Halwai, and the only thing they they expected from him was sweets.
The old driver asked,’What caste are you?’ “Halwai.” ‘Sweet makers,” the old driver said, shaking his head. “That’s what you people do. You make sweets. How can you learn to drive?”He pointed his hookah at the live coals. “That’s like getting coals to make ice for you.
Here, Balram was being scrutinized by an old man for wanting to learn how to drive. The old man basically said that it is futile for a person to try to do something more than what they were born to do. This was a huge motivating factor in Balram’s mind that drove him to do some amazingly horrible things. For instance, slitting his employers throat.
Imagine a person was being bullied by multiple people.
At the time, the person wanted to do anything he could to show the bullies that he was just as good as them. The person wanted to prove a point. Because of discrimination in Balram’s culture, he was motivated to do anything to show his employers up. In the novel, after Pinky Madam ran over the child, Mr. Ashok attempted to try and get Balram to take the blame for it and sign a full confession for the crime. Luckily, no one had reported the child missing, so Balram didn’t have to ‘confess’ for Pinky Madam’s crime. Balram realized that Mr. Ashok was going to use him. He realized that he was expendable to Mr. Ashok. This point in the story played a huge part in helping Balram realize his dream to show Mr. Ashok and everyone that had ever taken advantage of, or mocked him, that he could be much greater than
them. People’s actions and personalities are normally impacted greatly by where they come from, their culture, and how others treat them. Balram Halwai started out as a simple and obedient man. He did was was asked of him and treated his employers with respect. His origin and culture shaped him into what he is today- A rich entrepreneur and CEO of his own company. What really changed was his morals and what he did to get to his position. Relentless mocking, putting down, and low expectations set by his peers and superiors caused Balram to steal from and eventually kill his employer. In the beginning of the novel, you never would have thought that the poor, yet hardworking, man he was would ever have killed someone. This was a new man. A new man that had clawed out of the Darkness to become a white tiger.