Literary Analysis of The Novel Behind The Beautiful Forevers

The novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers (2012), written by journalist Katherine Boo, tells a gripping story of several families of Annawadi. Annawadi is described as a slum in the booming city of Mumbai, India. It is a journalistic account of life in a typical Mumbai slum, taken from the author’s experiences and objective. The novel has no true protagonist, as it follows the lives of many Annawadies and their true hardship. However, a large portion of Boo’s narrative follows the life of Abdul Husain, a teenage Muslim boy who works as a trash and recyclables trader in Mumbai. Boo, in her novel does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead she creates an objective window for her readers between the extremities of wealth and poverty. She effectively illustrates several common issues of developing nations including: corruption, class and, female oppression. These apparent issues in the novel all become central themes, which correlate with the idea of disempowerment. Throughout the novel, Boo employs effective literary techniques such as description, characterisation, metaphors and, factual evidence which gives her novel its credibility and lets her evoke her ideas.

Throughout the novel, class is a prevailing theme. The heavily stratified social hieracrchy contributes to the prejudice that many characters face and highlights how social hierarchy plays an integral role in shaping power and how it condemns many to live below the poverty line in a poor slum in Annawadi. Through Boo’s observations she effectively reveals the struggles that many residents experience and how disempowered they are due to their social status in the hierarchy. For the characters in the novel, just finding enough food each day is a challenging task. The author effectively employs rich description which allows her to present the life in the slum in a very realistic way. For example, Sonu is a scavenger in the slum who starts eating frogs and rats to survive. The narrater Boo, describes him as “…one-bone thin, half starving…” and his further demonstrated through “ Sewage and sickness looked like life”. Boo’s use of description allows her to position her readers to create a powerful image, which induces her readers to become fully immersed into the novel. American critic, Amit Chaudhuri expresses the idea that “…a novelist's intelligence, with a shrewd eye for vanity, and an understanding that everything is informed by compromise – keeps her tale from losing its grounding in reality”. This further validates Boo’s realistic presentation of poverty. The author also employs a significant degree of factual and statistical information, for example, this is revealed in the line “ …one hundred million Indians freed from poverty since 1991, when, around the same moment as the small slum’s founding, the central government embraced economic liberalization.” By embedding factual and statistical information in her story, the author exposes her readers to the depths of the disparity that operates within society and increases the novel’s sense of verisimilitude. Boo also incorporates considerable use of questioning as a technique, which situates her audience to really think and reflect upon the issue raised. “What is the infrastructure of opportunity in this society? Whose capabilities are squandered?... Why don’t more of our unequal societies implode?”. Boo, in her novel, also divulges how people of a higher social rank manipulate and abuse the poor. For example, when Abdul and his father were arrested, they were kept in an unofficial cell. They were both placed in an unofficial cell so that the police did not have to fill out paperwork for their prisoners. Further to this, their unofficial status meant that Abdul and his father did not officially exist and so, consequently, the police were free to do whatever they desired. Boo effectively employs the incidence of the ‘unofficial cell’ to act as a metaphor for demonstrating the way the police treat the poor. She implies that people who are higher in the social hierarchy such as the police, believe that the poor are not worthy of being registered and so they are free to abuse and treat them as they wish. A Marxist reading shows how class plays a significant role in shaping the quality of life, highlighting the extreme poverty and the way people are often exploited by those from higher positions and how poverty limits people’s life achievements. This further emphasisis how disempowered the poor were against the harsh and rigid class system, which situates her readers to generate a great level of sympathy and understanding towards the poor.

Corruption is also another central theme throughout the novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. The author reveals the inequality and corruption that exists within Indian society. Even after capitalism and globalization occurred which had the stated intention of giving all social classes hope for improving their lives, a Marxist reading positions the reader to see that Boo suggests in her novel that inequalities still dominated 21st century Indian life and millions of people remained heavily oppressed by the prejudice and corruption of institutions such as the police and the government. For example, Abdul is falsely accused of pushing his neighbour, a woman named Fatima, into burning herself. Through Boo’s characterisation of Abdul, she reflects his struggle to retain a sense of morality in the corrupt world. This is revealed when Abdul says, “One can hope for justice, but what is hope compared to money?” ( p.156). Bribes are considered as being an ordinary way to exchange and get things done. Abdul, for instance, has to constantly rely on giving bribes to ensure his family’s safety and be given a chance of walking free and alive from prison. “The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage…Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags”. This demonstrates the extent of corruption that exisited within the way justice was delivered, which was further emphasised through Abdul’s struggle to survive, as he was brutalized by the legal system that was violent and corrupt. In a society where laws were filled with corruption, the only way to survive is for citizens to become corrupt themselves, which allows Abdul’s actions to be partially justified. This enables the readers to generate a great understanding towards the nature of his actions as he was only trying to ensure his family’s safety. A Marxist reading, suggests that at this moment in the story, Boo is implying that living in a corrupt society makes it immensely difficult for many to adhere to their own moral or ethical codes, suggesting that anyone who values integrity cannot survive in a corrupt society. This is further revealed through Asha, who is a clever and hard-working woman in Annawadi, aspiring to be the first female slumlord. Throughout the novel, Asha fully embraces corruption as she is aware that the only way “to make it” is to conform with the corrupt legal system. Asha has many affairs with people that have a higher position in the social hierarchy, in order to achieve her dreams of becoming a slumlord. Asha says, “…a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained”. (p.44). This implies that many Annawadi residents see corruption as the only way in which they can achieve liberation and an improved social position. Through Boo’s characterisation of Abdul and Asha, she reveals how a corrupt legal system condemns many to a life of crime as it becomes the only way, they can ‘make it’. The court system is built on a foundation of bribary, where the wealthy are protected and the poor are condemmed. Boo has effectively positioned readers to see that the corrupt legal system is one of the main reasons why many residents remain helpless and find themselves trapped in poverty. Corruption becomes a central theme in the text as it exposes how harsh and corrupt the legal system was and demonstrates how disempowered many low-class residents were as they find themselves vulnerable and forced to conform to the corrupt laws.

Another central theme Boo effectively portrays is the level of oppression women faced in this society, however, she also challenges the dominant view of female gender roles in the patriarchal society. Boo reflects this through Fatima, who had suffered from one crooked leg and was thereby not considered as being an acceptable Indian woman, in this patriarchal society, where women were expected to be conventionally attractive and physically uncompromised so that they could conduct their home-duties. Reacting to her rejection, Fatima rebelled against everything that was considered as being conventional. Because of society’s negative perception of Fatima, she herself wanted to prove that she was still attractive and worthy of attention and to prove this, she has numerous affairs with different men. Her affairs are used as a metaphor to represent freedom, from breaking away from the society’s rigid conventions. Similarly, Zehrunisa who is Abdul’s mother is also afforded some freedom in the slum which is expressed through the lines, “…at the same time she enjoyed her freedom she had in the slum. [In contrast if she had moved] to a Muslim community, she would have to remain locked in the house all day to avoid being seen by other men”. This reflects how some women in the Annawadi community were afforded greater freedom than those from wealthier classes who were more strictly forced to obey to men. In contrast, Meena who is another teenager girl in the slum, is frequently abused and beaten by her father and brothers for having her own opinions. “…I’ll slap you if another word comes out of your mouth.”  Ultimately, Meena commits suicide by drinking rat poison. Boo here implies that this tragic suicide is a common occurrence among many young and bright girls in India, who are greatly marginalised and given no freedom or opportunities. Being poor and female, women from the slums, such as Meena, have the most oppressive conditions of all. As with Meena, for these females facing extremely oppressive conditions, hope can sadly, be difficult to maintain. Through a feminist perspective the extent of the marginalisation and oppressive conditions which women faced in these patriarchal and stratified societies becomes most pronounced. Women are frequently punished for having opposing opinions which are likely considered to be a threat to the status quo. A feminist reading positions post-feminist readers to be deeply confronted by the knowledge that this kind of unjust treatment towards women still occurs in many developing nations such as India and to have a considerable degree of compassion and empathy for their plight.

After analysing the novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers, it is evident that corruption, class and female oppression are central ideas of the text. The author, Boo, has successfully used literary techniques which gives the novel credibility and enables Boo to evoke a sense of compassion and emphathy in her readers.. To convey the effect of class, Boo successfully embeds poignant imagery through rich description, which allows the text consumer to see how social hierarchy plays a significant role in shaping the quality of life. By supplementing her vivid descriptions with factual evidence and statitics Boo’s novel gains a sense of credibility. Through Boo’s characterisation of Abdul and Asha she effectively portrays the theme of corruption, conveying the extent of the disempowerment that many residents from lower classes face as they are forced to conform to the corrupt laws. Female oppression is also a key idea,largely conveyed through characterisation of Fatima and Meena. These characters’ tragic experiences demonstrates the extent of the marginalisation and oppression women face and it challenges the unjust gender contructs of this paternalistic society. These three central themes in the novel all connect to the central idea of disempowerment and through her effective portrayal of them, Boo positions the readers to develop a strong level of sympathy towards the characters in the novel and also positions her readers to understand the forces operating against them.