#they stripped her of her capacity for incredible violence in the face of injustice and her drive of righteous anger if anything | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

everydayducksoup · 4 years

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Because I can finally post it: here’s my absolute shithouse off-my-ass this-is-secular-school-now-I-can-write-REAL-politics-into-my-work essay. “Who Gets Eaten and Who Gets to Eat: Morality and Socioeconomic Mobility in Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger and Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”

In a society where honest work just doesn’t cut it, there’s always murder- at least, for the protagonists of White Tiger and Sweeney Todd. Both works make use of fictional narratives and stylistic language to destabilize narratives of wealth as moral judgement and expose the forces in society which push individuals, especially amongst the lower class, into immoral action and emotional detachment in exchange for socioeconomic stability and advancement. With Adiga presenting the story of driver-turned-entrepreneur Balram Halwai, and Sondheim the Victorian English revenge drama of Sweeney Todd’s mass murder and cannibalistic enterprise, the ‘dark side’ of capitalism, justice, and class dynamics comes to light.

In his essay, “capitalism, caste and con-games in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger”, Snehal Shingavi presents us with two common narratives about poverty- where it is either “overcome by virtue of moral fineness (so that to be rich is to deserve) or by moral corruption (so that any upward mobility marks ethical opprobrium)”(Shingavi 7). However, neither of the works presented adhere to this conflation of wealth with morality, because they take a different look at the way our society works. In Sweeney Todd, it is constantly emphasized that vice and immorality are universal traits: in the song Epiphany, Todd sings “we all deserve to die/ even you Mrs. Lovett/ even I” (Sondheim 38), and similar judgements are made throughout the rest of the play. Meanwhile, The White Tiger expresses the opinion that goodwill is only an option for those with privilege- “here, if a man wants to be good, he can be good. In Laxamangarh, he doesn’t even have this choice.” (Adiga 262).

This decision to separate morality from the act of gaining capital does something incredibly important: it undermines the idea of the poor as apolitical or moralizing figures, establishing their autonomy. When we acknowledge this, we can more thoroughly experience the injustices that drive these characters to violent means. Both protagonists are literally denied justice- Todd is framed for a crime by Judge Turpin and sent to the penal colony as part of his plan to steal his wife, Lucy; and Balram is expected to take the blame for his master’s wife when she runs over a young child. The statues of law are shown to be ineffective within modern society due to class imbalance- the reality is, as Balram says, “the rule of the jungle”. Both protagonists take on cannibalism (one literally, the other figuratively) as their own brand of justice outside the system that has failed them. Sweeney and Lovett sing, in A Little Priest: “the history of the world my dear/…/is who gets eaten and who gets to eat”(Sondheim 48), while Balram expresses the new caste structure of postcolonial India as “there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat—or get eaten up.” (Adiga 54)

Rather than marking the distinction between rich and poor through morality, these works employ the binary of filth and cleanliness as a signifier of socioeconomic position. From the first, Todd describes the poor of London as “vermin” and claiming that the subjugation by the upper classes “(turn) beauty into filth and greed” (Sondheim 2). Similarly, Lovett’s introduction, The Worst Pies in London revolves entirely around the spectacle of how disgusting her situation is: “is that just revolting?” (Sondheim 9). This state of perpetual impurity is both a direct result of economic equality, and a contributing factor in its continuation. Adiga demonstrates the impact of cleanliness over filth by showing Balram successfully “passing” in middle-class society by copying his master’s habits- he stops chewing paan, starts brushing his teeth, dresses simply, changes his posture, and he is suddenly unrecognizable as the poor driver he still is. The authority given to anyone who can present well enough within the expectations of their society strips yet another layer from the connection between ethics and wealth- through appearances, Lovett’s pie shop is successful despite selling its clients human flesh. However, this effect is not only felt through the common motif of a façade, as it also serves to prove that the currency of this society is necessarily aggressive.

The White Tiger presents this struggle through the metaphor of the rooster coop:

“hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages…pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling for breathing space…on the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken… the roosters in the coop smell the blood from above… they know they’re next.” (Adiga 147)

This analogy presents the inherent violence in the situation: if you are a poor rooster, no matter how much you preen your feathers or how peacefully you stand, your neighbors will only continue to peck at you and try to climb over you, and you will still be in line for the slaughter. If you are the rich butcher, the only way you can survive is to continue killing chickens, because that is your trade, regardless of how nicely you treat them, and if you let them out of the cage you lose it all. In order to gain power in this society, Shingavi points out, one must forsake both their origins, their emotional ties; and their morality, their societal ties. For Balram, this is the killing and torture of his family by the state, which relieves him of his caste; and the murder of Mr. Ashok, which relieves him of his servitude. For Todd, it is the knowledge that “Lucy lies in ashes” and he’ll “never see Johanna” (Sondheim 44); as well as his plan to murder the Judge. The disconnection of morality and capital allows for a system wherein justice is obtained through violence, the truth revealed through con-games, and social mobility and betterment come at the cost of human lives.

However, the values of the system do not reflect directly on the people within it- Balram, Todd and Lovett are still emotional, human figures, who have the capacity for grief and empathy. Both protagonists harbor a young boy throughout the course of the story- Balram his nephew Dharam and Lovett and Todd their young employee Toby- neither of which are related to their grander schemes. Both openly grapple with the loss of their familial connections, with Balram commenting “I’ve got no family anymore. All I’ve got are chandeliers” (Adiga 97) and Todd addressing a monologue to his lost daughter in the song Johanna (Quartet): “Goodbye, Johanna/ You're gone, and yet you're mine… And though I'll think of you, I guess/Until the day I die.” (Sondheim 63) The biggest distinction between the two works comes through this aspect: Balram succeeds in separating his personal life from his business and channeling the cold methods of the system even in his charity- giving bribes in exchange for the life of a young boy killed by one of his employees- while Lovett and Todd let their emotions drive them to ruin.

In his essay, “Mayhem and Morality in Sweeney Todd”, Alfred Mollin points out the way Sondheim uses musical references to demonstrate Todd’s descent into righteous rage and madness. The use of the music of the Dies Irae from the Requiem Mass, a piece which is immediately recognizable to a western audience as representing a sort of divine “judgement of the wicked and the good”(Mollin 3), shows that his intentions lie directly outside of the give-and-take of the system around him. In this sense, Balram’s parallel in the play is more in the character of Mrs. Lovett, who acknowledges the entrepreneurial potential of their situation and acts almost exclusively out of “thrift”- almost, because she is also in love with Todd. This affection goes directly against the preestablished tenant of the system, emancipation from emotional ties, and thus leads to their downfall. It is only fitting that Shingavi would refer to this tenant as a “murder”, as it is literally the realization that Lucy is alive, brought about in the third act of the play, that sets off the eventual demise of Lovett and Todd.

These narratives present the worst faces of our modern, heavily unequal society- the failures of justice, of capitalism, and even of human empathy. Through them, we can see past the façades imposed on daily life, worn by rich and poor alike in their pursuit of self-betterment. They express a more nuanced story of class inequality and the forces that control our society, recognizing that bringing about a just and fair environment is not a matter of taking out the boogeymen of billionaires or capitalism, but rather a process of unlearning and replacing systems that value aggression as social capital. The authors acknowledge the autonomy and potential for both good and evil present in each member of society and analyze how the world around it undermines them. These works remind us that- regardless of our personal stance or our actions- we function within the same cannibalistic system. Like the chickens pecking each other in the rooster coop or the public eating Mrs. Lovett’s pies- if we are not working to change the system, we are accomplices in this cannibalism.

#my writing

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