`aravind Adiga`s The White Tiger: Optimistic Attachment, Affect And Ideology`.

In his essay, `The Autonomy of Affect`, Brian Massumi questions the reasons why Ronald Reagan proved to be such a popular president; why was it that he could `be so many things to so many different people`? According to Massumi, Reagan was widely recognised for his `verbal fumbling`, the `incoherence of his thoughts`, and most lamentably, `was more famous for his polyps than his poise`. It is Reagan`s poise, or lack thereof, that becomes the subject of great scrutiny from here on. `Reagan`s gestural idiocy`, writes Massumi, utilised `the power of mime` in that it `decompose[d] movement` into an `infinite series of submovements punctuated by jerks`. Massumi evokes the image of a mime artist, but the jerks alluded to by his analogy could easily be extended further into the imagination: a malfunctioning robot for example, or even an animated corpse. Massumi sums up that Reagan `was a communicative jerk`; moreover, he `was nothing, an idiocy musically coupled with an incoherence. [...] He was an incipience, [...] unqualified and without content` [my emphasis]. This is a withering assessment, but in the end Reagan`s dysfunctions did not matter. His incipience, that is to say, his intensity, or, to be more concise, his affect, was worked upon by `the technologies of image transmission`. By the time Reagan was `actualized`, or rather, by the time he was received in the public domain, his affect `was qualified and given content`. In other words, Reagan `was able to produce ideological effects by non-ideological means`. Alone, Reagan may have been `nothing approaching an ideologue`, but through the process thus outlined, virtually any ideology could be attached to him. This essay takes up this strand between affect and ideology in order to provide a framework of analysis that stands applicable to Aravind Adiga`s The White Tiger (2008). This essay also uses Lauren Berlant`s work - particularly her publications associated with the term, `cruel optimism` - as an interlocutor for much of what follows. In `Cruel Optimism: On Marx, Loss and the Senses` (2008), Berlant makes this proposal: `When we talk about an object of desire, we are really talking about a cluster of promises we want someone or something to make to us and make possible for us`. As far as `we` are concerned these promises lean toward fantasies of `the good life`, and so `proximity to the object means proximity to the cluster of things that the object promises`. For this reason, `all attachments are optimistic`. It is important to note that `the surrender to the return to the scene where the object hovers in its potentialities is the operation of optimism as an affective form`. More simply, this is the `affective structure of an optimistic attachment`. Problems arise, however, when the good life turns out to be a bad life: `when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing`. Sometimes an attachment is made to an object whose promises are `discovered either to be impossible, sheer fantasy, or too possible, and toxic`. These attachments are identified as cruel optimism. Berlant goes on to establish common examples `of conventional desire that stand manifestly in the way of a subject`s thriving`: `the couple form, the love plot, the family, fame, work, wealth, or property`. The mechanisms of cruel optimism are apparent in The White Tiger from the very beginning; after all, this is a novel where poverty stricken school boys are told from an early age that, `[a]ny boy in any village can grow up to be prime minister of India`. But the critical force of my investigation does not come from simply searching The White Tiger for examples of cruel optimism. As much as Adiga`s novel offers fertile ground for this type of analysis, such an approach would soon become repetitive and tedious. Instead, the first part of this essay tracks the optimistic attachment that exists between the novel`s central protagonist, Balram Halwai, and his master, Ashok. I want to examine the affective structure of that attachment and the potentialities which spring from it, some of which may be relatively clear, others less so. The second part of the essay aims to show how at least one of those potentialities is qualified, given content, and actualized through ideological means. Balram is a young individual who aspires to live the good life, but his social caste prevents him from doing so. Balram is forced to quit his local school in Laxmangarh and must earn a living in a tea shop as one of the `human spiders that go crawling in between and under tables with rags in their hands` (WT 51). Nevertheless, this situation does not last and a twist of good fortune ensures Balram is able to finish work at the teashop and train to become a driver. Balram`s landlord, the Stork, subsequently offers him a job to serve his son, Ashok, as his new driver in Delhi. Balram describes his relationship with Ashok as a close one, though crucially, one that conforms strongly to the master-servant paradigm: `From the start [...] there was a way in which I could understand what he wanted to say, the way dogs understand their masters` (WT 111). For all that, on occasion there is a palpable sense that Balram views Ashok in a different way, and so the boundaries of their relationship appear obfuscated. These occasions are pivotal because they mark the development of Balram`s optimistic attachment to Ashok. In short, Ashok becomes an object of desire. But there are questions over the form(s) this desire takes. The fact that Balram ends up murdering Ashok and steals seven hundred thousand rupees of his money makes it tempting to conclude that his attachment is motivated overwhelmingly by the potential to secure material wealth. Ashok`s money evidently gives Balram a once in a lifetime opportunity to gain access to the good life. Even so, this interpretation of Balram`s desire does not always account sufficiently for the way in which his attachment is sometimes played out. To repeat Berlant`s phraseology a second time: Balram`s object of desire `hovers in [other] potentialities`. I would like to address this critical imbalance by drawing upon the following passage; in it, Balram recollects his earlier days with Ashok:

Mr Ashok`s face reappears now in my mind`s eye as it used to everyday when I was in his service - reflected in my rearview mirror. It was such a handsome face that sometimes I couldn`t take my eyes off it. (WT 46).

Balram spends every day in his employer`s service, and so is able to maintain proximity to Ashok and the cluster of promises surrounding him. But here, Balram`s attachment signals something other than straightforward material desire: he is completely taken with Ashok`s handsome face. The rearview mirror frames his face perfectly, creating a small-scale spectacle; so much so, that it causes awkward embarrassment to Balram elsewhere in the novel: `At that moment I looked at the rearview mirror, and I caught Mr Ashok`s eyes looking at me` (WT 122). For the majority of people, it is easy to imagine being captivated by something so comprehensively that the world just seems to grind to a halt. And here I do not talk about apotheosised notions of the sublime, or epiphany; on the contrary, Balram is the percipient of an experience that is part of the everyday. Kathleen Stewart calls these experiences, `ordinary affects`. Alternatively, Berlant has referred to them as `perturbation[s]`. Despite the difference in terminology, both Stewart and Berlant would agree that these moments amount to `things that happen. They happen in impulses, sensations, expectations, daydreams, encounters`, and so forth. They cause a `momentary suspension of narrative, or a glitch in the projects we call things like the self, agency, home, a life` [my emphasis]. Stewart adds: `Their significance lies in the intensities they build and in what thoughts and feelings they make possible` [my emphasis]. To tease out further the dynamics of the above passage, it is necessary to recall Berlant`s critique of an untitled John Ashbery poem [fig. 1]. Here, the (male) speaker undergoes an experience that is consubstantial to Balram`s. At first, Berlant notes that, `everything in this poem is very general [...] as it instantiates something of the American Dream, suburb style`. In addition, there is `nothing especially original or profound in Ashbery`s send up of suburban pleasures: the comforting sound and slightly dull rhythm of cliché performs exactly how much life one can bear to have there`. For Berlant, the whole poem hinges on a single encounter: `He came up to me`. Berlant sees this encounter as one that flows with potential; she then speculates on the nature of that potential by applying a queer reading: `He came up to me and broke my contract with heaven not to be gay`. Berlant interprets the proceeding stanza as an expression of the speaker being `lost` in proximity to `he`, beyond the (hetero)normative confines of his suburban lifestyle. Heteronormativity is an important consideration to make in relation to The White Tiger and demands a more detailed inquiry later on. In the meantime, Balram, like the speaker in Ashbery`s poem, can also lay claim to one or two encounters involving `he`, Ashok: `He lifted his hand - I prepared for his touch` (WT 188); `He leaned forward - he brought his lips right to my ear - I was ready to melt` (WT 257). Both show all the traits of ordinary affects in the way they purport a sense of `immanence, emanation, atmosphere, or emergence`. It would be misleading to suppose that Balram harbours feelings that are overtly gay, but the affects he experiences are clearly charged with that potential. With this in mind, it seems plausible to suggest that Balram`s attachment is at the very least multifaceted. As stated previously, the poetics of an optimistic attachment includes an effort to gain proximity to the object of desire. This can be accomplished in a number of ways, Berlant herself elaborates on one such strategy: apostrophe. Apostrophe is a rhetorical figure of speech, whereby a speaker `suddenly stops his discourse, and turns to address pointedly some person or thing, either present or absent`. Berlant foregrounds Barbara Johnson`s study, `Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion` (1986), to help unpack this process. Johnson begins by comparing apostrophe to `a form of ventriloquism through which the speaker throws voice, life, and human form into the addressee, turning its silence into mute responsiveness`. For Johnson, Percy Bysshe Shelley`s, `Ode to the West Wind` (1819) exemplifies this thoroughly: `O wild West Wind, thou breath off Autumn`s being / Thou from whose unseen presence leaves dead / Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing`. Here, the speaker `addresses, gives animation, gives the capacity of responsiveness to the wind, not in order to make it speak but in order to make it listen to him`. Berlant identifies apostrophe as a means of initiating what is known as `fantasmatic intersubjectivity`. Fantasmatic intersubjectivity occurs when the object in question is summoned and made `affectively present` not so much through direct speech, but through the imaginary correspondence that takes place inside the speaker`s head. Apostrophe is thus a `phenomenologically vitalising movement of rhetorical animation that permits subjects to suspend themselves in the optimism of a potential occupation of the same psychic space of others`. Balram enacts similar performances of fantasmatic intersubjectivity with Ashok. One instance takes place with Balram stood eavesdropping outside his master`s bedroom door. He overhears Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam shouting from inside, the argument culminating with `the sound of a man`s flesh slapping a woman`s flesh` (WT 155). In his mind, Balram salutes Ashok: `About time you took charge, O Lamb-that-was-born-from-the-loins-of-a-landlord` (WT 155). Balram`s apostrophe includes mellifluous words layered with alliteration and assonance; its poetic register even emulates the great Romantic poets to a certain extent. But these words also carry a menacing threat: they reveal Balram`s growing insurgence against his master. Earlier in the novel, Balram is struck by the realisation that Ashok, unlike his father the Stork, is `weak, helpless, absentminded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a landlord` (WT 142). Again, Balram reverts to apostrophe: `If you were back in Laxmangarh, we would have called you the Lamb` (WT 142). Ashok, who is not immediately present on either occasion, is the unwitting addressee of a soon-to-be murderer. On the other hand, Balram also exhibits benevolence towards Ashok. It is here that I make an additional contribution to Berlant`s work by introducing another strategy which achieves fantasmatic intersubjectivity: empathy. Time and again, Balram projects his own personality into Ashok`s in a compassionate attempt to fully comprehend him. Shortly after the break-up of Ashok`s marriage, Balram drives him to the railway station to pick up his brother Mukesh, who arrives in Delhi to pay him a visit. Driving back to the apartment, they pass over a slum and Balram notices that Ashok is staring out of the window:

My eyes obeyed his eyes. I saw the silhouettes of the slum dwellers close to one another inside the tents; you could make out one family - a husband, a wife, a child - all huddled around a stove inside one tent, lit up by a golden lamp. The intimacy seemed so complete - so crushingly complete. I understood what Mr Ashok was going through. (WT 188).

Two things are apparent here: the first is that empathy marks its presence throughout this passage; Balram can see that the sight of the slum family huddling together causes Ashok substantial pain, his ability to start a family of his own having been destroyed by the failure of his marriage. However, the biggest revelation comes in considering just how powerfully Balram`s empathy resonates: `My eyes obeyed his eyes`. In consequence, Balram`s admission - `[t]he intimacy seemed so complete - so crushingly complete` - pulsates with ambiguity, as it is uncertain whether he refers to the intimacy displayed by the family, or the intimacy he claims to share with Ashok. This situation is by no means isolated; elsewhere, Ashok enters Balram`s living quarters and the same thing happens: `And so I saw the room with his eyes; smelled it with his nose; poked it with his fingers` (WT 78-79). In a manner of speaking, Balram not only projects himself, but physically places himself inside Ashok`s body, so that he might experience the world from his point of view. Balram`s empathy also compels him to mimic Ashok, as Sara D. Schotland explains: `Balram wants to drink the same scotch that Ashok drinks, shop at the same mall where Ashok shops, sleep with blond women as Ashok sleeps with blond women`. For the most part, it would seem that Balram lives his whole life in accordance to the dogma: `What would Mr Ashok do?` (WT 299). Balram does at one stage claim his empathy is a sign of him beginning to `digest [his] master` (WT 79), that is, consume him, and eventually dispense with him, but this only appears to be telling part of the whole story. So far, I have argued that the affective charge which emanates from Balram`s optimistic attachment combines two potentialities: Ashok as a source of wealth, and Ashok as a source of intimacy. In the end, only one is fulfilled: Ashok is murdered, Balram takes his money, and the potential for intimacy never really progresses beyond the half-formed affects which float inside the latter`s head. But why do events turn out this way? Stewart offers a likely answer: `Ideologies happen. Power snaps into place. Structures grow entrenched. Identities take place. Ways of knowing become habitual at the drop of a hat`. The remainder of this discussion sheds light on the deep-rooted ideologies that shape the world of The White Tiger, ideologies that ultimately shape the actualization of affect.