Book Report

Author: Vikas Swarup
Book Title: Slumdog Millionare
Publisher: Black Swan
Place: India
No. of Pages: 361

2. RESPONDING TO THE PLOT
(e) Which incidents in the novel did you find wonderful, surprising, comical, or even shocking?
In this novel, the main character Ram is challenging the quiz show. At the end of the story, he finally reached to the final question to earn billion rupees. Before the final question, the program went to the commercial break. During this break, Prem Kumar who gives the question said that Ram can’t answer the final question for sure. So, Kumar asked that final question to Ram before commercial break ends. However, Ram smiled and said his answer and it was correct. Kumar was very upset because he don’t want challenger to get billion rupees. After the commercial, Kumar gave the final question to Ram, but it was not the question he supposed to give. He changed the question because he knew Ram can answer it. I was very surprised in this scene because I was expecting that Ram can win billion rupees and story ends happily. And also felt angrily, for Kumar’s unfairness.

Setting: This story develop in two different places. At the quiz show in British and India.

Point of View: This story is told by the first person, Ram.

Conflict: Ram vs Tragedy. At first, I thought this is a battle between Ram and Kumar, however, I realized that this story is about how Ram got a victory against his poor situation.

Climax: Climax of this story is the scene Ram challenge to the final question. At this moment, he finally used his life boat because he didn’t know the answer.

Symbol: Symbol of this story is money and it symbolizes power. In the story, Ram helped one man by giving large amount of money to save his sick son. Afterward, that man helped Ram by help answering question of the quiz when he called him using his life boat.

Irony: Prem Kumar thought Ram can’t answer the questions because he is poor and couldn’t get education. However, Ram answered all the questions by his dramatic experiences through his life. It shows that sometime, experiences throughout our lives are more useful than what we learn in school.

Theme: In the story, the woman called Smita helped Ram to release from the jail. But her real identity was Gudiya the person who Ram saved. It tells us that helping someone will come back to you afterward.

4) REFLECTING ON THE STORY:(e)How does the character’s life compared to your own?
Ram’ life is completely different from my life. I have a home and able to go to school by my parents’ money. I don’t need to worry about food or where to sleep. I can learn many things in the University. However, Ram’s parent left him in the box in front of the church. At first, he was protected by church people, but few years later, he had to work for his own living. He often had hard time with his job.
After I read this story, I thought that I need to be more independent. Many of my friends are living away from their parents’ but I’m not. So my parents’ make dishes and do the cleaning for me. I’m too nestling up to my parents’ compared to Ram or many other students in Aoyama. The first thing I can do is to get a part-time job. Earning money might be the first step and probably the most important thing to be independent person. I can help husbandry by putting some of my salary in to my house.