From Ambition to Anxiety: The Psychology of Productivity Guilt and Neoliberal Achievement Culture in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008)

Abstract

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) is often interpreted as a story about class inequality, corruption, and social mobility in modern India. This article offers a different reading, rather than focusing on caste or postcolonial politics, it argues that the novel is a powerful study of how neoliberal ideology shapes a person from the inside changing not just what they do but who they feel they are. The central character, Balram Halwai, can be as a literary example of the entrepreneurial self: a person who treats his own life as a business, constantly working to improve his performance and compete with others. Drawing on Byung-Chul Han’s idea of the achievement society, Michel Foucaul’s theory of self-governance, Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking on social capital, and Richard Sennett’s analysis of flexible capitalism, this article shows that Balram’s rise from poverty to success is not simply about money or freedom. It is also about the psychological cost of living in a world where a person’s worth is measured only by what they produce. The article introduces the concept of productivity guilt a persistent inner feeling of not doing enough, not working hard enough, never being good enough and traces this feeling across Balram’s entire journey. The novel emerges as a critique of neoliberal achievement culture, showing that ambition, when pushed to the extreme, does not bring peace but produces a deeper and more permanent form of anxiety.