Discovery and Personal Change within Q&A Olivia Clare 12th Grade

The process of discovery ensures that revelations for individuals who experience the enigmatic phenomena are intensely meaningful and transformative. This is clearly represented within Vikas Swarup’s Q&A (2005), in which the protagonist, Ram Mohammad Thomas, discovers wealth and the benefits it brings, as well as the extent to which extreme suffering surrounds him within lower-class India. These discoveries have a profound impact upon him, changing him irrevocably.

Social context influences the significance of his discovery of a wealthy life, which contrasts his own so greatly. Ram re-discovers his own sense of inadequacy through his realisation of the wealth of American students, kinaesthetic imagery conveying the physical and emotional impact, “The sight of all this opulence makes me uneasy…seeing these rich college boys spending money like paper, I am gripped by a totally new sense of inadequacy. The contrast with my own imperfect life pinches me with the force of physical hurt” (Or a Love Story). Ram begins to further question his sense of place in the world when confronted with the rich and luxurious lives of the Australian family he works as a servant for, comparing himself to a mongrel using a simile, which reflects...