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Chapter 23
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
The next day (Sunday) in the evening, all the Christians in Kyauktada gather at the church, including Flory. Earlier that evening, he met Elizabeth at the club and asked her whether Verrall had left. When she said yes, they kissed without further conversation, and Flory now anticipates that they will marry soon. Now, in church, he is even willing to sit opposite her in the pews with his birthmark facing her. During the service, he thinks back to services in his home church in England 20 years prior and wonders whether he can begin again as if the “grimy years” intervening had never happened. He imagines a beautiful life married to Elizabeth.
Flory clearly recognizes and does not resent that he is Elizabeth’s second choice after Verrall. His willingness to show her his birthmark symbolizes his belief that after his successful quelling of the riot, Elizabeth now esteems him despite the social alienation and difference that his birthmark represents. He imagines their future marriage as an almost religiously redemptive event that may be able to wipe away his “grimy years” of extreme loneliness and sexually exploiting Burmese women—a hope that suggests he still believes Elizabeth can assuage his deep loneliness despite his newly realistic assessment of her as snobby, shallow, and cold.
Themes
During the sermon, Ma Hla May suddenly appears in the church door and begins screaming at Flory to give her money. Seeing her dilapidated and desperate appearance, Flory is horrified that Elizabeth will know Ma Hla May was once his mistress. Ma Hla May screams that Flory has “ruined” her and begins tearing off her clothes to demonstrate the places where he has kissed her. The clergyman orders someone to remove her, and the two Eurasian men, Samuel and Francis, drag her outside. All the Europeans are disgusted, and Elizabeth stares at Flory with “revulsion,” seeming to see how horrible his birthmark is for the first time.
Ma Hla May disgraces Flory by publicly announcing his sexual “ruination” of a low-status Burmese woman like her. The disgust of the other British people is hypocritical: as they know that (for example) Mr. Lackersteen has had sexual relationships with Burmese women, it is clearly not Flory’s prior relationship but its public acknowledgment that bothers them. Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s “revulsion” at Flory—connected to his birthmark, which represents his social alienation from British imperialism—shows that his relationship with Ma Hla May reminds her of all the things she dislikes about him: his sympathy with colonized Burmese people, his interest in Burmese culture, = his distaste for British imperialism, and so on.
Themes
U Po Kyin has struck: he is the one who coached Ma Hla May. When the clergyman finishes his sermon, Flory flees the church. As the others leave, Flory waylays Elizabeth, grabbing her wrist and begging forgiveness. Elizabeth claims that the earlier scene was “disgusting” but has nothing to do with her. When Flory points out that she “virtually promised to marry” him, she denies it indignantly and refuses to even discuss what happened with him. He asks again for her forgiveness, proposes, and declares his love, but she declares that she’d “never” marry him. Flory lets her go, and she runs to the club, hating him. She could have forgiven “abominations,” but she can’t forgive the “scene” he caused, his birthmark, or his social disgrace.
The revelation that U Po Kyin coached Ma Hla May completes the symbolism of the leopard skin: as the leopard skin represented Elizabeth’s perception of Flory and was ruined by one of U Po Kyin’s plots (the escape of the jail detainee who knew how to cure animal skins), so U Po Kyin’s plot against Dr. Veraswami has led to the final ruination of Elizabeth and Flory’s relationship. Elizabeth’s disingenuous claim that Flory’s romantic life has nothing to do with her reminds readers of her evasive dishonesty, which contrasts sharply will Flory’s hope that he will be able to speak freely with her. Her willingness to forgive “abominations” before a public “scene” and her hatred of his birthmark (which symbolizes his social alienation) together suggest that Elizabeth ultimately refuses to marry Flory not due to her condemnation of his perceived sexual immorality, but due to his public disgrace, which abruptly lowered his social status.
Themes
Flory hurries home, enters his bedroom, and shuts the door. He realizes that the “palliatives” he has used to deal with his loneliness, including sex workers and friendship with Dr. Veraswami, will no longer help now that he has hoped for and lost Elizabeth. He pulls a pistol from beneath his bed. He has bequeathed Ko S’la money in his will, but he still needs to take care of Flo. He calls her to come. She starts to approach him but then, frightened, she hesitates. He drags her into the bedroom. Heartbroken by her frightened whining, he claims he’d never hurt her—then shoots her in the head. Afterward, worried that his corpse will look like hers, he shoots himself in the chest.
“Palliatives” are medications that treat symptoms of a disease without curing it. The use of the word “palliatives” in this passage suggests that Flory sees his loneliness as a disease that is killing him—and once he loses hope of curing that disease through marriage to Elizabeth, he chooses to die quickly by suicide rather than slowly by isolation, depression, and misery.
Themes
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Ko S’la rushes into the room, sees Flory’s body, and yells at another servant to get Dr. Veraswami. Twenty minutes later, Veraswami arrives, having bicycled fast through a rainstorm. When he enters the bedroom, he drops to his knees, listens to Flory’s chest, and looks terribly pained. After sobbing momentarily, he asks Ko S’la what happened. When Ko S’la says that Flory did it on purpose, Veraswami asks why it couldn’t have been an accident. Ko S’la indicates Flo’s corpse. Veraswami wraps up Flory’s body, on which the birthmark has faded to a “faint grey stain,” and orders Ko S’la to bury Flo so that he can tell Macgregor that Flory shot himself by accident while cleaning his gun: “Your master was my friend. It shall not be written on his tombstone that he committed suicide.”
As Flory’s birthmark symbolizes his social alienation, its fading to a “faint grey stain” after he dies may suggest two possible interpretations. First, it suggests that social difference no longer matters after death because dead people are all equal. Second, if Flory’s suicide represents his surrender to the imperialist, racist, and censorious forces that were killing his spirit, then the fading of his birthmark might represent those forces’ tragic victory over Flory’s individual thoughts and feelings. Meanwhile, Dr. Veraswami’s attempt to save Flory from the scandal of suicide shows both the mutual loyalty that characterized their friendship and Dr. Veraswami’s real care for Flory above and beyond the status that friendship with a white man lent him.
Themes
