Behind The Beautiful Forevers Analysis

Often in literature, authors develop a setting which includes places that contrast and represent opposing forces in order to contribute to the meaning of the work. In the novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: life, death, and hope in a Mumbai undercity, the author Katherine Boo allows the readers to view this harsh contrast in a Mumbai ‘city’ in India. India, at this time, finds itself becoming a developed country, slowly transforming from rural to urban. During this transition, Mumbai built an international airport and the people who constructed it created a small settlement in the shadows of the luxurious hotel buildings built alongside the airport. The tumultuous transition creates social castes which can be reflected through the author’s work when she mentions, “…a slum hut by the international

Similarly, the Indian government has projected the false narrative that all of the problems of poverty and slums are in the past. The deceitful the wall also keeps the residents of Annawadi from joining modern society, the residents cannot enter the airport. The airport and luxurious hotels bring to light the unequal distribution of wealth; what the rich clientele of the airport think of as trash, the residents in Annawadi can utilize it to purchase food, and often feel relieved upon finding the valuable trash. In the beginning of the novel, the wall creates the barrier which allows for the city officials to push aside the Annawadian’s opportunity of modernization. Ultimately, by the end of the novel, the wall gets torn down in order for the airport to expand. With the wall down and the slum, an obstacle to the airport’s expansion, in full view of passengers, Boo suggests that city officials, and the rest of the world, will be forced to reckon with the slum residents as India continues to develop in the