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Chapter 14
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
Elizabeth goes home to bathe. Afterward, while she is dressing in her room, her uncle Mr. Lackersteen drunkenly bursts in and touches her leg in a sexual manner. He tries to pretend it’s all a joke, but Elizabeth doesn’t believe it. At dinner, while Mr. Lackersteen sullenly considers how he is, after all, funding Elizabeth’s room and board, Elizabeth is thinking that she has no money and nowhere to live but the Lackersteens’. She resolves to say yes if Flory proposes to her in order to get away from her uncle.
Mr. Lackersteen’s sexual harassment of Elizabeth (his biological niece) shows how women’s economic dependence on men can place them in peril. Unless Elizabeth can find a husband—that is, another man to support her economically—she has little recourse but to remain in the household of Mr. Lackersteen, whose sullen thoughts imply that he feels entitled to some sexual access to Elizabeth because he’s paying her room and board.
Themes
Later that evening, Elizabeth and Flory meet at the club, walk outside under a frangipani tree, and talk in a distracted way about the brightness of the moon. Then he puts her arm around her and, indicating his birthmark, asks whether “this thing of mine” bothers her. When she says no, he kisses her—yet suddenly feels alienated from her. He pulls back, says he wants to explain what she means to him, and suggests they talk on the veranda. He’s quite convinced that marrying her is the one thing that could “salvage[]” his existence. On a secluded side of the veranda, he tells her that he loves her. Then, working up to the marriage proposal, he tries to explain “the pain of exile” he has suffered.
When Flory asks Elizabeth whether his birthmark bothers her, he refers to it as “this thing of mine”—a vague reference emphasizing that the birthmark is a symbol for Flory’s whole “thing,” meaning his social alienation from British imperialism. Though Elizabeth says the birthmark doesn’t bother her, Flory still feels alienated from her—which suggests that he knows she doesn’t understand the symbolism of his question. Thus, he tries to explain himself at greater length—specifically, what he calls “the pain of exile,” but which might be more accurately be described as loneliness of life in British imperial society when one has no faith in British imperialism.
Themes
Elizabeth doesn’t fully follow what Flory is saying. When he mentions “loneliness,” she thinks he’s talking about the loneliness she will feel after they’re married while he works in the jungle. She wonders whether a gramophone would help and is about to say so when Flory bursts out that the “solitary hell” of Burma could be “paradise” if shared. Then, looking at Elizabeth, he realizes she has no idea what he means. He apologizes for talking “rot” and is about to propose when Mrs. Lackersteen calls plaintively for Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Flory kiss quickly, and Flory is trying to propose again when an earthquake strikes and throws everyone to the ground!
This passage indicates that Flory and Elizabeth misunderstand each other partly because they are both self-centered, concerned only with their own problems: while Flory is talking to Elizabeth at length about his own loneliness, for which he sees her as a potential cure, she imagines that he’s talking about her loneliness. Yet Flory, while self-centered, is more self-aware than Elizabeth in that he is (belatedly) able to realize that he’s not communicating well with her.
Themes
After the earthquake passes, Mrs. Lackersteen edges out onto the veranda, exclaiming hysterically. Flory and Elizabeth go inside with her, where everyone has a drink and talks about the earthquake. The Europeans, in a jolly mood for having survived the earthquake, even press the butler for stories of previous earthquakes and treat him in a friendly manner. Flory doesn’t manage to propose to Elizabeth that night, but he’s sure she’s “his now.”
The British Club members’ friendliness to their non-white butler underscores, by contrast, their usual racist ignoring of him. Meanwhile, Flory’s overconfident assumption that Elizabeth is “his now” despite his failure to propose may hint that trouble is impending in their relationship.
Themes
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