A Review Of The Slumdog Millionaire English Literature Essay

It’s about a boy who wins one hundred million ruprees on a quiz and he knows the answer to every single question because he every story of his life is an answer to one question.

The story is about Ram Mohammed Thomas, the night after he took part to a quiz Who Will Win A Billion he gets arrested. they think he might have cheated because he had all the answers right, but they can’t find any proof. The police tortures him but he doesn’t confess. While they are torturing him a woman walks in on them and claims to be his lawyer. She takes him to her house and he tells her his story by every question he answered. Ram is born in Faharganj where his mother abandoned him and left him for a door of a church in Delhi. He grows up with father Timothy the priest. He learns him to read and speak English. He learns the Christian religion and what is inscribed on a cross. This is the answer to the second question.

When father Timothy dies Ram goes to a orphan home in Delhi. Here he meets Salim, he becomes best friends with him. One day they make a field trip to a circus. They meet up with a fortune teller and he sees bad luck for Ram and gives him a lucky coin. One day a man (Maman) comes to pick out one outstanding boy from the orphan house. He comes every year and the children think you get to go to a good school and become rich. He picks Salim, but the owner of the orphan house will only give him Salim if he takes Ram too. So the man takes them. They go to Mamans house and get a good room and food three times a day. But there are only kids with disabilities. Kids who miss a leg or can’t see. Maman thinks that Salim can sing really good and he gives him a teacher for singing. They learn one song in particular. When they found out that Maman tortures the kids and amputates legs so the kids make more money on the street they ran away. This is the answer to the fourth question. What is the name of the song.

when they ran away from Maman they know where to go. One boy told them he got money from a nice actress if he hadn’t got enough money for Maman and she needed a maid. So they go to her house but she can only apply one maid so she picks Ram and rents a chawl for Ram and Salim nearby. The woman (Neelima Kumari) was a really good actress with lots of awards. She showed him every movie and award. After a while Ram moves in with her so he could do more work he also had to cook. One day Neelima asks him to go to the chawl for one night. Ram knows that she is meeting with a man. He wants to meet him so he goes to her apartment but stay outside. When the lover comes out Ram takes a look and goes inside and finds Neelima all beaten up and has burned cigarette hulls on her breast. This story gives him the answer to the tenth question: what is the highest award Neelima Kumari has won?

Turkey has declared war to India. Ram and Salim are in a hide basement under a school. They are there with a few people in a little room. There is one old man who tells them a story about war. That he was a hero and that he got the highest ribbon for that. Ram asks what ribbon that is and where it stands for. This is the answer to the 8th question: what is the highest reward you can get in war?

Ram and Salim always go to Salim’s favorite movie with Sailm’s favorite actor. Later Salim wants to become an actor too. This is the answer to the first question. Which movie does Armaan Alli plays the role of a super spy? Armaan is Salim’s favorite actor.

Ram got new neighbors. He knows they have a daughter 3 years older than him. He is really curious and he ear drops them a lot. He hears them talking about planets. The father learns his daughter the names of planets, which is the answer to the 3th question: what is the smallest planet?

After he ran away from Salim because he pushed of the father of the girl next door and he thinks he killed him he becomes barkeeper. One day there is a sad man and he asks him what bothers him. He tells a story about Kenya and voodoo. Which is the answer to the 6th question.

Ram goes back to Delhi where he finds a job as maid for the Taylors. Mr. Taylor is a high diplomat, and he bedrails the highest commissar by secretly give away secret paper works. They come and arrest him and he’s not acceptable anymore. He has to leave the country. This is the answer to the 5th question. What means non grata (a diplomat is not acceptable any more).

After a few years Ram goes back to Mumbai where he lived with Salim. He runs into Salim again and Salim tells him a story about his life while Ram was gone which held the answer to the 7th question.

Ram goes to Agra where he finds out tour guides get high tips. He finds a place to live. He meets Nita, a prostitute who is one year older than him. He falls in love with her. He wants to run off with her but her brother owns her. He will give her for 4 thousand ruprees. One day he got a call. Nita was in the hospital she was beaten up by a costume. She had cigarette burn hulls all over her cheats. By then he has the four thousand ruprees but Nita’s brother wants 6 thousand ruprees now she got beaten up. He gives the four thousand ruprees to a man. The man offers him his help for life and gives him his phone card. He helps Ram to answer the 9th question when he can call one person as lifeboat.

The last question is one Ram doesn’t know the answer of so he asks to go to the bathroom. He knows you’re not allowed to go alone so the host comes along. Ram takes out a gun of his pocket and puts it to the head of the host. The host was in real the man who he saw walking out of Neelima’s apartment. He was also the one who had beaten up Nita. The host is begging for mercy but Ram wants revenge. In the end he can’t pull the tracker. The host is so happy he did not kill him that he gives Ram a hint for the last question. Ram does know the answer but takes out his lucky coin and decides if he wants to win. Because he only wanted revenge. And the lucky coin decides. He wins one billion ruprees. The lawyer who turned out to be his old neighbor from who he thought he killed her dad but he didn’t. She takes care of the police and he marries Nita.

Fiction

He is an orphan boy who was found at the door of a church and because the priest found him and wanted to give him a name of his own religion. But he did not know his religion, so he gave him usual names of the three leading religions in India: Ram Mohammed Thomas. Ram is in the beginning of the book 8 years old and grows up till the end of the book where he’s 19. He is in love with Nita. He is a silent boy who has gone true much. He changes when he thinks he has killed someone, he becomes afraid of flashing red lights and the police. He becomes more serious and grown up. He creates his own luck.

Salim: Salim is his best friend he becomes friends with him in an orphan house. He is a big fan of acting and wants to become an actor. He can sing really good and when he’s sixteen he looks like a film star. He is as old as Ram.

Nita: she is one year older than Ram. They met in Agra when she was 18 years old. She is an prostitute from when she is twelve years old. Her brother is her boss so she can’t quit her job. She is in love with Ram.

the story is set in a few places: in Mumbai where he lives with Salim in a chawl.

in Delhi where he lives in an orphan home, where he is maid of the

Taylor family and where he lives with father Tomothy.

in Agra where is gives tours at the Taj Mahal

in Faharganj where he is born

the author uses flashbacks, so in one chapter the story takes place in the present and in the others in the past from Ram. One chapter he’s 16 and the other he’s 9. It doesn’t say in which year it takes place.

The story is told by Ram Mohammed Thomas, he tells the story to his lawyer who turns out to be a old friend. He tells her everything from his point of view when he lived it.

The title is slumdog millionaire because Ram lives in a slum and there they call you slumdog. He takes part on a quiz and he wins one billion ruprees (22 million dollars).

Yes, he’s trying to let us see how the life is of the poor people who live in a chawl and how shit the life there is. How hard it is to come out and get a better life, and how the rich people live like queens and don’t care about the poor.

Leesbeleving en evaluatie:

I liked the book, it was fun to read. The English was not to difficult and the story was good. It gives you a look inside the chawls of India. What I liked was that you couldn’t predict it, so you wouldn’t know how the main character would act.

I would definitely recommend this book.

I took this part because here he want his revenge on the host who had beaten up two important people in his life but he doesn’t and leaves his winning up to luck he made himself. Then two answers disappear and only choices A and C flash on the screen. ‘there you have it’, says Prem Kumar. ‘It is either A or C. give me the right answer and you will become the first man in history to win a billion ruprees. Give me the wrong answer and you will be the first man in history to lose a hundred million in less than a minute. What is your decision?’ I take out my lucky one-rupree coin. ‘Heads my answer will be A, tails my answer will be C. OK?’ the audience gasps at my audacity. Prem Kumar nods his head. The glint in his eyes has returned. I toss the coin. All eyes are riveted as it goes up, almost in slow motion. This must be the only one-rupree coin in history on wich a billion is riding. It comes down to my desk, and spins for a while before coming still. Prem Kumar bends forewords to look and announces, ‘It is heads.’ ‘In that case my answer is A'(Ram knew that the coin would be heads. It hat two equal sides he was making his own luck)

That some of his best friends had to die. Though there where medicines but he couldn’t afford them.

Achtergrond informatie en bronnen

I found my information on the internet. Bron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikas_Swarup

Vikas book slumdog millionaire is translated in 41 languages, and won several prices. He has written an other best seller: Six suspects. He was born in a family of lawyers in India and he is now happily married and has two sons.

the film slumdog millionaire is really different from the book. The film has won 8 Oscars.

Finally: I spent 2 weeks reading the book. the biggest part I red in the vacation.