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Chapter 21
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
Though no European is personally grieved by Maxwell’s death, it enrages them that a white man has been murdered. U Po Kyin, meanwhile, is delighted because the murder will make the Europeans take the “rebellion” more seriously. Except Verrall—who is practicing polo—all the Europeans attend Maxwell’s funeral the next morning. Everyone is giving Flory the cold shoulder because Maxwell’s death makes them even angrier at Flory’s “disloyalty.” Ellis and Westfield talk in bloodthirsty fashion about executing Maxwell’s murderers—or at least some Burmese men, even if the men aren’t the actual culprits.
Though Maxwell was murdered in retaliation for his unjustified killing of an unarmed “rebel,” the British people in Kyauktada ignore this context. Instead, they choose to interpret the incident in broad racial terms, framing it as the killing of a white British man by a non-white “native,” which demands brutal retaliation against the Burmese as a group. Ellis and Westfield’s desire to hang some Burmese people for Maxwell’s murder even if they can’t find the actual murderers makes clear they want retaliation against the Burmese generally. In this context, they interpret Flory’s nomination of Dr. Veraswami to Club membership as racial “disloyalty,” showing yet again that excluding non-white people from Club membership represents a racial and cultural hierarchy in which white British people oppress and exclude non-white colonized people.
Themes
After the funeral, Ellis is walking with his cane to his office, fuming about Burmese men having murdered a white man, when he passes some Burmese high-school boys and, believing that they are “jeering” at him, demands to know why they’re laughing. When one boy replies that it isn’t Ellis’s business, Ellis strikes him across the eyes with his cane. The other boys chase Ellis to his office and throw chunks of laterite at him while he curses them. Some policemen, hearing the noise, come investigate, and the boys flee. Afterward, Ellis claims that the boys “wantonly assaulted” him and demands a police investigation, but the boys evade the police. The boy he struck across the eyes gets bad medical care and goes blind.
Ellis’s unjustified violence against a Burmese high-school boy who he believes is “jeering” at him illustrates how an initial act of repressive British violence against the colonized Burmese (Maxwell’s killing of the unarmed, fleeing rebel) escalates: in response to British imperial violence, oppressed Burmese people retaliate, leading the British—subconsciously aware that their oppression of the Burmese is immoral and unjustified—to enforce their power over colonized peoples with even more extreme and unjustified forms of violence.
Themes
That evening, all the Europeans except Westfield and Verrall come to the club. Everyone is fuming about the “unprovoked attack on Ellis,” and Elizabeth utterly ignores Flory. Suddenly, they hear loud bangs on the roof. Mrs. Lackersteen screams. The butler rushes in and tells them an armed crowd of villagers is outside. The men go to the front door and look out. A crowd of perhaps two thousand villagers has gathered outside the club. When Macgregor demands to know what’s happening, a man steps forward and says that they want to punish Ellis, whose attack on the high-school boy blinded him. Macgregor, infuriated, tells the crowd to disperse or he’ll call the Military Police.
Though all the British people at the club know Ellis is virulently racist and have heard him fantasizing about repressive violence against Burmese people, they all accept his lie that he suffered an “unprovoked attack” from Burmese high schoolers. Their gullibility shows their racism. Meanwhile, Ellis’s blinding of the high-school boy has ultimately led to a riot outside the club, another incident showing how repressive imperial violence ultimately fails to achieve its goal of unjust peace and instead leads to increasing escalations.
Themes
The crowd begins throwing stones at the club, one of which hits Macgregor in the face. The British men rush into the club and lock the door. Macgregor demands that they send for the police, but Ellis points out that they can’t: the crowd has the club surrounded. As showers of rocks strike the club, Ellis wonders aloud why the police are “missing a chance” to fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
Ellis caused the riot through his unjustified violence against a Burmese student motivated indirectly by Maxwell’s murder. Yet rather than learning not to escalate violence, Ellis fantasizes about police brutality against the rioters, thinking that the police are “missing a chance” to use the riot to justify murdering the understandably upset Burmese crowd. This plot line seems to illustrate the inevitability of escalating unjustified violence in an imperial context where colonizers hypocritically oppress and exploit colonized peoples.
Themes
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A rock, flying through one of the shutters, cuts Elizabeth’s elbow. She bursts into tears and grabs Flory’s arm, to his surprise. When she begs him to act, he realizes that he can reach the police if he just makes it to the river behind the club and swims. He announces his plan. After Ellis and Macgregor both tell him to tell the police to shoot the crowd, he removes his shoes, bolts across the back veranda, sprints across the lawn, and jumps into the river. He swims to the Military Police headquarters and climbs ashore.
Though Elizabeth’s perception of Flory has grown more negative over the course of the novel, she implicitly still sees him as the man who saved her from a water buffalo and successfully hunted a leopard—in other words, as a masculine protector. Thus, when in danger, she turns to him—over all the men in the club—to save the others. Meanwhile, when Ellis and Macgregor urge Flory to tell the police to shoot the Burmese crowd, it shows not only their racist devaluation of Burmese life but also their failure to understand that repressive British violence led to the riot in the first place.
Themes
From this position, Flory sees that a group of about 150 policemen are trying and failing to subdue the crowd from the rear. Flory plunges into the crowd, He finds the police “subhadar” and asks why the police haven’t fired their guns. When the subhadar says they have no orders, Flory escapes the crowd with 12 to 17 policemen, orders them to go get rifles, and tells the Inspector of Police to order his men to fire over the heads of the crowd. When the policemen fire over the crowd, the villagers drop to the ground and then flee.
“Subhadar” was a rank in the British Indian Army referring to the superior Indian officer in a group of Indian troops. Flory’s collaboration with the subhadar and his commanding the Military Police to fire over, not at, the crowd differentiates him from Ellis and Macgregor’s overtly racist and imperialist desire to respond to the understandably outraged Burmese rioters with further repressive violence.
Themes
As the crowd disperses, Dr. Veraswami emerges and tells Flory he was attempting to curb the crowd. Then, out of the darkness, U Po Kyin approaches and tries to claim that he and Flory routed the crowd together. When Flory, annoyed, points out that U Po Kyin “took [his] time” to approach the scene, U Po Kyin reiterates that “we have dispersed them” and then insinuates that the dispersing crowd will loot the Europeans’ homes. As Flory rushes back to the club, it suddenly begins to rain, ending the dry season.
While Dr. Veraswami has been risking his life to calm down the rioters, U Po Kyin attempts to take credit for ending the riot after arriving quite belatedly on the scene. Given the stark contrast between loyal, good-natured Dr. Veraswami and corrupt, self-interested U Po Kyin, U Po Kyin’s greater ability to navigate British imperial society in Burma shows that society’s corruption.
Themes
