Burmese Days

“In his pile of merit was a kind of bank deposit, everlastingly growing.”

U Po Kyin’s spiritual beliefs motivate his plan to build pagodas in order to redeem his karma after destroying Veraswami. Though he is ostensibly a Buddhist, colonialism has corrupted his understanding of this faith. He views karma in a capitalistic and market-oriented sense as a bank account that can be either added to or taken away from. 

“He was an intelligent man and an able servant of his firm, but he was one of those Englishmen—common, unfortunately—who should never be allowed to set foot in the East.”

This succinctly sums up the character of Ellis, a man endemic to colonial society. He is intelligent and capable, but such an unredeemed racist that no amount of time spent with those of different races could render him capable of doing his job effectively.

“It’s a tradition to booze together and swap meals and pretend to be friends, though we all hate each other like poison. Hanging together, we call it. It’s a political necessity. Of course drink is what keeps the machine going. We should all go mad and kill one another in a week if it weren’t for that. There’s a subject for one of your uplift essayists, doctor. Booze as the cement of empire.”

Alcohol plays a crucial role in papering over the cracks in colonial society. Life as a European working in the colonies is so unbearable that alcohol is necessary to cope. Throughout the novel, the characters are drinking constantly, stuck together only because of their shared circumstances of being the few Europeans in Kyauktada. Characters do not particularly care for one another: When Maxwell dies, nobody misses him because nobody liked him. Similarly, when Flory dies, only Ko S’la and Veraswami mourn him.

“It is a disagreeable thing when one’s close friend is not one’s social equal; but it is a thing native to the very air of India.”

The corrupting influence of colonialism seeps into every aspect of life. Though Veraswami is Flory’s only friend, their relationship will always be marked by hierarchy and difference; the stratified nature of colonial society prevents them from being true equals. Flory is reluctant to propose Veraswami for club membership—he would rather keep the peace with other Europeans than help his only friend.

“He was inclined to pity Flory, partly because he thought him childish and easily deceived, and partly because of the birthmark, which he considered a dreadful thing.”

Ko S’la, Flory’s chief servant, reflects on his feelings about Flory. Though the two are equal in age, Ko S’la considers Flory a child since he is unmarried. Also, Ko S’la recognizes that Flory lives differently from other Europeans, a different which is symbolized by the birthmark that marks Flory and horrifies those around him.

“He was too young to realize what this life was preparing for him. He did not see the years stretching out ahead, lonely, eventless, corrupting.”

When Flory came to Burma at the age of 19, he had no idea of the depths of depression to which he would sink due to the corrupting influence of colonialism. The desperate loneliness he feels foreshadows for how intensely he will latch on to Elizabeth to save him from his hopeless and terrible life.

“There is no particular need for a British official in India to do his job competently. Few of them work as hard or as intelligently as the postmaster of a provincial town in England. The real work of administration is done mainly by native subordinates; and the real backbone of the despotism is not the officials but the Army.”

The crux of Flory’s criticism of the empire is that because there is no need to be competent at one’s job, Europeans working in the colonies sink into becoming the worst versions of themselves. Meanwhile, the natives, thought of as lesser by the Europeans, are the ones running the empire—the vehicle of their own oppression—under military duress. Ultimately, only the despotic threat of violence holds the empire together.

“Neither took Ko S’la’s remarks as a stricture upon her own sex, Englishwomen being considered a race apart, possibly not even human, and so dreadful that an Englishman’s marriage is usually the signal for the flight of every servant in his house, even those who have been with him for years.”

Ko S’la and the other servants are not displeased by their work for Flory. They do, however, worry about him marrying Elizabeth, who would no doubt become the terrifying figure of the Burra Memsahib. Ko S’la and his wives have seen how awful European women are to their servants—if Flory marries, they will leave and look for new work.

“He so wanted her to love Burma as he loved it, not to look at it with the dull, incurious eyes of a memsahib! He had forgotten that most people can be at ease in a foreign country only when they are disparaging the inhabitants.”

This shows the contradiction at the heart of Flory’s loneliness. On the one hand, he is so desperately lonely for companionship that he immediately falls for Elizabeth. On the other hand, he never realizes that she would be a disastrous partner because she has beliefs typical of the Europeans. While Flory wants someone who loves Burma as he loves it, he never realizes that Elizabeth is turned off by his love of the native culture and art.

“He did not realize that this constant striving to interest her in Oriental things struck her only as perverse, ungentlemanly, a deliberate seeking after the squalid and the ‘beastly’. He had not grasped even now with what eyes she saw the ‘natives’. He only knew that at each attempt to make her share his life, his thoughts, his sense of beauty, she shied away from him like a frightened horse.”

This is Elizabeth’s perspective on Flory’s attempts to endear Burma to her. Elizabeth cannot fathom why a European man would be so interested in native culture; however, she is so afraid of becoming a poor spinster that she fights against her repulsion from Flory and does her best to resign herself to marrying him.

“A jail superintendent who will take bribes to let a prisoner escape is capable of anything. And therefore—perhaps the logical sequence was not quite clear, but it was clear enough to Mr Macgregor—therefore the charge of sedition, which was the main charge against the doctor, became much more credible.”

The colonialist construction of truth has little relationship to reality and instead stems only from prejudice. Though Macgregor knows that ardent anglophile Veraswami is unfailingly loyal to the colonial project, he still believes that Veraswami might be capable of sedition, disqualifying him from membership in the club. The leap of logic is startlingly nonsensical—or “not quite clear”—heightened by the dramatic irony that it was actually U Po Kyin who arranged the jailbreak, not Veraswami.

“Flory could not help laughing as he walked up the hill. He was definitely committed now to proposing the doctor’s election. And there would be such a row when the others heard of it — oh, such a devil of a row! But the astonishing thing was that it only made him laugh. The prospect that would have appalled him a month back now almost exhilarated him.”

For the first time, Flory overcomes his cowardice and commits to proposing Veraswami for membership in the club. Only recently, he would have been too afraid to do it, preferring instead to keep the peace at the club by going along with the other Europeans rather than sticking up for his friend. Flory attributes this newfound courage to Elizabeth’s influence, cementing his eventual downfall after her rejection.

“She was conscious of an extraordinary desire to fling her arms round Flory’s neck and kiss him; and in some way it was the killing of the pigeon that made her feel this.”

Elizabeth is turned on by traditional masculinity—here exemplified by Flory’s shooting ability. For her, bloodlust and sexual desire are inexorably linked, which is how Verrall will lure her away from Flory.

“An extraordinary joie de vivre had come over them all as soon as the shaky feeling departed from their legs. An earthquake is such fun when it is over. It is so exhilarating to reflect that you are not, as you well might be, lying dead under a heap of ruins.”

The earthquake is the only unifying event in the novel: The Europeans even invite the butler to join into their conversations in a rare transgression of the servant-master boundary. Despite the various hierarchies and boundaries constructed by colonial society, all are equal in the face of death.

“To the end of his days, Flory perceived, the fall would be attributed to his own bad horsemanship. On the other hand, a fortnight ago, he had won undeserved renown by putting to flight the harmless buffalo. Fate is even-handed, after a fashion.”

Flory ascribes events to fate rather than take responsibility for his life or actions. Flory accepts that he will always be perceived a poor horse rider—a terrible fate given the colonialist emphasis on appearances and prestige—but he assumes that he deserves what has happened to him, because he only won Elizabeth’s heart because she overestimated the danger posed by the water buffalo when she first arrived.

“She understood why it was that he had so often bored her and irritated her. He was a highbrow—her deadliest word—a highbrow, to be classed with Lenin, A. J. Cook and the dirty little poets in the Montparnasse cafes. She could have forgiven him even his Burmese mistress more easily than that.”

Elizabeth finally realizes the reasons why she dislikes Flory so much. It is not, as Flory suspects, because of his birthmark, but because he represents everything that she hates about people in society. She even forgives his keeping of a Burmese concubine, but knows that she cannot forgive that he represents everything she associates with the “beastly.”

“It was a bond between them that Verrall detested anything ‘highbrow’ even more than she did. He told her once that he had not read a book since he was eighteen, and that indeed he ‘loathed’ books.”

In contrast to Flory, who wants Elizabeth to love Burmese culture, what bonds Elizabeth and Verrall is their shared hatred of the highbrow. Verrall displays utter contempt for everyone, and considers everything beneath him. Elizabeth is drawn to this attitude, wanting the easy and comfortable life that Verrall would offer her as the wealthy son of a peer.

“Is there anything in the world more graceless, more dishonouring, than to desire a woman whom you will never have? Throughout all these weeks Flory’s mind held hardly a thought which was not murderous or obscene.”

At his lowest point after losing Elizabeth, Flory falls into a deep depression. Flory blames himself for thinking that a young, attractive woman would ever be interested in him. Ironically, these “murderous” and “obscene” thoughts of sexual jealousy are probably exactly the kind of macho impulses that would win Flory back Elizabeth’s favor.

“What an infernal uproar there would be! How he wished he had never given the doctor that promise! No matter, he had given it, and he could not break it. So short a time ago he would have broken it, en bon pukka sahib, how easily! But not now.”

Flory finally acts for himself. In contrast to earlier in the novel, Elizabeth’s absence now gives him strength—he feels that he has lost everything and so no longer cares if he draws the ire of the other Europeans. It is implied that Flory likely would have gone back on his promise to Veraswami were he and Elizabeth together, but because she has left him, Flory is able to perform an act of courage.

“But in a purely personal way no one was much distressed. Maxwell had been almost a nonentity—just a ‘good fellow’ like any other of the ten thousand ex-colore good fellows of Burma—and with no close friends. No one among the Europeans genuinely mourned for him. But that is not to say that they were not angry. On the contrary, for the moment they were almost mad with rage. For the unforgivable had happened — A WHITE MAN had been killed. When that happens, a sort of shudder runs through the English of the East. Eight hundred people, possibly, are murdered every year in Burma; they matter nothing; but the murder of A WHITE MAN is a monstrosity, a sacrilege.”

Even death in the colonies is perceived through endemic racism. Despite spending much of their time together, none of the other Europeans liked Maxwell or considered him a friend. They were drawn together only by circumstance and alcohol, and so Maxwell is not particularly missed or mourned. What does spur their emotions is the fact that a native murdered a white man. The hierarchy constructed by colonialism is quite evident—they consider the death of one white man to be a much greater tragedy than that of 800 natives.

“Whether Verrall had started the train early to escape Elizabeth, or to escape the grass-wallahs, was an interesting question that was never cleared up.”

This final note on Verrall quite succinctly sums up his character. Verrall leaves town, demanding that the train depart early from the station. It is ambiguous whether he did this to avoid his creditors, to avoid Elizabeth, or simply because he was impatient. Verrall is an example of the aristocratic colonial who views the empire as nothing other than his personal playground, and has no concerns for the destruction and misery that he leaves in his wake.

“With death, the birthmark had faded immediately, so that it was no more than a faint grey stain”

After his suicide Flory’s birthmark, which has throughout the novel marked him as different and externalized his worst qualities, quickly fades. In his death, Flory has become like all the other lonely and depressed men driven to suicide in the colonies, un-mourned, and forgotten.

“By degrees, the general suspicion of him crystallized in a single Burmese phrase—‘shok de’. Veraswami, it was said, was quite a clever little chap in his way—quite a good doctor for a native—but he was THOROUGHLY shok de. Shok de means, approximately, untrustworthy, and when a ‘native’ official comes to be known as shok de, there is an end of him.”

Bringing things full circle, U Po Kyin successfully discredits Veraswami simply by repeating untrue accusations until they are accepted as truth. Veraswami is punished despite his belief in colonialism and the superiority of the Europeans, while the scheming and lying U Po Kyin is rewarded. It is a reminder that everything in colonial society depends not on reality or truth, but rather on perception and prestige.