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Satire
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis:
Burmese Days is set in Burma (now formally known as Myanmar). Throughout the novel, both the narrator and the White characters frequently deride their "inhospitable" environment, bemoaning the heat, wildlife, and weather as intolerable. Take, for example, the following exchange between Flory and Westfield from Chapter 21:
'Hullo, Flory! You've got thin as a rake.'
'So've you.'
'H'm, yes. Bloody weather. No appetite except for booze. Christ, won't I be glad when I hear the frogs start croaking. Let's have a spot before the others come. Butler!'
The British characters are clearly not prepared to tolerate this weather; yet they insist on remaining in this country. Their external setting afflicts them—heat, in particular. Note how quickly Elizabeth sickens from "prickly heat" in the following passage from Chapter 9:
The weather was growing hotter and hotter. Elizabeth had had her first attack of prickly heat. Tennis at the Club had practically ceased; people would play one languid set and then fall into chairs and swallow pints of tepid lime-juice—tepid, because the ice came only twice weekly from Mandalay and melted within twenty-four hours of arriving.
As colonizers, these British transplants expect the indigenous people/environment of Burma/Myanmar to accommodate them—to exist for them. This relationship is an extractive one. It is ironic that these British people should complain about the Burmese environment, expecting it to give way to them, when they are the ones out of place.
Related Themes:
Chapter 21
Explanation and Analysis:
Burmese Days is set in Burma (now formally known as Myanmar). Throughout the novel, both the narrator and the White characters frequently deride their "inhospitable" environment, bemoaning the heat, wildlife, and weather as intolerable. Take, for example, the following exchange between Flory and Westfield from Chapter 21:
'Hullo, Flory! You've got thin as a rake.'
'So've you.'
'H'm, yes. Bloody weather. No appetite except for booze. Christ, won't I be glad when I hear the frogs start croaking. Let's have a spot before the others come. Butler!'
The British characters are clearly not prepared to tolerate this weather; yet they insist on remaining in this country. Their external setting afflicts them—heat, in particular. Note how quickly Elizabeth sickens from "prickly heat" in the following passage from Chapter 9:
The weather was growing hotter and hotter. Elizabeth had had her first attack of prickly heat. Tennis at the Club had practically ceased; people would play one languid set and then fall into chairs and swallow pints of tepid lime-juice—tepid, because the ice came only twice weekly from Mandalay and melted within twenty-four hours of arriving.
As colonizers, these British transplants expect the indigenous people/environment of Burma/Myanmar to accommodate them—to exist for them. This relationship is an extractive one. It is ironic that these British people should complain about the Burmese environment, expecting it to give way to them, when they are the ones out of place.
Related Themes:
