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Allusions
Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis:
Burmese Days is a prime example of colonial literature. Orwell's staunch anti-imperialist stance stands out amongs contemporaneous British literature—especially standing out amongst books written by White British men in the 1930s. Burmese Days foregrounds classic late Modernist disillusionment against a backdrop of colonial oppression and racism. The novel is first and foremost a tragedy, exploring the ways in which colonizers lose their own humanity in the act of dehumanizing colonized peoples.
John Flory, the novel's protagonist, resides at the heart of this complex tragedy. He dehumanizes himself through his participation and complicity in an exploitative system; yet he cannot muster the wherewithal to resist British imperialism. Flory seeks to salve the cognitive dissonance of his own existence with Elizabeth. When she rejects him, he cannot bear to keep company with himself any longer. This angst culminates in the novel's climactic tragedy, which is John Flory's suicide in Chapter 24:
Her shattered brain looked like red velvet. Was that what he would look like? The heart, then, not the head. He could hear the servants running out of their quarters and shouting—they must have heard the sound of the shot. He hurriedly tore open his coat and pressed the muzzle of the pistol against his shirt. [....] Flory pulled the trigger with his thumb.
Flory shoots himself in the heart, driving home the point that his is a malaise of feeling, not intellect. He knows the British Empire is bad, but he fails to muster the love and care for his fellow humans that would compel him to truly act.
Related Themes:
