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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Burmese Days, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Imperialism and Hypocrisy
Status and Racism
Class, Gender, and Sex
Freedom of Speech, Self-Expression, and Loneliness
Friendship and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Over the next two weeks, the whole non-white population of Kyauktada takes sides in the fight between U Po Kyin and Dr. Veraswami—though the former has many more allies than the latter. Also, a man named Nga Shwe O escapes from the jail, and nebulous rumors arise about a possible native uprising in a village called Thongwa. Westfield rushes to Thongwa immediately—he longs to violently quell an insurrection and make an example of some rebels by killing them. Yet in Thongwa he finds no hint of violence, only villagers trying to avoid paying their taxes.
Westfield’s intense desire to kill anti-imperial rebels suggests that Flory was right when he told Dr. Veraswami that imperialism makes British colonizers worse: according to Flory’s theory, people like Westfield suppress their knowledge of their own hypocrisy and immorality by taking out their frustrations violently on colonized subjects.
Themes
In the same period, Flory ends his relationship with Ma Hla May. While he claims it’s because she stole and pawned his gold cigarette case, they both know it’s really because of Elizabeth. He writes Ma Hla May a 100-rupee check and dismisses her from the house. She’s quiet at first, but when a cart comes to take away her belongings, she clings to the gatepost and screams about a wig that she and one of Ko S’la’s wives both claim. Flory pays Ma Hla May another two rupees to compensate her, and she rides away.
Flory writes Ma Hla May a check when ending their liaison, an action that clearly indicates he thinks of their relationship as sexually and economically transactional. Her screaming reaction to his rejection of her hints at how invested she was in the status and security their relationship gave her—and may foreshadow future conflict between her and Flory.
Themes
Though Ko S’la disapproved of Ma Hla May, he dislikes Flory’s new behavior: attending church, no longer drinking in the mornings, reducing the number of cigarettes he smokes, and ordering new clothes. He fears that Flory will marry Elizabeth and that she, like all memsahib types, will terrorize her husband’s servants over questions of cleanliness.
In British India and British Burma, the word “memsahib” is a respectful term of address for a (white) married woman. Here the respectful term is used ironically to describe the kind of status-obsessed white woman who harasses her non-white servants to feel powerful.
Themes
