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ALIENATION AS THE RESULT OF SOCIAL DISPARITIES SEEN FROM RAM MOHAMMAD THOMAS’S CHARACTER IN VIKAS SWARUP’S SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Q & A)
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Sastra in English Letter
By
INDRIANI RETNO PALUPI
Student number: 044214083
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY 2011
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Kantan ni ikanai kara ikiteyukeru (Since things aren’t easy, that’s why I can live) ~Yui Yoshioka
This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to My late Dad, my beloved Mom, A. Indarto, B. Indrawan,
and my beloved man, Johan.
Thank you for your supports, patience and love……
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the very first place, I would like to thank and praise my Lord, Jesus Christ, for His blessing, guidance and miracles in finishing this thesis. I would be nothing without Him. I send my gratitude to my advisor, Ni Luh Putu Rosiandani, S. S., M.Hum for her valuable guidance, time, contributions, ideas, help, patience, and SMS during my undergraduate thesis writing. My deepest appreciation goes to my co- advisor, Dr. F. X. Siswadi, M. A. for his suggestions and correction that help me improving this writing. I am also indebted to my examiner, Tatang Iskarna, S. S., M. Hum who gave me questions and critics for the sake of my work. To my Mom, M. Th. Masita, I can hardly find the right words to thank you. Your unlimited love, supports and prays make me strong in this upside down life. To my brothers, Mas Datong and Mas Wawang, you are rock, guys! To my beloved F. X. Johan Wisnu Indrianto, I really thank you for all the things you have done for me in finishing this thesis. I love you. And to my twin sister, Ririto Hikari, I am thankful for all her supports in the very bad times. My gratitude also goes to my best friends, Shinta and Rio who always encourage me in every single day. I also would like to thank my hilarious friends in Menur 15; Loi, Nophe, Poetri, Nina, Efin and Esther. I thank them for all incredible times in boarding house. My special appreciation goes to my friend, Rahul Gaikwad, in Spicer Memorial College in Pune, India who has helped me much in translating and understanding the Indian words in the novel. I owe so much to you, Sunny. Finally yet importantly, I thank all the people in English Department; the lectures, the secretariat staffs, and the friends for all the helps have been given to me. I also thank others whose names cannot be mentioned one by one.
Indriani Retno Palupi
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE……………………………………………………………... i APPROVAL PAGE……………………………………………………….. ii ACCEPTANCE PAGE………………………………………………….... iii MOTTO AND DEDICATION PAGE…………………………………… iv HALAMAN PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI……………. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... ………………………………………….. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………. vii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………….. ix INTISARI…………………………………………………………………. x
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION………………………………………... 1 A. Background of the Study…………………………………...... 1 B. Problem Formulation……………………………………………. 5 C. Objectives of the Study…………………………………………. 5 D. Definition of Terms……………………………………………... 6
CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW……………………………. 8 A. Review of Related Studies……………………………………… 8 B. Review of Related Theories…………………………………….. 10 1. Theory of Character and Characterization………………… 10 2. Theory of Literature and Society………………………….. 13 3. Theory of Alienation………………………………………. 14 3.1. Qualities of an Alienated Person…………………...... 15 3.2. Kinds of Alienation…………………………………… 16 3.2.1. Man‟s Alienation to Himself…………………… 16 3.2.2. Man‟s Alienation to Other People and to His Community…………………………………...... 17 3.3. Trigger Factors of Alienation…………………………. 17 4. Theory of Social Class…………………………………….. 19 C. Review on India‟s Economic and Social Condition in the Late of 21st Century………………………….………………………. 19 1. Review on India‟s Social Condition in the Late of 21st Century…………………………………………………..….. 20 2. Review on India‟s Economic Condition in the Late of 21st Century……………………………………………………… 21 D. Theoretical Framework…………………………………………. 22
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY……………………………………... 24 A. Object of the Study……………………………………………… 24 B. Approach of the Study…………………………………………... 25 C. Method of the Study…………………………………………….. 26
CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS………………………………………………. 28
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A. The Depiction of Ram Mohammad Thomas in Vikas Swarup‟s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A)…………………………………….. 28 B. Social Disparity in India‟s Society in Vikas Swarup‟s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) through Ram Mohammad Thomas………………………………………………………….. 37 C. Alienation as the Result of Social Disparity Seen from Ram Mohammad Thomas…………………………………………….. 45
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION………………………………………….. 58
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………… 61
APENDIX…………………………………………………………………. 64
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ABSTRACT
INDRIANI RETNO PALUPI. Alienation as the Result of Social Disparities Seen from Ram Mohammad Thomas’s Character in Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A). Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2011.
This thesis discusses Vikas Swarup‟s novel entitled Slumdog Millionaire, originally published as Q&A. The writer analyzes the alienation that is undergone by the main character in the novel, Ram Mohammad Thomas which is caused by the social disparity that happens in India‟s late 21st century. The stratification rooted from the application of caste-system in India at that time results in social disparity among classes of society that trigger alienation. To analyze this thesis, three problems are formulated. The first problem is to identify the qualities and the characteristic of the main character. The second problem is to find out the alienation caused by social disparity seen from the social and economic condition in India‟s late 21st century. The last one is to reveal the effects of social disparity toward the main character. The writer employs the sociocultural-historical approach to conduct this study. The library research method is applied in this study. The Theory of Character and Characterization, Theory of Relation between Literature and Society, theory of Alienation, Theory of Social Class and the review on India‟s Economic and Social Condition in the late of 21st century are needed to answer the problems. The result of the study shows that the caste-based stratifications—lower, middle and upper—bring the sense of social disparity. Alienation occurs among the social class, especially between the upper class and the lower class. The people from lower class of society are underestimated by the people from the upper class. Therefore, the main character in the novel undergoes the alienation from himself, other people, and the society. The alienation that is experienced by the main character brings some changes to his way of life and point of view of thinking. In this case, Ram Mohammad Thomas becomes an individual who craves for acceptance and conformity, depends on the approval of others, and lacks selfhood. Furthermore, he also feels lonely and he has so much guilty feeling.
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INTISARI
INDRIANI RETNO PALUPI. Alienation as the Result of Social Disparities Seen from Ram Mohammad Thomas’s Character in Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A). Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011.
Skripsi ini mengkaji novel Vikas Swarup yang berjudul Slumdog Millionaire, yang terbitkan secara resmi dengan judul Q&A. Penulis menganalisis keterasingan yang dialami oleh tokoh utama di dalam novel, Ram Mohammad Thomas, yang disebabkan oleh adanya kesenjangan sosial yang terjadi di India pada periode akhir abad ke 21. Pembagian kelas sosial masyarakat yang timbul dari adanya penerapan sistem kasta di India pada saat itu menimbulkan adanya kesenjangan sosial diantara masyarakat sehingga memicu terjadinya keterasingan. Terdapat tiga masalah yang dirumuskan dalam skripsi ini. Masalah pertama adalah analisis mengenai kualitas dan karakteristik dari tokoh utama. Masalah kedua dirumuskan untuk mengetahui keterasingan yang disebabkan oleh kesenjangan sosial dilihat dari kondisi sosial dan ekonomi India pada tahun periode akhir abad ke 21. Permasalahan terakhir dimaksudkan untuk mengetahui pengaruh kesenjangan sosial terhadap tokoh utama. Dalam sripsi ini, penulis menggunakan pendekatan sosial budaya dan sejarah. Metode kepustakaan digunakan untuk memperoleh data. Untuk menganalisis skripsi ini, penulis menggunakan teori karakter dan perwatakan, teori hubungan antara literatur dan masyarakat, teori alienasi, teori pembagian kelas, serta gambaran mengenai kondisi sosial dan ekonomi masyarakat India pada periode akhir abad ke 21. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa pembagian kelas sosial masyarakat berdasarkan sistem kasta menjadi kelas atas, menengah dan bawah menyebabkan kesenjangan sosial. Keterasingan terjadi diantara masyarakat, khususnya antara kelas atas dan kelas bawah. Orang-orang yang berasal dari masyarakat golongan kelas bawah biasa diremehkan oleh orang-orang yang memiliki golongan yang lebih tinngi. Oleh karena itu, tokoh utama di dalam novel mengalami keterasingan dari dirinya sendiri, dari orang lain dan dari masyarakat. Keterasingan yang dialami oleh tokoh utama menimbulkan beberapa perubahan pada gaya hidup dan pola pemikiran tokoh utama tersebut. Dalam hal ini, tokoh utama berubah menjadi individu yang sangat ingin bisa diterima di dalam masyarakat, ingin memperoleh pengakuan dari orang lain dan merupakan tokoh yang kurang percaya diri. Tokoh utama juga mengalami kesepian dan memiliki perasaan bersalah yang besar.
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This thesis is the study of Alienation as the Result of Social Disparities
Seen from Ram Mohammad Thomas's Character in Vikas Swarup's Slumdog
Millionaire (Q & A). This chapter consists of several parts namely; background of the study, problem formulation, objectives of the study, and the last is definition of terms.
A. Background of the Study
This world does not only consist of two or three societies. There are thousands even more that cover this earth. A society may consist of different kinds of individual characteristics, and it represents different kind of race, gender, culture, ethnicity, language, religion, social status, education, etc. When we further talk about a society, then we have to look closely at what is inside the society. If we think logically from the fact that a society represents different kind of aspects such as race, gender, culture, ethnicity, language, religion, social status, education, etc., then we will think that there must be a differentiation among the societies. For example, from the gender point of view we may find men and women, from the race point of view we may know the whites and the blacks, and from the social status view side we can find the rich and the poor, the majorities and the minorities or the upper class and the lower class.
The illustration above takes us to a term called a social stratification.
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Sociologists use the term of social stratification to refer to the organization of inequality in a society. There are a lot of kinds of social inequalities that we may find in our surrounding. Perhaps there are numerous bases for stratifying a society, and each of us might have different ways of determining the people. According to
Earl Babbie in his book titled A Context for Action Understanding Sociology, he argues that regardless of whether people are created equal, they typically live in a state of inequality. Indeed, in every society some people are more powerful than others, some have more of the good things than others, some can do things others cannot, and some can be what they want to be whereas the others cannot (1982:
191). In Earl Babbie‟s book, he and also Max Weber have stratified the society into several dimensions. Babbie divided the society based on the dimensions of kinship, economy, politics, education, religion, and also age, race and gender
(1982: 194). On other hand, Weber stratifies the society into three dimensions; economic, social and political (1982: 194).
Based on the fact above, the writer realizes economic inequality as the most crucial issue that people often experienced in the surrounding society. Since thousand years ago, economic inequality and social disparities have become a serious problem in almost all countries in the world, especially in countries where there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor.
In this case, the writer tries to focus on India‟s social life for social gap is common in that country. The social and the economic disparities are clearly seen in India, since the people of India belong to thousands of castes and caste-like groups, named groups into which members are born. Furthermore, the castes
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affect their social status. Caste is essentially hereditary. Babbie also cited that according to Max Weber this hereditary character was not merely the result of monopolizing and restricting the earning opportunity to a definite maximum quota. Such quota restriction existed, and still exist in part, among the occupational castes of India; but restriction is strongest not in the cities but in the villages, where a quota restriction of opportunities has had no connection with a guild organization and no need for it. In India, the access to wealth and power varies considerably, and vast differences in socioeconomic status are evident everywhere. The poor and the wealthy people live side by side in urban and rural areas. It is common in city life to see a prosperous, well-fed man or woman chauffeured in a fine car pass gaunt street dwellers huddled beneath burlap shelters along the roadway. In many villages, solid cement houses of landowners rise not far from the flimsy thatched shacks of landless laborers. Even when not so obvious, distinctions of class are found in almost every settlement in India
(Indianchild, 2000: http://www.indianchild.com/indian_society.htm).
A lot of Indians and also non-Indians tried to describe the India‟s social life, not only the glamorous one but also the unfortunate lives that the society deals with everyday. One who concerns oneself on India‟s life is Vikas Swarup.
He is an Indian diplomat who is presently serving in Pretoria, South Africa. He tried to depict the India‟s social life by writing a debut novel, Slumdog
Millionaire, originally published as Q & A. His framing written novel has been translated into thirty-four languages and adapted into a major motion picture. The novel is about Ram Mohammad Thomas, an 18 years old boy, who tells the story
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of his life which is ups and downs in all sorts of Indian unfortunate fates. In the novel, he became the first contestant to answer all twelve questions correctly and take the price. However, the television producers charged Ram that he must have cheated and they should not have to pay up just because Ram works as a servant.
In fact, Ram really knows the answers for sure because the questions raised in the quiz were connected to his life.
Even though Slumdog Millionaire (Q & A) is not the only novel describing the poor Indian society, but this novel precisely shows the representation of reality in India. Swarup made the narrator, Ram, conveys the story in twelve frames as the twelve questions that presented on the television show Who Will Win a Billion which sent Ram tortured by the police and be alienated from society. A review written by Becky Hazlett on http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Q_%26_A_by_Vikas_Swa rup, stated that Q & A is so visual, vivid and teeming with life like a New Delhi bazaar. The first person narrative draws you in and takes you on an action-packed adventure.
The focus of this thesis will be on Ram Mohammad Thomas‟s sufferings because of the alienation he experienced, covering the alienation toward himself and the alienation in his community and society. Here the writer tries to figure out the alienation itself as the result of social disparity based on the novel. The writer believes that what Ram has experienced might be also faced by many people in the other parts of India and other countries in this world. Therefore, through this thesis the writer tries to give a clear depiction on social disparity that truly exist in
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our surrounding society so that people can distinguish what the best for their own life in a society.
B. Problem Formulation
In order to specify the thesis‟s scope, the writer has formulated three questions deal with the alienation caused by the social disparity based on Vikas
Swarup‟s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A). The questions are following:
1. How is the main character, Ram, depicted in Vikas Swarup‟s Slumdog
Millionaire (Q&A)?
2. How is the social disparity revealed through the presence of Ram in the
novel?
3. How is alienation as the result of social disparity reflected through Ram?
C. Objectives of the Study
Since this thesis discusses about alienation which is undergone by the character of Ram Mohammad Thomas as the result of social disparity in India, the primary objectives of this study will be divided into three parts according to the questions formulated above.
The first objective of this study is to identify Ram Mohammad Thomas‟s characteristics and qualities depicted in the novel. In the discussion, the writer will analyze Ram‟s characteristics and qualities as an alienated boy by using the theory of character.
Secondly, the situation and the condition of India‟s social inequalities will
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be described by the writer accordingly to the novel discussed. The depiction of the social disparities in the novel can be seen from the main character, Ram
Mohammad Thomas, events, and economic situation and also the social background of India described in the novel.
Finally, the last objective of this study is to see the effect of social disparity in India from what has been through by Ram Mohammad Thomas in the novel. In the discussion, the writer tries to give a clear depiction on how the social and economic conditions can influence the lives of individual in a society where
Ram lives in, especially after Ram is successfully answer all the questions and take the prize in a quiz, Who Will Win a Billion. This part will also explain the effects of Ram‟s alienated experience as the result of social disparity that exists in
India as storied in the novel.
D. Definition of Terms
There are some terms that the writer wants to define in order to avoid confusion and differences in understanding about certain terms used in this thesis, they are:
1. Alienation
According to Allan G. Johnson in his book titled Human Arrangement,
alienation is a feeling of isolation and loneliness as a result of social changes in
modern complex society, where the value of speed, control, oppression,
production and obedience are more appreciated than those of happiness and
satisfaction (1986: 238). In short, alienation is a feeling of isolation and
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loneliness that caused by social changes in a society and it covers alienation
toward society, nature, other people and him or herself.
2. Social Disparity
Social disparity is also understood as social inequality. Allan G. Johnson in
his book titled Human Arrangement stated that social disparity is an inequality
among the member of social classes that occurs as the result of their differences
in power, wealth or status (1986: 320). Generally, social disparity is the
growing inequality between the rich and the poor (Answer Corporation, 2011:
www.answers.com/topic/inequality).
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Related Studies
Social disparities have become a crucial issue that people often experienced in our surrounding society, both in a developed country and in a developing country. It can be influenced by power, wealth, social class, etc.
(Johnson, 1986: 320). As stated in a study titled Comparing Brown Era Racial
Disparities to Today published by Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity, it is claimed that disparities exist in many levels; individual group, neighborhood, city, metropolitan area and nation (Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A
Denton, 2004: 31). This study is also described that though America is a developed country, the social disparity still becomes a serious problem in that country. It is clearly depicted that the social disparity in America is mainly caused by racism between the blacks and the whites (2004: 29).
Another related study on social disparity Poverty, Inequality and Social
Disparities during China’s Economic Reform done by David Dollar said that different kinds of disparities increase in China, especially after the government introduced a new market system; decentralized fiscal system. The result is social inequality occurs among China‟s citizens (qtd in Dollar, 2007: 1). In this case,
Dollar tried to show how the government takes a huge power to control the
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people.
In India, there exist several dimensions of economic and social disparities of development in the country. N. J. Kurian in his article Widening Economic and
Social Disparities: Implications for India stated that India suffers from acute economic and social disparities (2007: 374). He divided disparities in India into four parts; regional, rural-urban, and social and gender. There is a wide gap between the societies live in the city and in the rural-urban area. However, their social class is also defined by their caste they belong to. The higher the caste the higher the social class they have, and this is the point that Kurian tried to explain:
The caste system practiced by the Hindu society did not allow social mobility across the classes (Kurian, 2007: 378).
The idea mentioned above means that their mobility is limited only in their caste they have, and usually the society with a lower caste will be just discriminated and rejected by the society with a higher caste.
Furthermore, Rohit Mutatkar in his study Social Group Disparities and
Poverty in India tried to depict the profile of social group disparities and poverty in India, where social groups are classified as scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other social groups. He found that social group disparities in levels of living are the result of historically rooted „social disadvantages‟ for scheduled caste by way of social exclusion which continue to operate in contemporary Indian society
(2005: 1).
Vikas Swarup‟s Slumdog Millionaire (Q & A) is considered as the novel revealing the India‟s life which presents an alienated character, Ram Mohammad
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Thomas as the character who is influenced by the social disparities that happen in
India. Sandra McLean in a website mentioned that Swarup's novel takes us into the harsh reality of Indian life, but never forgets to entertain. Q and A is absolutely embedded in India with its chawls, or slums, Bollywood obsession, starving street kids, alcoholism and glistening monuments to love, and it is also a story of everymen (http://www.vikasswarup.net/index_files/Page443.html).
The writer agrees with the discussions mentioned above. However, this undergraduate thesis is also trying to develop and to find out the trigger factors contributing to Ram Mohammad Thomas‟ alienation. The writer also tries to give a clear depiction on how the social and economic conditions can influence the lives of individual in a society he/she lives in.
B. Review on Related Theories
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
Theory of Character and Characterization is needed in this study since the
characters are the person who will convey the ideas in the story. There are
several theories in analyzing characters and characteristics. The first is a theory
proposed by E. M. Forster through a book titled Aspects of the Novel. He stated
that there are two types of characters, round and the flat characters. Round
characters are usually the heroic or the major character in the work, while the flat
characters are the characters that are undistinguishable from their groups
(Stallybrass, 2005:12). Moreover, Robert Stanton states that the main character is
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figure that is relevant to every event in the story and usually the events cause
some changes either in him or in the reader‟s attitude toward him (1965:17).
Furthermore, M. J. Murphy in his book Understanding Unseen explains on
how an author conveys to the readers the characters and the personalities of the
people he writes about. Those ways of characterizing the characters are
mentioned as follow (1972: 161-173).
1. Personal Description
The author describes the characters through the details of his appearance, which are shown in the physical appearance of the characters. This personal description helps the readers both to visualize the person and to understand the characteristics.
2. Characters as seen by other
The author describes a certain character through the eyes and opinion of other characters. The other characters will give explanation about what a character is like. The readers can also use their point of view to describe a certain character.
3. Speech
The author gives the readers an insight into the character in the work through what a person says. It can be seen whenever a person speaks, whenever he is in conversation with other characters, whenever he puts forward an opinion we can see his characteristics.
4. Past life
The readers learn to know the character‟s personalities by learning
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something about a person‟s past life. This can be done by direct comment by the author and through the person‟s thought, his conversation or the medium of another person. The character‟s past life is always closely related to his present life. The pictures of the character‟s life can trace the motives of his recent actions.
5. Conversation of other
The author gives the readers clues to a person‟s character through the conversation of the other people and the things they say about him. The conversation of the other characters can be used by the readers to support their judgment on a certain character.
6. Reaction
The author can also gives the reader a clue to a person‟s character by letting them know how a certain character reacts to various situation and events.
This means that the character shows his or her personality from his or her actions.
These actions are related to his or her inner motives and thoughts.
7. Direct comment
The author describes or gives comment on a person‟s character directly.
This comment will let the readers know about the character‟s description.
8. Thoughts
The author often gives the readers direct knowledge of what a person has in his or her mind. This though lets the readers know about the mental process of the character.
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9. Mannerisms
The author gives description on a person‟s mannerism, habit or idiosyncrasies which may also tell the readers about his or her characteristics.
Another theory of character and characterization is proposed by Edgar V.
Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. In their book titled Fiction: an Introduction to
Reading and Writing, they define a character as an extended verbal representation of a human being, the inner self that determines thought, speech and behavior
(1986: 119). So, a character in fiction may have the characteristics of human being in a society since it is a representation of a real life. A character is also must be consistent in his/her behavior, clearly motivated and credible. Consistent means that a character can change if there is strong reason, for instance when somebody feels depressed in his poverty, he can change to become a thief or something similar. A character also to have clear motivation when he changes his minds, and the reason has to be acceptable (Kenney, 1988:67) Moreover, Roberts and Jacobs mentioned that there are four ways in determining the qualities of characters or what-so-called as characterizing the characters. Those are by examining what the character says, what the character does, what the other characters say about a certain character and what the author says about those characters (1986: 122-124).
2. Literature and Society
Literature and society are two different things that cannot be separated.
Literary works such as novels and plays may be the representation of a real
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society. That is why the theory of literature and society is needed in this thesis.
Rene Wellek and Austen Warren in their book Theory of Literature stated that literature represents life, and life is a social reality (1956: 94).
3. Alienation
There are three main definitions of alienation used in this thesis.
According to a book titled Theories of Personality, Richard M. Ryckman defines alienation as feeling of powerlessness and aloness experienced by individuals who have rejected traditional values of society and are incapable of instituting a social and political system compatible with their own values and principles (1989: 167).
Whereas Richard A. Kalish describes alienation as an experience when people do not feel they belong to their community or when they feel that they cannot relate to a group (1973: 44-45). In line with Kalish, Gold argues that there are three interrelated meanings that have been suggested to alienation, they are isolation, feeling of powerlessness, an identity crisis (Kalish, 1973: 45). Therefore, from
Ryckman, Kalish and Gold definition of alienation is a human experience which includes the feeling of loneliness, powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and separation with himself, other people and the society they live in.
Furthermore, the writer is also trying to give a clearer depiction about alienation through several classifications; those are qualities of alienated person, kind of alienation, and the trigger of alienation. There will be more explanation on every subtitle below:
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a. Qualities of Alienated Person
In order to be acquainted with the term of alienation the writer thinks that it is important to understand the quality of a person who is experiencing alienation. There are several qualities of an alienated person. Karl Marx explains that when people are alienated they feel powerless, isolated, and feel the social world is meaningless. They look at the social institutions as beyond their control, and consider them oppressive (Elwell, 1989:78). Furthermore, an alienated person is “out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with any other person”. One is emotionally distant with other people as well as with oneself. (Kalish, 1973: 44).
In addition, from the book The Sane Society, it is suggested that the alienated person lacks a feeling of selfhood and experiences himself in terms of a response to the expectation of others (Fromm, 1955: 193). Craving for acceptance is also a very characteristic feeling in the alienated person. The only safe thing to do for having a sense of identity is conformity (Fromm, 1955: 155). An alienated person tries as best as he or she can to be the same as other people. Being the same with other people makes one feels secure and accepted by other people.
Alienated person feels secure in being as similar as possible to the others. He or she wants to be approved by others because to be different and to be a minority threatened his or her sense of security.
Therefore, he or she craves for limitless conformity. Any deviation from the pattern, any criticism, arouses fear and insecurity: one is always dependent in the approval of others, just as a drug addict is dependent on his drug, and similarly, one‟s own sense of self and self-reliance becomes ever increasingly
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weaker (Fromm, 1955: 197). Another characteristic of an alienated person is that an alienated person has so much guilty feeling. He feels guilty for being himself, and not for being himself, for being alive and for being automaton, for being a person and for being a thing (Fromm, 1955: 205). b. Kinds of Alienation
Identifying the kinds of alienation might help the writer to get closer with the meaning of alienation itself, so that the writer can draw the characteristics of an alienated person.
There are two kinds of alienation; they are the alienation from oneself, and the alienation from other people, and from the world in which one lives. These two kinds of alienation are interconnected and explained as follow:
i. Man’s Alienation to Himself
Fromm describes the relationship of a man toward himself as “marketing orientation” (1955: 141). In this orientation, man experiences himself as a thing to be employed successfully on the market. His aim is to sell himself on the market.
His sense of self does not stem from his activity as a loving and thinking individual, but from his socio-economic role. Man experiences himself, not as a man, with love, fear, convictions, doubts, but as that abstractions, alienated from his real nature, which fulfills a certain function in the social system. His sense of value depends on his success: on whether he can sell himself favorably, whether he can make more of himself rather than he started out with, whether he is a success. If individual fails in a profitable investment of himself, he feels that he is
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a failure; if he succeeds, he is a success (Fromm, 1955: 142).
ii. Man’s Alienation to Other People and to His Community
Fromm states that a person‟s relationship to other person is like “two living machine who use each other”. Human relations are based on their needs.
There is, rather, a superficial friendlineness, and a more than superficial fairness, but behind the surface is distance and indifference (Fromm, 1955: 139). Yet, man is a social being with a deep need to share, to help, to feel as a member of a group.
However, in modern man the individual is motivated by egoistical interest, and not by solidarity with and love for his fellow man (Fromm, 1955: 140).
Furthermore, Fromm also states that in the modern time, most of people see the value of one‟s life from one‟s possessions or status. This condition creates a hard competition between the people and makes the people forget that they have some needs as a social being. So, man is alienated from other people. The alienation between man and man results in the loss of those general and social bonds. c. Trigger Factors of Alienation
There are several factors contribute to the alienation. The most prominent factor contributes to alienation is the society. It includes a complex changing society that presents an overwhelming number of hard choices to the individual, including, moving frequently from job to job and place to place, the high divorce rate, the loss extended family as an important support system, the tendency in some organizations treat people as replaceable units rather than as human beings with feelings and needs, and a high population density, which can make the
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individual feel small and powerless in the midst of torrents of social forces that are far beyond one person‟s control (2009: www.thehealthcenter.info/emotions/alienation/causes.htm). In a society where there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor or in a country where there is a high rate of poverty, such as India, alienation happens. Moreover, Norman Uphoff states that in India there is the special problem which few people are willing to talk about it. Even after 50 years, there is still strong residual discrimination against persons born into scheduled-caste or scheduled-tribe families. There are some exceptions, as some of these households have been able to climb up some rungs on the socio-economic ladder. But this is the one of the most glaring sources of poverty and inequality in India: the continuing effect of a caste system several thousand years old (Uphoff, 1974:14-15).
Generally, Julian Blackburn in her book The Framework of Human
Behavior said that most societies appear to possess the same form of class system, though the degree of mobility between the different classes has varied enormously from the rigidity of a caste-system, including sex, age, conquest, birth and relationship, occupation, education, wealth, intelligence (1947: 121).
In line with the arguments above, Allan Fromme also argues that alienation cannot suddenly happen in a person‟s life. There are some factors contributing to alienation. There are two major factors contributing the alienation (Fromme,
1967:7). Those are society and family.
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4. Theory of Social Class
According to Johnson, inhabitants can be classified based on several things. In traditional cultures, religion, genealogical background, and possession of means of production were the dividing elements on which the class division was based. As societies expand and become more complex, occupation, education and qualification, income and wealth, and wealth and properties are the new elements to divide people into some different classes. The more these qualifications people have, the higher the class they can obtain (1986:327).
Furthermore, the concept of social class lies in the differences in life opportunities which are reflected in housing, education and health. Life opportunities will be greater if people can provide themselves with material goods and an appropriate of living, but people from the lower class will concentrate in how they can afford their basic necessities with their limited resources and abilities.
C. Review on India’s Economic and Social Condition in the Late of 21st
Century
The writer attaches the review of India in the late of 21st century because the author of Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) uses that period of time and the society in India as his story‟s background. So, this part will provide some general depictions on India‟s economic and social condition for a better understanding that literature is a representation of social reality.
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i. Review on India’s Social Condition in the Late of 21st Century
The Indian society is not a uniform one. This is a natural corollary to the fact that diversity is a part of Indian way of life. From region to region, diversity in the social structure is prominently seen. It is estimated that there are more than
2,000 ethnic groups in India. According to Society and Culture Tour India, unity in diversity is best seen in India in a maze of seemingly disparate peoples.
Religion, caste, and language are major determinants of social and political organization in India.
One social unifier is the Indian system of caste system adhered to by all racial groups belonging to the Hindu religion fold. Lambasted by many as a retrogressive social tradition, this system has also given the Indians a sense of belongingness to a shared way of life (Trinetra Tours, 2006: http://destinationsindia.com/india/society-culture.html). Dalits, a member of the lowest caste in India, who are outcastes are the worst victims of caste- discrimination followed by the adivasis, a member of an aboriginal tribal people of India, who are outside the caste hierarchy (Kurian‟ 2007:378)
Moreover, usually the Hindu caste system reflects Indian However, though caste rigidity was still very prevalent in the late of 21st century, it has become little bit more flexible to a large extent during early 2000s. It is possibly done since the government is trying to lessen the elements of the caste system by expanding education, land reform and economic opportunity through access to information, communication, transport and credit
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Hinduism but also exist among other Indian religious groups. Muslims sometimes expressly deny that they have castes but observation of Muslim life in various parts of India reveals the existence of caste-like groups and clear concern with social hierarchy. Among Indian Christians, too, differences in caste are acknowledged and maintained
Deal with religion, the data shows that India consists of 81.4% Hindu,
12.4% Muslim and 2.3% Christian
India. Until now they often attack each other in some parts of India, both in the rural and urban (Jupiter Infomedia, 2008: http://www.indianetzone.com/25/social_condition_india_during_pratiharas.htm). ii. Review on India’s Economic Condition in the Late of 21st Century
Based on a study titled China and India: Growth and Poverty, 1980-2000 done by T.N. Srinivasan and Samuel C. Park Jr., India is the world's second populous economies accounting for nearly 2-5 billion or 40% of the estimated
6.25 billion human beings of the world in 2002. This country enjoyed historically unprecedented average rate of growth of GDP at around 10% and 6% per year respectively during late 21st century. In 1980s, India faced a fragile growth of economic, but in 1990s India experienced a triumph of reforms by acquiring some new policies (Srinivasan, 2003: http://siepr.stanford.edu/publicationsprofile/1283).
As it is cited by Indianchild on http://www.indianchild.com/india_economy_growth.htm, by the early 1990s,
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economic changes led to the growth in the number of Indians with significant economic resources. About 10 million Indians are considered upper class, and roughly 300 million are part of the rapidly increasing middle class. Typical middle-class occupations include owning a small business or being corporate executive, lawyer, physician, white-collar worker, or land-owning farmer.
Unbelievably, around eighty percent of the populations of India are living in poverty, and it is estimated that 332 million people or 38 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Farmers and other rural residents make up the large majority of India's poor. Some own very small amounts of land while others are field hands, semi nomadic shepherds, or migrant workers. The urban poor include many construction workers and petty vendors (Heitzman, 1995).
In the middle of 1990s, domestic and foreign businesses hoped to take advantage of India's economic liberalization to increase the range of consumer products offered to this market. In spite of significant leaps made by India in the economic front, poverty is still a dominant social reality. A majority of the population of India lives in utter poverty without access to health care, housing, drinking water and education.
D. Theoretical Framework.
There are three theories used in this thesis. They are theory of character and characterization, theory of literature and society, and theory of alienation.
The first is theory of character and characterization. This theory is used to
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examine the intrinsic elements of the novel, Slumdog Millionaire. By using this theory, the writer tries to find out the characteristics of the major character, Ram
Mohammad Thomas, who experiences the alienation. It is also important to determine the character‟s development.
The second theory is theory of literature and society. This theory is applied to analyze the relationship between the work and the real society. Since literature is a representation of a real society, therefore this theory is used to examine that the novel is a representation of the society when the novel is written by the author.
The last theory used in this thesis is theory of alienation. This theory reveals the condition of an individual who is being alienated. It consists of theory on qualities of alienated person, kinds of alienation and trigger factors of alienation. In this case, theory of alienation is used to determine Ram‟s alienation storied in the novel. This analysis will provide the thesis about the fact that alienation is a representation of India‟s society at that time.
The review on India‟s society and economic condition is also important to give a clear depiction about what is trying to be described by the author about the society in the novel. What happen in the real India‟s society and economic condition at that time then will be matched to those happening in the novel.
Finally, the idea that the story in the novel is a representation of the real society can be drawn.
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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
Q & A is a novel written by Vikas Swarup, an Indian diplomat who serves in Pretoria, South Africa. Q and A is his first novel. A career diplomat, he has written two novels so far, those are Q & A and Six Suspects. With these novels,
Vikas Swarup joins other writers from India who write in English. This genre of writing is variously referred to as Indian Literature in English, Indian English
Literature, and South Asian Literature.
Through this novel, Vikas Swarup is trying to describe the India‟s social and economic condition. Angelina Nachimuthu argued that Q & A has all the ingredients of a blockbuster Bollywood (Hindi) Masala movie: romance, tragedy, violence and a happy ending. It seems appropriate that the novel which resembles a fast pace movie was turned into a movie. The Oscar award winning movie,
Slumdog Millionaire, takes the basic plot of the novel and focuses on three characters (Ram, Salim and Nita) and enlarges the romance angle. Ram
Mohammed Thomas becomes Jamal in the movie. The personalities of the three characters are also different. From questions and answers about an orphan‟s life experiences the movie centers on rags to riches story of a slum boy whose mother is killed in Hindu-Muslim riots.
In this case, the writer focuses on the novel, Q & A, not the movie.
Although the descriptions of the story between the novel and the movie are quite
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different, but the whole story is still the same, it is about Ram Mohammad
Thomas‟s alienation. The novel is divided into twelve different frames, according to the twelve questions that represents Ram‟s story of life.
The story begins when Ram is arrested after he has succeeded answering the twelve questions on a quiz show. Ram is charged into a prison since the director and the manager suspected him cheating. In fact Ram did no cheating at all. As storied in the novel, Ram really knows the answer, but the director argued that Ram must have been cheated because Ram is only an uneducated servant from a lower social class. The rest of the novel describes about Ram‟s alienation experience and his struggle to get out of the alienation caused by the social disparity that happen in his country.
A. Approach of the Study
The writer uses the socio-cultural historical approach to literature since the writer wants to analyze the alienation which is experienced by the main character,
Ram Mohammad Thomas. According to Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods in a book titled Reading and Writing about Literature,
Socio-cultural historical approach to literature locates the real work in reference to the civilization that produced it. Civilization includes the attitudes and actions of a specific group of people and literature take these attitudes and actions as its subject matters. Therefore, the social milieu in which a work was created and which it necessarily reflect needs to be investigated (1971: 9).
Thus, the socio-cultural historical approach perceives a literary work as a representation of a certain society in a certain period of time. Furthermore, this
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approach is also acts as an imitation of a certain society reality where the author of a literary work lives.
B. Method of the Study
A library research was used by the writer. The writer collected the data from books and various published and printed journals. There are three sources that were applied for this study. The primary source was taken from Vikas
Swarup‟s novel, Slumdog Millionaire (Q & A). Next, the theories taken from several books were considered as the second data. Those were Theory of
Character and Characterization, Theory of Literature and Society, and Theory of
Alienation. The third source were taken from some internet cites on Indian‟s social and economic condition, alienation, social disparity and on the description of the novel itself.
While the approach used in his study was the socio-cultural historical approach proposed by Mary Rohrberger and Samuel H. Woods in a book titled
Reading and Writing about Literature.
There are several steps in doing this study. The first step was read and reread the primary source in order to identify the story well. In this step, the writer tried to analyze the intrinsic elements in the novel, and distinguished the major character that will be developed as the main subject study. In this step, the writer found that the plot of the novel is not chronologically written, but it is written according to the questions raised in the quiz in which the main character of the novel involves in. Therefore, the writer created a note and made the twelve frame
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stories in the novel become chronologically written. The writer did this in order to make it easier in understanding the whole novel.
The second step was studying the major character carefully and his attitude toward the society he lives in to get the idea of alienation he experienced of. The writer also examined the social life depicted in the novel in order to get the thought that the caste-system and the society where the major character lives influenced his manner and his characteristic development.
Next, the writer reviewed the India‟s social and economic condition in general when the novel was written. This step was important to get the idea that what was depicted in the novel by the author was really the representation of a real society in India at that time. In this step, the writer tried to find out the alienation experienced by the major character caused by the social and economic disparity described in the novel. Finally, a conclusion was drawn from the previous analysis.
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CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
This chapter is divided into three parts. The first part will answer the question of how are the characteristics of Ram Mohammad Thomas are depicted in the novel. It is important to understand the main character thoroughly so that the qualities of an alienated person as the effect of social disparity can be drawn in the next part. To understand the qualities of an alienated person, it is better to know the background of the society where the character lives as described by the author through the main character in the novel. It is discussed in part two. The discussion of the last part will give details on the alienation as the result of social disparity toward the character of Ram Mohammad Thomas. In this part the writer will also give the reader Ram‟s qualities as an alienated person, and give a clear depiction on how the social and economic conditions can influence the life of
Ram Mohammad Thomas.
A. The Depiction of Ram Mohammad Thomas in Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog
Millionaire (Q&A).
Vikas Swarup carries Ram Mohammad Thomas as the main character in
Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) who represents a character that undergoes alienation.
He appears as an 18 year-old boy and he has to strive to live under India‟s oppressive life. As stated by Robert Stanton in his book titled An Introduction to
Fiction that “the main character is a figure that is relevant to every event in the
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story and usually the events cause some changes either in him or in the reader‟s attitude toward him (1965: 17). From Stanton‟s statement, it can be established that Ram is the main character in the novel since he appears in every event. The novel is framed into twelve chapters and those chapters take Ram in it. From the depiction of Ram, it can be seen that Ram is also a good story teller because he narrates his experiences in details. In this case, the author of Slumdog Millionaire
(Q&A) uses Ram to be the first person narrator to describe all the happenings in the novel.
“Smita returns with a plate and a glass in her hand. I smell food. „I know you must be hungry, so I‟ve brought you some chapattis, some mixed vegetables and a Coke. It was all I had in my fridge.‟ I grasp her hand. It feels warm and moist. „Thank you‟ I say. I still don‟t know how she got to the police station, or why. All she had told me is that she read about my arrest in the papers and came as she could. Now I am at her house in Bandra. I will not ask her when she brought me here, or why. One doesn‟t question a miracle.” (Swarup, 2006:15)
Furthermore, M. J. Murphy in his book titled Understanding Unseen has mentioned nine ways of determining a person‟s characteristic and personality. The first way is by looking at the personal description of a character given by the author in the novel. In Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A), the author, Vikas Swarup, does not give the personal description of the main character, Ram Mohammad
Thomas, explicitly, but Swarup gives it implicitly through what Ram says and feels. In the novel, Ram complains about his physical appearance. He always compares himself with his best friend, Salim. “Salim is everything that I am not.
He has a whitish complexion and a cherubic face. He has curly black hair, and when he smiles his cheeks dimple.” (p. 77). From the quotation above it can be derived that Ram is an ordinary boy; his complexion is not colorless, his face is
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not as divine as Salim‟s face, and he has no dimple when he smiles. Moreover
Ram says, “Salim has become taller and more handsome. At sixteen, he looks as good as any Bollywood film star. The hard life of the city has not corrupted him like it corrupted me.” (p. 193). From Ram‟s utterances, it can be seen that he feels so uncomfortable with his physical appearance because he looks older than his actual age.
Another way of determining someone‟s characteristic is by the impression of other‟s opinion or comments. The other character gives explanation about what a character is like. In the workplace, Ram is described as a loyal person. Loyal here means that Ram can be trusted by other people. It can be seen from Ram‟s action when he works as a servant at Colonel Taylor, an Australian diplomat.
Working over a year, Ram realizes that The Taylors has changed their servants for more than ten times. Only Ram who survives. The prior servants were fired by
Colonel Taylor for mistakes they did. Amazingly, Colonel Taylor knows everything that happens in the house, and he is known as Man Who Knows.
Learning from this situation and promising himself not to lose the job, Ram tries to give the best for Taylor family. Ram avoids doing errors, always being honest and loyal. Furthermore, the most important thing he has learned from the house is that trying not to take parts into Colonel Taylor‟s family matters. Ram‟s loyalty and honesty is approved by Colonel Taylor through the speech below:
“Colonel Taylor returns to Delhi without even attending his mother‟s funeral. He rushes into the den as soon as the taxi pulls up outside the house. He comes up looking relieved. „Thank God, nothing has been taken from the room. Well done, Thomas. I knew I could rely on you.‟ (Swarup, 2006:124).
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The next way of determining a person‟s characteristic is by looking at the speech. By doing this way, the author gives the readers an insight into the character in the work through what a person says. It can be seen whenever a person speaks, whenever he is in conversation with other character, or whenever he puts forward an opinion. By looking at the speeches in the novel, the writer finds that Ram is also described as a person who has a big curiosity. Since his childhood, Ram likes to have something new and challenging things and he wants to know all the things that happen around him. He also loves to see and pay attention toward other people‟s actions and utterances. For instance, when he lives in St. Mary‟s Orphanage House he likes to notice the attitudes and the deeds of
Father John, a guest pastor who is responsible for the Church while Father
Timothy is overseas. Ram considers Father John as a weird man, and as a child, he just does not like Father John. Ram keeps an eye for Father John. As the result,
Ram finds that Father John uses heroin, and Father John tries to do sex abuse to
Ian, Father Timothy‟s biological child from England. Ram tells all what he has seen and heard to Father Timothy, and Father Timothy becomes very angry. At the end, Father Timothy commits suicide after shooting Father John into death.
“I decide to follow one of these visitors to Father John‟s room. He knocks and enters, and Father John closes the door. I peer through the keyhole. I know I m doing a very bad thing, but my curiosity is killing me. Through the keyhole, I see Father John and the young leather-clad man sitting on the bed. Father John opens his drawer and takes out a plastic packet, which has some white powder in it.” (Swarup, 2006:46).
Further example of Ram‟s big curiosity is when he finds Gupta, the head of the
Juvenile House, summons Salim to come to his room in the middle of the night.
As Salim is frightened, so Ram decides to go behind Salim. At that moment, Ram
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finds that Gupta tries to abuse Salim. He screams and frights because the event he saw reminds him about Father John and Ian.
“Why is he calling me?” he asked me. “I don‟t know,” I reply. “I‟ve never been to his room. But we can find out today.” So Salim walks down to Gupta‟s room, and I tiptoe behind him. Gupta is sitting in his room wearing crumpled kurta pajama when Salim knocks on the door. “Come…come, Salim,” he says in a slurred voice. He has glassful of golden liquid in his hand. He gulps it down and wipes his mouth. His eyes look like big buttons. I watch from the little space between the two curtains in the doorway. He strokes Salim‟s face, tracing his fingers over his bony nose and thin lips. Then he abruptly he orders, “Take off your shorts.” (Swarup, 2006:78)
From the conversations above, the writer can obtain the picture of Ram‟s characteristic. In this case, Ram‟s speech when he speaks with Salim can strengthens the sense of his big curiosity.
Knowing the past life of a person also can be the way of determining his/her characteristic. In the workplace, Ram‟s childhood is described as unhappy one. He has an unordinary life since his childhood because he was born as an orphan. Ram has no father, no mother or any sibling since he was born. Ram‟s mother left him in front of the Church of St. Mary‟s gate on one Christmas night, and that was the first day Ram meet Father Timothy, a priest who raised Ram until he is eight years old, before Father Timothy is dead in a miserable way. Ram lives in St. Mary‟s Orphanage House under Father Timothy‟s responsibility. At first,
Ram thinks that he feels like he lives in a real large family and he enjoys being a child with many brothers and sisters. He grown ups almost like a normal child with three main preoccupations: eating, sleeping and playing. However, Ram was wrong. His thought that Father Timothy is his own father and his dream of having
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a perfect life and family is all gone. Father Timothy is not his father, and his brothers and sisters in the orphanage house are not his biological brothers and sisters, but they are the children who have the same fate with Ram. Ram feels sad and very disappointed when Father Timothy finally explains in the gentlest possible way that Ram is only an orphan child. He never knows his biological mother, neither his father.
“…that was why he was white and I was not. It was then, at the first time, that I understood the distinction between father and Father. And that night, for the first time, my tears had nothing to do with physical pain.” (Swarup, 2006:42).
The quotation above also shows Ram‟s feeling after knowing the fact that
Father Timothy is not his biological father. What Ram has in his mind at that time lets the readers know about his process of life.
Furthermore, characteristic of a person can be seen by giving a clue to a person‟s character through the conversation of the other people and the things they say about him. In the novel, the conversation between Ram, Gudiya and Mrs.
Shantaram can give a clear depiction that Ram is a person who can keep his words. It is seen after Ram visits his neighbor Gudiya, a girl in the chawl, a large building divided into separate tenements that offering cheap and basic accommodation. Gudiya, who has to be hospitalized because she is tortured by her own father, asks Ram to take care of her cat at home.
“Do me a favor, Ram Mohammad Thomas,” Gudiya says. “Please look after Pluto till I return home.” “Definitely.” I promise. Suddenly she stretches out her arm and takes my hand in hers. “You are the brother I never had. Isn‟t he, Mummy?” she says. Mrs. Shantaram nods her head. (Swarup, 2006:64-65)
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The above conversation makes Ram feels significant. The above conversation also implies that Gudiya and Mrs. Shantaram believe Ram can keep his words. From that day, Ram promises that he will do anything to help Gudiya from her father‟s bad attitudes. Ram proves his promise by pushing Mr.
Shantaram, Gudiya‟s father, to the ground from the upstairs when Mr. Shantaram tries to abuse his own daughter. Ram thinks that Mr. Shantaram has dead, so he runs off from the chawl and shifts to Delhi.
Moreover, Ram is a character that makes some great deal of changes in his life. Ram becomes a person who has a strong commitment and big power to stay alive in the middle of India‟s slum area. It can be seen from his reaction in facing his unfortunate life. In this case, he has strong reasons to change his unfortunate life into a better one. He tries to overcome and gets out from bad lucks and poverty by doing hard work. Moreover, it is for his belief in miracle that nothing is ever impossible. For instance, Ram escapes from Sethji‟s house, where children are formed to be blind and cripple so that they can beg on local trains and streets.
He escapes with his best friend, Salim, whom Ram meets in the juvenile house.
Furthermore, the biggest change of Ram‟s life is when he joined a quiz show called Who Will Win a Billion, a quiz with a billion rupee as the grand prize. There are some strong reasons why Ram participates in the quiz; the first is that he wants to have a lot of money to get a better life, especially to set Nita free from
Shyam, her pimp. Furthermore, Ram‟s strongest will to take part in the quiz show is that he wants to take revenge to Prem Kumar, a man who sends Neelima
Kumari into a tragic death because of love and also hurts Nita when he is in Agra.
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Ram knows that the host of Who Will Win a Billion is Prem Kumar. The quotation below also shows that Ram is a person who has strong commitment, and he can survive to make his dreams come true although he has to live under oppression in
India‟s poor economic and harsh society.
“A sense of defeat has begun to cloud my mind. I feel that the specific purpose for which I came to Mumbay is beyond me. That I am swimming against the tide. That powerful currents are at work which I cannot overcome. But then I hear my beloved Nita‟s cries and Neelima Kumari‟s sob, and my willpower returns. And I have to get onto that show. And till that happens, I will continue to listen to the stories of the drunkards in this city” (Swarup, 2006:135).
. The writer uses the last way of determining a person‟s characteristic that is by looking at the manner of the main character, Ram Mohammad Thomas. In the novel, Ram is a consistent character. He is described as a person who clearly motivated and has a strong will. However, William Kenney (1988) argues that the consistency of a character can change if there is strong reason, for instance when somebody feels depressed in his poverty, he can change to become a thief or something similar. In the story, Ram who lives in poverty since a child becomes an individual who bravely stealing things. As it is mentioned above, when Ram lives in a chawl he begins to steal newspaper from his neighbor, Mr. Barve. Ram steals the newspaper or sometimes milk because he does not have money to buy newspaper and milk. Furthermore, when Ram grows up, he also steals some money from the owner of a chawl when he lives in a suburban area in Agra. He steals the money with a reason; he wants to set Nita free from the prostitution world. Shyam, Nita‟s pimp offers Ram to pay four lakh rupees, or four hundred thousands rupee to be exchanged with Nita‟s freedom. By giving Shyam four lakh
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rupees, Ram is also permitted to marry Nita. Therefore, Ram whose his income as a guide is not enough to pay Shyam decides to steal the money from the owner of his chawl in Agra, Queen Swapna Devi.
“I feel no qualms about stealing from the safe. I stuff the four bundles into my pockets, close the safe, return the painting and the key to their original locations and exit the way I came. I rush into my room in the outhouse, lock the door behind me, and sit down to count the loot. The four bundles total 399,844 rupees.” (Swarup, 2006:290).
What is said by Ram above also shows that Ram feels sure when he steals the money from the safe. It implies that Ram is a constant character who feels no doubt anymore in doing his actions. Moreover, the author, through Ram character, gives a direct comment saying that Ram comes from India‟s slum area, and gives a direct description informing that India is a country that maintains the gap between the rich and the poor.
“My departure from Asia‟s biggest slum would make no difference to their lives. There are those who will say that I brought this upon myself. By dabbling in that quiz show. They will wag a finger at me and remind me that the elders in Dharavi say about never crossing the dividing line that separate the rich from the poor. After all, what business did a penniless waiter have participating in a brain quiz? The brain is not an organ we are authorized to use. We are supposed to use only our hands and legs.” (Swarup, 2006:2).
By closely looking at the novel, it can be derived that Ram is also a good learner and he is smart. Although Ram has never been to school, he can keep up with anything that presents around him. He is the only child who can speak
English, which he previously learns from Father Timothy, in the juvenile house.
Ram loves to broaden his knowledge by reading and listening to other‟s explanations. When he used to work at Colonel Taylor, he learns to do barbies and
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makes fondue. He also becomes an expert at mixing drinks and measuring whisky by the shot since The Taylor‟s house has a small bar in it. Ram likes to read
Australian Geographic, which he considers as the best magazine on earth as well.
His big interest toward Australian Geographic is confirmed by buying those magazines, which has been sold by The Taylors, from kabariwalla, a neighborhood junk dealer in India. He spends his spare times reading the magazines and improve his English by watching Australian channels. Ram also loves to read in order to broaden his knowledge. Indeed, he has no money to buy newspaper or any books, but he occasionally find another way to have newspapers.
“I don‟t read the Maharashtra Times. In fact, I don‟t read any newspaper. But I occasionally pilfer a copy from Mr. Barve‟s rubbish bin.” (Swarup, 2006:54).
B. Social Disparity in India’s Society in Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire
(Q&A) through the Character of Ram Mohammad Thomas
Human is a social being. Therefore, an individual needs to be in a society.
As an individual, Ram Mohammad Thomas also needs to be in a society. He lives in India society where there is a social gap between the rich and the poor; the majorities and the minorities; the people from the higher castes and the people from the lower castes. This part of analysis will provide the pictures of social disparity that occurs in India in the late of 21st century as given by the author through the novel. As it is stated by Rene Wellek and Austen Warren in a book titled Theories of Literature, literature represents life, and life is a social reality
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(1956:94). That is why the social backgrounds are very important to influence literature. A lot of literary works are written according the setting of time and place where the author lives. Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) is also written at the same place and the period when the alienation as the result of social disparity happens in India. The author creates the character Ram Mohammad Thomas who has the qualities of an alienated person caused by the social disparity in India suburban area as Ram experiences being a person from the lower class.
First of all, the writer will focus on India‟s society system that is supposed to have a caste system in it which has been rooted for decades. The caste system practiced by the Hindu society is not allowing social mobility across the classes.
Though other religions are supposed to be casteless, in the Indian context all religious groups covertly practice caste-based discrimination. Dalits, a member of the lowest caste in India, who are outcastes are the worst victims of caste- discrimination followed by the adivasis, a member of an aboriginal tribal people of India, who are outside the caste hierarchy (Kurian, 2007:378). At this point, the writer argues that the main character in the novel, Ram Mohammad Thomas, comes from the lower caste in the society he lives in. The writer agrees the words saying that the determination of one‟s caste-belongings is based on several determiners. Julian Blackburn in the book titled The Framework of Human
Behavior states:
“Most societies appear to possessed the same form of class system, though the degree of mobility between the different classes has varied enormously from the rigidity of a caste-system, including sex, age, conquest, birth and relationship, occupation, education, wealth, intelligence…” (1947:121).
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The author gives a vivid depiction about the social condition of India at the mentioned times in the novel through Ram character. Considering the society where Ram lives, it can be revealed that he comes from lower class since he lives in slum or in sub-urban area which is believed as the origin of the poor. The description of the society at that time can be seen as follow:
“I live in a corner of Mumbai called Dharavi, in a cramped hundred-square-foot shack that has no natural light or ventilation, with a corrugated metal sheet serving as the roof. It vibrates violently whenever a train passes overhead. There is no running water and no sanitation. This is all I can afford. But I am not alone in Dharavi. There are a million people like me, packed in a two-hundred-hectare triangle of swampy urban wasteland, where we live like animal and die like insects.” (Swarup, 2006:135).
It also has been described in the novel that before Ram moves to Mumbai and wins the quiz‟s prize, Ram used to live in Agra and work as a guide in Taj
Mahal. Becoming a guide is the only thing Ram can do to get some money rather than dying for hungry. Although he receives more money than his previous time by doing this job, Ram is still included as a person from the lower class since he dwells in a cheap chawl with forty rooms on it. He also deals with lower-class people since the people who live in a chawl are people who have less money and are uneducated. Ram himself also realize this matter and argues, „Those who can afford to live in Nariman Point, the heart of the financial and business district in
Mumbai with access to major corporate houses, entertainment, recreation and shopping centers, never stay in chawls, not even temporarily,‟ (2006:57). It means that it is impossible for people who have bunch of money living in a cheap chawl in slum area in India. However, Ram‟s life gets better after he lives in Mumbai and works as a guide. The social life of Mumbai is depicted clearly by the author
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in the novel as follow:
“A bundle of one-room tenements occupied by the lower-middle- classes, chawls are the smelly armpit of Mumbai. Those who live in are the only marginally better off than those who livein slums in Dharavi. As Mr. Barve told me once, the rich people, those who live in their marble and granite four-bedroom flats, they enjoy. The slum people, who live in the squalid, tattered huts, they suffer. And we, who reside in the overcrowded chawls, we simplylive.” (Swarup, 2006:56).
Furthermore, the society in India is said to be a country with its plurality, including the people, culture, race, language, religion, social-class, education, etc.
Ram Mohammad Thomas is the example of the plurality in India. As it is storied in the novel, Ram‟s full name is a combination of three main different religions that exist in India. Based on the factual data, India consists of 81.4% Hindu,
12.4% Muslim and 2.3% Christian
Muslim, make a complaint about the orphan child‟s name. They want to recommend a name according to the religion they hold. Mr. Sharma proposes Ram to be the name of the child, but Mr. Hidayatullah wants the child to have named
Mohammad.
„What name have you given this boy?‟ „Joseph Michael Thomas‟ „Isn‟t that a Christian name?‟ „Yes, but…‟ „How do you know that he was born to Christian parents?‟ „Well, I don‟t.‟ „Then why have you given him a Christian name?‟ „Well, I had to call him something. What‟s wrong with Joseph
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Michael Thomas?‟ „Everything…‟ (Swarup, 2006:38).
Here, Mr. Jagdis Sharma explains the reason why they have to change the boy‟s name. It is caused by the mob between religious groups that happens in
India at that time, so that the boy‟s name has to be changed to prevent the situation from getting worse. As it is depicted in the review on social condition of India, the novel also takes the situation of movements among religions in it. Therefore, it is proper to say that literature is mirroring on the real situation of the real society.
„What do you suggest I do?‟ „Suggest you to change the boy‟s name.‟ „To what?‟ „Well…giving him a Hindu name might do the trick. Why not name him Ram, after one of our favorite gods? Said Mr. Sharma Mr. Hidayatullah coughed gently, „Excuse me, Mr. Sharma, but aren‟t we replacing one evil with another? I mean, what is the proof that the boy was Hindu at birth? He might have been Muslim, you know. Why can‟t he be called Mohammad?‟ Finally, Father Timothy gave up. „Look, if it takes a name change to get the mob off my back, I will do it. How about if I accept both your suggestions and change the boy‟s name to Ram Mohammad Thomas? That should satisfy everyone.‟ (Swarup, 2006:39).
It can be implied from the quotation that Indian‟s society acknowledges the caste-system hierarchy, so that the classification or ranks system is also done in every element of daily life as well as the elements of plurality mentioned above, including the religion. The social groups are trying to build their existence so that the power they have is bigger than before. It is believed that throughout India, individuals are also ranked according to their wealth and power
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It is also said that castes are primarily associated with Hinduism but also exist among other Indian religious groups. Muslims sometimes expressly deny that they have castes--they state that all Muslims are brothers under God, but observation of Muslim life in various parts of India reveals the existence of caste- like groups and clear concern with social hierarchy. Among Indian Christians, too, differences in caste are acknowledged and maintained
“What is your name?” she asks Salim. “Salim.” “Oh, you are Muslim, aren‟t you?” Salim nods. “Look, I am sorry, but my aged mother, who lives with me, cannot eat anything touched by a Muslim. I personally don‟t believe in all this polluting-contact nonsense, but what am I to do?” she shrugs her shoulders. Salim looks crest-fallen. Then she turns to me. “And what about you? What is your name?” “Ram,” I tell her. (Swarup, 2006:212).
The conversation above means that Ram is also Hindu, so that Neelima Kumari gives the job to Ram only and she lets Ram to live in her house. However, for
Neelima‟s generosity Salim is given a place to stay in a chawl near her house,
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where Ram is also may visits it on weekends.
The caste-system society in India stimulates people‟s way of thinking to be in a higher caste among others. Therefore, they are trying to get more power and money so that they can have a strong position in a society. The people who live around Ram such as the police, the quiz‟s manager, the quiz‟s producer, and his neighbor also think that they can do anything with money. The conversation between Neil Johnson, a representative of NewAge Telemedia; the company that licenses Who Will Win a Billion, and Commissioner Sahib who interrogate Ram shows that by having money they can have everything.
“Why did you watch it?” “Well… because it was so interesting.” “Would it have been half as interesting if the top price had been ten thousand instead of a million?” “Well ... I suppose not.” “Exactly. You see, the biggest tease in the world is not sex. It‟s money. And the greater the sum of money, the bigger the tease.” (Swarup, 2006:6).
In this case, the society where Ram lives in influences how Ram thinks and acts. Ram who lives around people who thinks that money is the primary object in life also has the same way of thinking with them. It can be seen from his words after he gets the price of the quiz. Here, he realizes that in order to strive and to be respected by others, someone has to have money, and by having money he or she can have certain position in a society.
“I realized a long time ago that dreams have power only over your own mind; but with money you can have power over the mind of others. What I discovered after receiving the payout was that with money I had power even over the police.” (Swarup, 2006:316).
Besides wealth as the class measurement in a society, education also takes
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part in it. The higher education people have the higher the position is in the society. In the novel, Ram who never been to get formal education is considered as a lower class individual. The people who has higher educational degree often underestimates or even neglects the people who has no educational background, like what happen to Ram in the novel. It is clearly seen from the beginning of the story that Ram who has never been educated before is considered as a stupid and poor boy that does not deserve the prize of the quiz. He is underestimated by the constables and the producer who has a high education level rather than Ram, an uneducated waiter in a small bar.
He turns to Nanda. “He understands English, doesn‟t he?” “Are you out of your mind, Neil?” Nanda admonishes him. “How can you expect him to speak English? He‟s just a dumb waiter in some godforsaken restaurant, for Chrissake!” (Swarup, 2006:5) Nanda turns to the commissioner and reverts to English. “See, I told you this guy‟s a moron. The only way he could have answered those questions last week was by cheating.” (Swarup, 2006:8).
Furthermore, the writer also finds that the society where Ram lives in is full with ignorant neighbors who seems do not care each other. Although they live side by side, they appear to be people who are busy with their own problem, such as how to get money to pay the rent of the chawl, or what will they eat during day, or just simply how to get running water. Their brain does not have enough space to think about other people. It is true according to what Schaffer say that people from the lower class will only concentrate in how they can afford their basic necessities with their limited resources and abilities (1986:208). It can be seen from Ram‟s saying when Ram lives in a chawl in Mumbai, a moment when Ram is arrested by the police.
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“Protested my innocence, raised a stink, galvanized the neighbors. Not that it would have helped. Even if I had succeeded in waking some of the residents, they would not have raised a finger to defend me. They wouldn‟t even bother to find out the reason of my arrest. When your whole existence is „illegal‟, when you live on the brink of penury in an urban wasteland when you jostle for every inch of space and have to queue even for a shit, arrest has a certain inevitability about it.” (Swarup, 2006:1-2).
The quotation above depicts the situation and the condition of the chawl in
Mumbai, where the person who lives in it comes from the lower class of a society.
When Ram was arrested by the constables, nobody pays attention because they come from the same social background; lower class and lower caste of India society. People in a chawl or people who live in a slum area consider that under arrest by the police is a common phenomenon. This is the reason why Ram‟s neighbors seem does not care about his arresting since arrested by the police might happen almost everyday. Some people may be arrested because of stealing the money, robbing the banks, cheating, or even killing. They do those crimes because that is the fastest way to get money to safe the insufficient life. However, in the story Ram was arrested for crime that he never did.
C. Alienation as the Result of Social Disparity seen from Ram Character
The situation and the condition of India‟s late of 21st century depicted in the novel inevitably affect Ram‟s personality. From the analysis above, it can be revealed that Ram‟s actions and utterances are influenced by the society around him, such as the poor neighborhood in India. The middle and the higher class people, in this case the manager and the producer of the quiz, the constables and
Ram‟s employer also take part in how Ram acts and thinks. For instance, when the
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people around Ram, such as the producer of the quiz Who Will Win a Billion and his manager in Mumbai claims that money is the most important thing in the world, Ram becomes a person who also acts and thinks that by having money he can have everything he wants. The novel Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) gives some depictions on the situation and the condition of India‟s society in late of 21st century which indicates the social inequality between its people. Inequality in a society is caused by a classification that exists in it. Occupation, education and qualification, income and wealth, and wealth and properties are the elements to divide people into some different classes besides traditional cultures, religion, and genealogical background (Johnson, 1986:327). In reality, social disparity also happen in India society, especially India applies the caste-system which stratifies people into several different classes. Those differences cause alienation toward the minorities, the poor or the people who belongs to lower castes.
Ram Mohammad Thomas who comes from the slum area in India also experiences what we usually call alienation. Refer to Erich Fromm‟s theory, the alienation that Ram undergoes includes the alienation toward himself and the alienation toward other people or his society (1955:139-142). In the workplace,
Ram is narrated as a person who has unfortunate life. For eighteen years Ram has to face the reality that he has no parents, no brother, no sister, no proper house to live in, and he has to work really hard to survive in suburban area in India. In other words, Ram undergoes the alienation to himself since he experiences himself as a thing to be employed on the market. His sense of self does not stem from his normal activity of loving and thinking individual, but from his socio-
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economic role. Since a child, Ram tries to get out from the condition that he belongs to the lower caste. He struggles to fulfill his needs by moving from job to job rather than studying in a school, playing with his friends or just sharing things with his neighbors. He has no time to do the normal activities that are supposed for his age.
Therefore, Ram also undergoes alienation to other people and to his community. He spends much of his lifetime by working to get a better life and a higher status in the society where he lives, so that he does not have enough time to keep in touch with other people in his neighborhood. In the novel Ram says, „The whole day I work at the foundry, returning only at six in the evening.‟ (2006: 57).
Another example is when Ram works in Jimmy’s Bar and Restaurant, Ram has to work until midnight. Ram narrates his feeling, „I get rid of the last drunkard and look at the clock on the wall. It is one-ten a.m.‟ (2006:131). In other words, Ram is said to be out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with any other person and the society. He is emotionally distant with other people as well as himself. It can be seen from the novel that Ram is hardly ever in touch with his neighbors in the chawl.
“The residents of the chawl may not meet each other for social- occasions, but they have to meet while standing in a queue outside the common lavatories.” (Swarup, 2006:56).
Furthermore, Ram says that he only has Salim whom he considered as his own brother, „The first thing you must know about Salim is that he is my only best friend.‟ (2006:19). Even though they are separated for almost five years since Mr.
Shantaram tragedy, both of them know the things that happen in their life.
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However, as Richard M. Ryckman states that an alienated person has the feeling of powerlessness and loneliness (1989:167), Ram also feels that he is lonely. For he works over time, he has no time to take care of himself or to build social occasion with his neighbors. Sometimes Ram thinks about unfortunate life, but
Ram prefers not to go deeper into that matter and he chooses to get rest after he works all day long. It can be seen from below quotation:
“In my own room, I lie on the bed and think about the iniquities of life. I want to cry, but tears refuse to flow from my eyes. So I pull the crisp of white sheet up over my head and go off to sleep.” (Swarup, 2006:265).
Another example showing Ram feels lonely is when he lives in the orphanage house managed by Father Timothy. Knowing that he is only an orphan child who has no mother, no father, no brothers and sisters, Ram finds that he feels so small in this big world. Ram‟s lonely feeling become worse after Father
Timothy dies in miserable way and leaves Ram alone. His words to Ian, Father
Timothy‟s biological son in England, explain how much he grieves for losing father Timothy.
“Later, much later, Ian asks me, „Why did you cry so much, Thomas?‟ „Because today I have really become an orphan,‟ I reply. „He was my father. Just as he was Father to all those comes to this church.‟ (Swarup, 2006:51).
Moreover, it is said that family is also supposed to be one of the factors, besides the society, contributing someone‟s alienation and way of life. In the workplace, Ram, who has no family member at all, becomes frequently thinks that his mother has abandoned him. He feels lonely and hesitates. Furthermore, he also becomes a suspicious child toward his own mother and tries to find out who he is.
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In fact, Ram really wants to meet his mother and lives together, but his dream about a beautiful woman with white sari who does not want to come closer to
Ram even when Ram calls her aloud which haunts him almost every nights keep
Ram being distrustful to his mother.
“The finger of suspicion has always pointed toward the maternity ward of J.J. Hospital. Perhaps I was born there and my mother, for reasons known only to her, was forced to abandon me.” (Swarup, 2006; 35-36).
However, as a normal child Ram is also dreaming to have a family. He longs for a mother in his life since he never knows what it feels like have a real family. Ram enjoys his time working in The Taylors family since Ram can feel the way living in a loving family. The Taylors, especially Mrs. Taylor, treats Ram well and considers Ram as a teenager boy who still needs to be taken care in good way family life. Mrs. Taylor always brings Ram with her when she is shopping and buys Ram good meal and clothes. She also lets Ram play in Kids Mart after Ram helps her bringing her shopping bags.
“Sometimes all this kindness makes me cry. When I am eating a slice of Edam cheese or drinking a can of root beer, I find it difficult to believe that I am the same orphan who was eating blackened chapattis and indigestible stew in filthy juvenile home not far from here just five years ago. At times I actually start imagining myself as part of this Australian family. Ram Mohammad Taylor.” (Swarup, 2006:110).
Furthermore, Ram‟s feeling of loneliness is shown when he experiences working at Neelima Kumari‟s house. Neelima Kumari who also lives single after her mother passed away reflects what Ram feels at that time. They both are lonely.
Ram who has no one else to love or just to share his feelings respects Neelima
Kumari as her mother since Neelima‟s age is supposed to be almost the same as
Ram‟s mother. Neelima who feels lonely because she is abandoned by her lover
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sometimes share what she suffers to Ram. Ram takes pleasure in times when
Neelima Kumari share what she feels although Ram does not sure what is in
Neelima‟s mind about Ram.
“I do not know what Neelima Kumari was thinking when she drew me to her bosom. Whether she saw me as a son or as a lover, whether she did it to forget her pain or simply to gain a cheap thrill. But as I nuzzled my face between her breasts, all consciousness of the outer world ceased in my brain and for the first time I felt as though I was not an orphan anymore. That I had a real mother, one whose face I could see, one whose flesh I could touch. And the salty taste of my tears merged with the sweat and the scent of her body in the most moving experience of my thirteen- year-old life.” (Swarup, 2006:230).
The quotation above shows that Ram is lonely. Therefore, he wants to love someone and to be loved by somebody. Ram feels comfort and enjoys the excitement of being hugged by Neelima Kumari who cries for she is tortured by her lover. Though Ram does not sure about Neelima Kumari‟s feeling on him, he feels that he has real mother at that time.
Ram is also believed that he is a character who senses useless and meaningless feeling and he thinks that he is a boy who has nothing. Moreover, when Ram knows that he is only an orphan boy and knows the fact that Father
Timothy is not his biological father, the feeling is much stronger. It forces Ram to repay all the generosity that Father Timothy has given to him. He starts to serve
Father Timothy by doing little chores for him, like washing the clothes, cooking, doing the dishes in the kitchen, and so on. Ram thinks that his actions will pay the debt he owned to Father Timothy.
“It was never made clear to me whether I was servant or son, parasite or pet.” (Swarup, 2006: 41).
The quotation above implies that what Ram has said reflects what he feels.
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When Ram realizes that he has nothing and comes from the imprecise family, he considers himself as a blur object too. He feels hesitate about his own existence in the orphanage house and he also feels confuse about how to behave in front of
Father Timothy. This condition forces Ram to think irrationally.
In the workplace, Ram is also described as person who has so much guilty feeling. Guilty feeling here means that Ram feels guilty for being himself, for being alive and for being automaton. The social inequality and the caste system in
India that Ram undergoes at that time limit him to develop his life. Ram whose his age is supposed to have a appropriate life, such as a good education and a proper place to live, has to face the opposite way. He has to face the reality that he has no family and live in an orphanage house. Then, after Father Timothy dies Ram has to be sent to juvenile house. Escaped from the juvenile house at the age of ten,
Ram has to struggle to stay alive. He has to be included as an individual who comes from the lower caste or from the lower social class since he has to live in
India‟s slum area and works over times to earn some money to pay the rent of the chawl. Therefore, he thinks that he is only a thing to be employed in a society.
“I had experienced too many misfortunes. I treated money, therefore, like I treated my life-as an expendable commodity.” (Swarup, 2006:253).
Furthermore, the writer finds that as an alienated person Ram becomes an individual who lacks of confidence. It can be drawn from the scenes that Ram is always comparing his physical appearance to Salim, his best friend. Though it is not depicted in the novel how are Ram‟s appearances, but the writer thinks that
Ram is not really satisfy with what he have has. When Ram first meets Salim in
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the juvenile house, he says, “Salim is everything that I am not. He has a wheatish complexion and a cherubic face. He has curly black hair, and when he smiles his cheeks dimple.” (p. 77). Again, when Ram meets Salim, after they are separated since Mr. Shantaram incident, he also compares himself to Salim. Ram thinks that he is not good as Salim, and states,
“Salim has become taller and more handsome. At sixteen, he looks as good as any Bollywood film star. The hard life of the city has not corrupted him like it corrupted me.” (Swarup, 2006:193).
It shows that Ram does not feel comfort with his physical appearance.
Ram who has to work over times does not have enough time to take care of himself, and he thinks that the hard life in India at that time makes him look older.
Moreover, realizing that he is only an orphan boy who never goes to school, Ram builds his character to be such an inferior person. When he lives in the church with Father Timothy and the other orphan children, Father John ever calls Ram with “Idiot boy” reference. Since then, Ram feels agitate and he considers himself as a true stupid boy. Every time Ram catches the weird actions of Father John, he tells to himself to ignore it since he is only an idiot orphan boy.
For example, when Ram knows that Father John dress awkwardly and rides a big motor at night, Ram says to himself, “I wonder who the rider is and why he rapped me on the head. It doesn‟t occur to me that it could be Father John. After all, I am only an idiot orphan boy.” (p. 45). Ram keeps saying these words every time he finds father John acts strangely. Another example is that when Ram finds tattoo on Father John‟s body, but Ram does not know that it is a tattoo.
“Why Father John has all these strange designs on his body and keeps those strange magazines under his bed, I don‟t know. I am just an
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idiot orphan boy.” (Swarup, 2006: 45).
Furthermore, when Ram peeps out at Father John‟s room, he finds Father
John uses white powder and inhales it. Ram says again, “Why Father John puts talcum powder into his nose I don‟t know. But then I am just an idiot orphan boy.”(p. 46).
An alienated person is also said to have powerless feeling. The powerless feeling comes from the individual itself who thinks that a condition or social institutions as beyond their control and consider them oppressive (qtd. in Elwell,
1989:78). In the novel, it can be seen from the condition that Ram feels powerless of his being as a weak thirteen years old boy who can not help Neelima Kumari when she is being tortured by her lover.
“I know she is lying. That man I saw leaving the flat has done this to her. And in return she has given him cigarettes, whisky, and also money I feel pained and angry, and powerless to protect her.” (Swarup, 2006: 225).
Ram who is still thirteen years old feels that he can not do something to help Neelima Kumari. He realizes that he is only a child and has no power to do something considerable for Neelima Kumari‟s life.
Ram‟s biggest powerless feeling is shown when he deals with Shyam,
Nita‟s brother and also her pimp. Ram who falls in love with Nita, who works as a prostitute in Agra, wants to release Nita from that horrible place and he wants to marry her. However, Shyam forbids Nita to meet Ram and Shyam hurts Nita for she tries to escape from the whorehouse. Knowing this, Ram gets very angry and tries to set Nita free. He meets Shyam and tells him that he will marry Nita.
Shyam does not agree and challenge Ram to pay four lakhs, equal to four
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thousand rupees, if Ram wants to bring Nita out from the whorehouse. Ram who has never touches such sum of money before feels powerless and does not know what he must do.
“I know that Nita will never be mine. That Shyam will never let her go. That even if I somehow bring six lakhs, Shyam will increase the demand to ten lakhs. My mind seems to go numb, and I see blackness all around me. A wave of nausea assails me.” (Swarup, 2006: 292).
Ram feels more powerless when Shyam increases the sum of the money become six lakhs because Nita escapes from the whorehouse for the second time or before Ram gives the four lakhs to Shyam. Ram confuses and he feels that he can not do anything to set Nita free from Shyam. Fortunately, he sees the information about a quiz in a soggy newspaper. The quiz is Who Will Win a
Billion with a billion rupees as the prize, and Ram swears himself to take part in it.
Another characteristic of an alienated person is that he or she tries as best as he or she can to be the same as other people. The alienation that is experienced forces someone to be the same with other people because this action can make one feels secure and accepted by other people. This is what happens to Ram
Mohammad Thomas. He who undergoes unfortunate life since his childhood tries as best as he can to get a better life. In the workplace, Ram is supposed to have this characteristic since he tries to prove to another people that has abandoned him, in this case the constables and the quiz producer, that a poor waiter is really deserve the prize too. Ram keeps silent when the constables torture him in a bad manner because Ram knows all the answers of the quiz. He believes that there must be a way to prove his innocence. When Smita comes to be Ram‟s lawyer, he
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convinces Smita that he knows all the answers of the quiz from his daily experiences. As the result, Ram and Smita can win the case.
“Well, madam, we poor can also ask questions and demand answers. And I bet you, if the poor conducted a quiz, the rich wouldn‟t be able to answer a single question. I don‟t know the currency of France, but I can tell you how much money Shalini Tai owes our neighborhood money- lender. I don‟t know who was the first man on the moon, but I can tell you who was the first man to produce illegal DVDs in Dharavi. Could you answer these questions in my quiz?” (Swarup, 2006:17).
Ram is also he tries to defend his position as the native in India to The Taylors who always underestimate the Indians with “bloody Indians‟ reference. The author gives Ram‟s feeling of angry in the novel as follow:
“Every time I hear it, my blood boils. Okay, so the postman and the electrician and the telephone repairman and the constable, and now even the census man, have a weakness for whisky. But it doesn‟t mean that all Indians are drunkards. I wish I could explain this to Mrs. Taylor someday.” (p. 105).
Furthermore, Ram is also depicted as a person who wants to be equal to the other people from higher class of society, in which money and power become the priority of life. When he lives as a member of low-class society in Mumbai,
Ram has never been raise any idea or just to comment on his neighbor‟s new things. But after he has own money from his effort working with The Taylors,
Ram become more confident to see himself as a person who has more power in a society since he has money. It can be seen from the novel when Ram is trying to prove to the other passenger on the train that he has a lot of money. Ram shows his money which is put inside his underwear because one of the passenger in a cabin where Ram is sitting judges Ram a liar. He says to the man, “Oh, so you think it is all a big lie, eh? Well, Mr. Akshay, let me tell you that right here, right
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now, I have fifty thousand rupees in my pocket. Have you ever seen so much money in your life?” (p. 154). By doing this act, Ram feels that he has much power over someone else and he becomes to be more respected by other people.
Ram confirms himself that people‟s life is shaped by money. He says to himself,
“Respect. It taught me a very valuable lesson. That dreams have power only over your own mind. But with money you can have power over the minds of others.
And once again it made the fifty thousand inside my underwear feel like fifty million.” (p. 155). Those actions make Ram feels significant.
”Looking at the typical middle-class family scene in front of me, I don‟t feel like an interloper anymore. I am no longer an outsider peeping into their exotic world but an insider who can relate to them as an equal, talk to them in their own language. Like them, I can now watch middle- class soaps, play Nintendo, and visit Kids Mart on weekends.” (Swarup, 2006: 153).
The above quotation explains that Ram has a lot of money after receiving the salary from The Taylors. Ram who has been working for about two years receives fifty thousand rupees from The Taylors who have to be extradited from
India. This sum of money makes Ram feels that he is not a person who comes from the lower caste of society anymore, but the middle class society. With the money, Ram hopes for doing things that usually done by the people from the middle class. He also does not feel inferior when he has to have conversations with the other passengers of the business-class train that comes from the middle class society in India.
In the story, Ram is said to be someone who needs conformity that he is also needed in the society where he lives. In general, conformity is needed to reach the sense of identity (Fromm, 1955:155). An alienated person tries as best
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he or she can to be equal as other people. Being the same with other people makes one feel secure and accepted by other people. Ram‟s neighbor in the chawl, Mrs.
Shantaram, on one occasion needs Ram favor to see her daughter, Gudiya, in the hospital.
“She tells me about herself. I learn that she is about to finish her Intermediate and start university. Her ambition is become a doctor. She asks me about myself. I don‟t tell her anything about Father Timothy or what happen to me later, but I recount my experiences in the chawl. I tell her about life as a foundry worker. She listens to me with a rapt attention and makes me feel very important and wanted.” (Swarup, 2006:63).
The above quotation shows that Ram is actually trying to be a good listener and pretends that Gudiya is her own sister so that Gudiya and The
Shantarams consider Ram as good person who can be trusted. From that moment,
Ram starts to take care of Gudiya in the hospital and share their experiences. Ram also helps Gudiya feeding her cat at home and Ram consider Gudiya as his sister.
Since then, Ram and Gudiya become close friends and this happening sets Ram to feel that he is significant.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
This thesis analyzes Vikas Swarup‟s Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A) and focuses the discussion on alienation that is undergone by the main character in the novel, Ram Mohammad Thomas, as the result of social disparity that happen in the late of 21st century of India society. Generally, Ram Mohammad Thomas is described as a person who has unfortunate life before he wins a billion rupees for joining in a quiz called Who Will Win a Billion. Besides experiencing so many misfortunes in his life, Ram is described as a person who belongs to the lower caste society or comes from the lower class society. The caste-based society in the late of 21st century of India which stratifies people into several different classes is believed to be more flexible. Nevertheless, the classification of society at that time is done mostly by looking on the wealth, education, social status in an organization, etc. Yet, these elements cause a disparity between the individual who have a good education, wealth, high social status and so on and the people who does not have those elements. In the novel, Ram belongs to the lower class society since he has never been educated, he moves from job to job and he lives in India‟s suburban area such as Juhu, Dharavi and Agra.
The social disparity that happens in India is also experienced by Ram. As the result, Ram undergoes alienation. The alienation he undergoes is the alienation from himself and the alienation from other people and his society. Ram undergoes the alienation to himself since he experiences himself as a thing to be employed
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on the market. His sense of self does not stem from his normal activity of loving and thinking individual, but from his socio-economic role. He works over time to get a better life and a higher position in a society. Therefore, Ram‟s social life is poor and he has a distant relationship with other people. In other words, Ram is out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with any other person and the society. Moreover, it is revealed that the society of India‟s late of 21st century considers wealth, education, and social status are the most important things that an individual must have. Consequently, when an individual does not have a good wealth, education, social status, he or she will be alienated by the people who have a better wealth, education and social status or castes.
It can be also drawn that Ram is an individual who makes some great deal of changes in his life. He tries to overcome it and gets out from bad lucks and poverty by doing hard works. Besides his strong commitment and his power to stay alive in the middle of India‟s slum area, he is also said as a person who has a big curiosity. He tries to fulfill his huge will to learn everything on his surrounding society though he has never been to school. Moreover, Ram is a loyal person and he can keep his words, so that he becomes a favorite worker for his employers. However, the alienation as the result of the social disparity in the late of 21st century of India society that is undergone by Ram has built Ram‟s quality as an alienated person. Several qualities of an alienated person are reflected through Ram in the novel. The first is that Ram has a lonely feeling. Since he is out of touch with himself as he is out of touch with other people and society, Ram feels lonely. Moreover, he senses useless and meaningless feeling because he
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considers himself as person who has nothing. Therefore, Ram is also said to be an individual who has so much guilty feeling. He feels guilty for being himself, for being alive and for being automaton. He considers that the social inequality and the caste system in India at that time limit him to develop his life. He has to work really hard although Ram understands that it is almost impossible for him to get a higher position in a society. Another characteristic of an alienated person is that
Ram lacks of confidence. He always compares his physical appearance with his best friend, Salim, and thinks that the hard life of India society at that time makes him looks older. Ram also becomes more inferior when he is called as an idiot boy. He feels agitate and considers himself as a true idiot boy. Moreover, powerless feeling also exists in Ram. For he has nothing, especially wealth and power, he feels powerless when he has to face Shyam‟s demand. Therefore, Ram tries as best as he can to be the same with other people or with the people who has a higher status because this action makes him feels secure and accepted by other people. At that time, Ram thinks that money and power is the most important thing in this world. Ram also needs conformity to reach the sense of identity. Ram comprehends that by letting someone know about him and by having money and power, he will not feel inferior anymore.
Finally, the writer concludes that Ram‟s qualities mentioned above are caused by the social disparity that happens in the late of 21st century of India‟s society. In other words, society has become the prominent factor contributing to
Ram‟s alienation since the things and the elements of a classified society he lives in bring some changes to Ram‟s way life and point of view.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Babbie, Earl. Understanding Sociology: a Context for Action. USA: Wordsworth Inc, 1982.
Blackburn, Julian. The Framework of Human Behavior. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & CO. Ltd., 1947
Dollar, David. Poverty, Inequality and Social Disparities during China’s Economic Reform. Beijing: World Bank Country, 2007.
Elwell, Frank. Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009.
Fromme, Allan. Our Troubled Selves. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967.
Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1989.
Heitzman, James and Robert L. Worden, editors. India: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1995.
Johnson, Allan G. Human Arrangement: an Introduction to Sociology. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publisher, 1986.
Kalish, Richard A. The Psychology of Human Behavior. California: Brooks/Cole Publisher Co., 1973.
Kenney, William. How to Read and Write about Fiction. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc., 1988.
Kurian, N. J. Widening Economic and Social Disparities: Implication for India. New Delhi: Council for Social Development, 2007.
Maslow. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Harmondworth: Penguin, 1973.
Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy A. Denton. Comparing Brown Era Racial Disparities to Today. Ohio: Kirwan Institute, 2004.
Murphy, M. J., Understanding Unseen: an Introduction to Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students. California: Brooks/Cole Publisher Co., 1972.
Mutatkar, Rohit. Social Group Disparities and Poverty in India. New Delhi: Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, 2005.
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Roberts, Edgar V. and Henry E. Jacobs. Fiction: an Introduction to Reading and Writing. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1986.
Rohrberger, Mary and Samuel H. Woods, Jr. Reading and Writing about Literature. New York: Random House, 1971.
Ryckman, Richard M. Theories of Personality. California: Brooks/Cole Publisher Co., 1989.
Stallybrass, Oliver. Aspects of the Novel. London: Penguin Paperback Publisher, 2005.
Stanton, Robert. An Introduction to Fiction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1965.
Swarup, Vikas. Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A). New York: Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, 2008.
Uphoff, Norman, and Milton J. Esman. Local Organization for Rural Development: Analysis on Asian Experience. New York: Cornell University, Rural Development Committee, 1974.
Warren, Austen and Rene Wellek. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956.
Online References
Answers Corporation. 2011.
2011)
Hazlett, Becky. Q&A by Vikas Swarup. 2006.
India’s Economic Growth. Indianchild. 2000.
Indianchild. 2000.
Jupiter Infomedia Pvt Ltd. 2008.
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McLean, Sandra. The Courier Mail. 2005.
Nachimutu, Angelina. Book Review- Q&A by Vikas Swarup. 2000.
National Center for Health and Wellness Co. 2006.
New Delhi: Trinetra Tours Pvt Ltd. 2008.
Srinivasan, T. N. and Samuel C. Park Jr. China and India: Growth and poverty, 1980-2000. California: Stanford University. 2003.
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APPENDIX
SUMMARY OF NOVEL
Slumdog Miilionaire, originally published as Q & A, is the first novel written by Vikas Swarup. His novel acquaint with the social life of India in recent times, where still occurs what people usually called alienation. Imitating from the fact that alienation is one of the effects of social disparity that happen in India,
Swarup built a major character, Ram Mohammad Thomas, who also undergoes alienation.
The story begins when Ram was arrested by the constables for winning a quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion. At first, Ram did not understand the reason why he was arrested. He thought it was because he tried to kill his neighbor by pulling him to the ground from second floor when he was a kid for his neighbor treated his daughter badly or because he shot a robber when he was on the train about he was 17 years old. In fact the police and the quiz‟s producer charged Ram that he was cheating on the quiz show, but actually Ram did not. He really knew all the answers since the twelve questions raised in the quiz were experienced by
Ram himself. The producer and the host of the quiz, Prem Kumar, considered that it is impossible for a poor waiter could successfully answer the questions unless he was cheating.
The constables were trying to get Ram confess that he was really cheating, and force Ram to sign a contract saying that Ram Mohammad Thomas did some tricks to win the prize. Ram kept silent because he did no wrong. His actions made the constables got irate and they tortured Ram very badly. When Ram was
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“investigated” by the constables, a woman who admits as a lawyer came and she wanted to handle Ram‟s case. Her name is Smita Shah. Ram stunned by Smita‟s coming and her generosity. He did not call any lawyer, or to be exact a poor waiter could not afford to hire a lawyer. However, Smita proposed a free service.
Smita freed Ram from the police office and took him to her house. Smita who have the recording of the whole activities of the quiz asked Ram how could he was arrested, and then Ram explained the main problem that he underwent.
Here, Ram‟s ups and downs life story is narrated according to the chronological of the questions raised in the quiz. Begins with the first question about a movie, the second question about the sequence of letters on the top of a Cross, the third question about solar system, until the last question about music, Ram narrated all his experiences and secrets to Smita and how his experiences could answer all the twelve questions.
After Smita heard Ram‟s story, she confess that her name is actually
Gudiya, the girl whom her father was pushed away by Ram in order to help Smita from bad manners. Ram was surprised and he was afraid that Smita would blame him for hurting her father. Conversely, Smita was grateful to Ram that since the accident her father become more respectful to her and treated her nicely. Finally,
Smita tried to collect some proofs that Ram‟s information is true. No cheating for sure. They struggled to confirm that Ram deserve to be the winner and take the price. Moreover, by joining Who Will Win a Billion, Ram succeeds to take revenge toward Prem Kumar, the quiz‟s host, who ever hurt Nita, Ram‟s wife to be.
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