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Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Humans and Animals:
In Burmese Days, the narrator regularly compares many different characters to animals, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, or nationality. White supremacist literature tends to include such figurative language, targeted against non-White people, as a means of dehumanizing or denigrating the "Other." Orwell upends this racist literary notion, using animalistic metaphors and similes to refer to colonized and colonizer alike.
In the following excerpt from Chapter 2, for instance, the narrator describes the European Club's butler using simile:
The butler, a dark, stout Dravidian with liquid, yellow-irised eyes like those of a dog, brought the brandy on a brass tray.
Only a few paragraphs later, the narrator compares Maxwell to a horse:
Maxwell lowered the Field. He was a fresh-coloured blond youth of not more than twenty-five or six--very young for the post he held. With his heavy limbs and thick white eyelashes he reminded one of a cart-horse colt.
Later on in the chapter, when the narrator introduces Mr. Macgregor, they describe him in animalistic terms as well, suggesting that he is like a turtle, which is why he has been nicknamed "the tortoise."
Each of these examples—and many more scattered throughout the novel—affirm one conclusion: that colonizer and colonized are equal in a sort of inhumanity. This inhumanity arises naturally from imperialism, which demands that one group of people (the British) treat another (Burmese/Indians) as inferior. In affirming their own superiority and treating non-White people like scum, the British denigrate their own humanity, too.
Explanation and Analysis—Dog-like:
In Chapter 2, Mrs. Lackersteen bemoans the "laziness" of "servants" in the modern age, reminiscing about simpler times when it was appropriate to pay one's butler "only twelve rupees a month." She resents the newfound audacity she senses in those she believes—in her racist worldview—are inferior to her. In her frustration, Mrs. Lackersteen uses a simile to characterize her former butler, using him as an exemplar of how things used to be:
"I remember when we paid our butler only twelve rupees a month, and really that man loved us like a dog. And now they are demanding forty and fifty rupees, and I find that the only way I can even KEEP a servant is to pay their wages several months in arrears."
Mrs. Lackersteen asserts that her Burmese butler "loved" her and her family "like a dog": with unswerving, ignorant, pandering loyalty. This simile is not only racist but reminiscent of the rhetoric used by White Americans who enslaved Black people. To appease what semblance of a conscience they had left, these White Americans would claim that the people they enslaved were happier in chains—delighted to serve their "masters" with unswerving loyalty. This was, of course, a myth. Enslaved people did everything they could to survive in an unthinkably cruel system of oppression. Mrs. Lackersteen's butler likely did the same, doing everything he could to get into her good graces as a way to protect himself. What Mrs. Lackersteen perceives as audacity is, in reality, an oppressed class growing tired of the boot on its neck.
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Capricious Cat:
In the following example of both simile and situational irony from Chapter 4, the narrator compares Ma Hla May—John Flory’s lover-for-hire—to a cat:
She lay and let him do as he wished with her, quite passive yet pleased and faintly smiling, like a cat which allows one to stroke it. Flory's embraces meant nothing to her (Ba Pe, Ko S'la's younger brother, was secretly her lover), yet she was bitterly hurt when he neglected them.
Ma Hla May behaves capriciously in her relations with Flory, simultaneously craving his affection and disregarding it. This behavior generates irony: his embraces "means nothing to [Ma Hla May]," and yet she is "bitterly hurt" by any sign of neglect from Flory. This contradiction arises from the nature of the relationship itself, which emulates colonial power dynamics. Flory uses Ma Hla May for sex; his relationship with her is extractive, just as the British Empire has an extractive relationship with colonized peoples. This unbalanced transaction leads Ma Hla May to form her own extractive relationship with Flory as a means of survival. He uses her for sex, so she seeks out ways to milk the money and prestige he can offer her. She comes to depend on what she can extract from Flory. His neglect does not upset her because she loves him, but rather because she can no longer extract anything from him.
Related Themes:
