Irony As Ethical Mirror: Religious Hypocrisy, Moral Collapse, And The Politics Of Faith In The Select Works Of Aravind Adiga And Arundhati Roy

Abstract

This paper undertakes a theoretical and comparative literary analysis of religious irony, moral hypocrisy, and ethical collapse as depicted in four major works of contemporary Indian English fiction: The White Tiger (2008) and Last Man in Tower (2011) by Aravind Adiga, and The God of Small Things (1997) and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) by Arundhati Roy. Drawing on postcolonial theory, Marxist criticism, feminist ethics, and moral realism, the paper argues that both authors deploy irony not merely as a stylistic device but as a rigorous ethical instrument that exposes the contradictions embedded within religious institutions, caste hierarchies, and capitalist modernity in postliberalization India. Through close reading of primary texts supported by insights from theorists including Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Terry Eagleton, and Michel Foucault, the paper demonstrates how faith, when institutionalized, becomes complicit in sustaining oppression, commodifying morality, and silencing subaltern voices. The paper further identifies significant convergences and divergences between Adiga's urban-realist satire and Roy's lyrical-political dissent, concluding that both writers position irony as literature's most potent moral weapon.