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Definition of Tone
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical, and so on. For instance... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical or mournful, praising or critical... read full definition
The tone of a piece of writing is its general character or attitude, which might be cheerful or depressive, sarcastic or sincere, comical... read full definition
Chapter 4: The Fourth Night
Explanation and Analysis:
Balram Halwai—The White Tiger’s bantering, blabbering protagonist-narrator—fills the page with a lively but deceptively shifty presence. He is more than happy to overthrow his master and, for much of the novel, to play the impish jester; he delays the start of his story with deferential displays and pompous introductions. “It is an ancient and venerated custom of people in my country to start a story by praying to a Higher Power,” he tells Jiabao before committing himself to an elaborate, ingratiating ritual. He babbles on in the first pages about his distrust of skin-whitening creams and his ceiling-mounted chandeliers, digressing to the point where the reader doubts if he will ever reach the meat of his narrative.
This chattiness is of a piece with Balram’s tendency toward exaggeration or irony. At points, the swaggering entrepreneur pantomimes an earnest, comedic naivete. He describes the Chinese as “lovers of freedom and great individual liberty,” feigns perplexity at the puzzle of “illiterate” Muslims, and “flings” potatoes onto the track. Through stunts of over-performance and hyperbole, Balram postures himself as just another comic, simple-minded foreigner.
This façade peels away as the story progresses. Exclamations—"ha!”—punctuate his account as Balram gleefully dispels one illusion after another. His paragraph breaks take a sledgehammer to the honeyed illusions of Indian society:
Yes, that’s right: we all live in the world’s greatest democracy.
What a [...] joke.
Balram’s pleasure in undermining appearances reveals a more caustic, sardonic side. “Stories of rottenness and corruption are always the best stories, aren’t they?” he asks Jiabao, introducing an undercurrent of bitterness. Implicitly, he also begins to challenge his own authenticity. “The Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time,” he tells the reader, and the remark almost begins to seem like a warning. Balram performs his ignorance and overturns these portrayals just when readers least expect him to.
This happy, foolish act gives way to deeper resentments and insecurities. Balram stews with hatred for Ashok, and chronicles his anger through increasingly unstable narration. The city speaks back to him and prophecies war. He squats and screams with the slum-dwellers, and nearly bursts in Ashok’s presence: “to have a madman with thoughts of blood and theft in his head, sitting just ten inches in front of you, and not to know it. Not to have a hint, even. What blindness you people are capable of.”
By the novel’s conclusion, Balram has shed his mock performance of stupidity. His narration takes an uncomfortable turn—he reveals himself as a vigilante hero who has surmounted the narrow strictures of society and lords over the cowardly. “I have woken up, and the rest of you are still sleeping,” he warns Jiabao and the reader. Gone is the ingenuous peasant taxi driver, and in its place Balram flashes a predatory ambition. The novel’s protagonist outwits his masters and the reader, surprising both with his guile.
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