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Intro
In the colonial outpost of Kyauktada in 1920s British Burma, a corrupt Subdivisional Magistrate named U Po Kyin plants an article in an anti-imperial newspaper accusing the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Macgregor, of fathering children with Burmese girls. U Po Kyin plans to blame the article on jail superintendent Dr. Veraswami to destroy his standing with the British.
Meanwhile, British timber merchant John Flory, a haggard 35-year-old with a large birthmark on his cheek, walks to Kyauktada’s European Club, where a business manager named Ellis is complaining about a notice from Mr. Macgregor suggesting that the Club induct a non-white member. As a drunken timber-firm manager named Mr. Lackersteen, a young Divisional Forest Manager named Maxwell, a Superintendent of Police named Westfield, and Ellis discuss the notice, Ellis criticizes Flory for being friends with non-white Dr. Veraswami. After Mrs. Lackersteen and Macgregor arrive, everyone but Flory complains about native people until Flory leaves in disgust.
Flory visits Dr. Veraswami. When Flory criticizes the British Empire as tyrannical and hypocritical, pretending to help native people while exploiting them, Dr. Veraswami defends it. Then Dr. Veraswami tells Flory that U Po Kyin has launched a slander campaign against him and that if Dr. Veraswami were elected to the European Club, its prestige would protect him. Flory tells Dr. Veraswami that Macgregor has suggested inducting a non-white member and promises to vote for Dr. Veraswami if the issue arises—but he claims he can’t do anything more. Later that day, Flory has a fight with his mistress Ma Hla May, a Burmese woman in her early 20s, who uses him for money and status while he uses her for sex. Then, that evening at the European Club, Westfield and Ellis bring in the newspaper with the article that U Po Kyin planted about Macgregor. Ellis, furious, writes on the message board that, due to the article, the Club won’t consider electing a non-white member at the moment. He pressures the others to sign it, which they all do—even Flory, who caves to Ellis to avoid an ugly fight. Later that night, unable to sleep, Flory contemplates his own desperate loneliness, caused by his inability to express his true opinions honestly and openly.
The next morning, Flory receives an anonymous letter slandering Dr. Veraswami and tears it up. Then, hearing a scream from the jungle, he jumps the compound fence, runs toward the noise, and finds a young Englishwoman backed against a bush by a water buffalo. Flory drives off the buffalo, and the grateful woman tells him that she is Mr. Lackersteen’s niece newly arrived in Burma. He invites her back to his house, where they talk about books and hunting, and he learns her name: Elizabeth Lackersteen. Just before Elizabeth leaves, Ma Hla May appears. As Ma Hla May doesn’t speak English and Elizabeth doesn’t speak Burmese, Flory tells Elizabeth Ma Hla May is his laundress.
22-year-old Elizabeth was working in Paris for a French family whose patriarch, a bank manager, sexually harassed her. Then her mother, also living in Paris, died, at which point Mr. and Mrs. Lackersteen invited Elizabeth to come live with them in Burma. When Mrs. Lackersteen sees that Elizabeth is pretty, she drops broad hints that Elizabeth should marry as quickly as possible.
Flory, hoping that Elizabeth can assuage his loneliness, ends his relationship with Ma Hla May and tries to get to know Elizabeth better. Unbeknownst to Flory, his frequent praise of Burmese culture annoys and alienates Elizabeth, who instinctively believes in white British superiority—yet she still admires Flory for saving her from the water buffalo and looks forward to going hunting with him, as he has promised to take her.
Meanwhile, U Po Kyin is plotting to foment a village uprising and quash the uprising himself to win favor with the British. He reveals to his wife, Ma Kin, the real motive behind his plotting against Dr. Veraswami: U Po Kyin wants to be the sole non-white man elected to the European Club, and he believes Dr. Veraswami stands in his way.
Flory visits Dr. Veraswami and apologizes for signing Ellis’s statement against electing a non-white member to the European Club. When Dr. Veraswami reveals that he’s heard rumors U Po Kyin is fomenting a village rebellion and plans to blame Dr. Veraswami for it, Flory promises to propose Dr. Veraswami for Club membership at the next general meeting. When Flory returns home, Ma Hla May is there. She accuses him of having stolen her “youth” and begs him to take her back. Flory pays her to go away.
One evening, Flory and Elizabeth go hunting in the jungle. Elizabeth is excited to hunt and intensely impressed by Flory’s shooting skill. After Flory kills a leopard and promises to get the skin cured for Elizabeth, the two develop a tacit understanding that he’ll ask her to marry him. Elizabeth goes home to bathe—and her own uncle Mr. Lackersteen makes a clumsy, aggressive pass at her. Desperate to escape her uncle, on whom she’s financially dependent, Elizabeth decides to accept Flory if he proposes.
That night, an earthquake interrupts Flory when he tries to propose to Elizabeth at the Club. The next morning, walking to the Club to find her, Flory encounters a young member of the Military Police newly arrived in Kyauktada, Verrall, practicing his horseback riding. Flory sees Elizabeth coming out of the Club and—hoping that she’ll spy him looking elegant on horseback—asks to ride one of Verrall’s ponies. As soon as he mounts, he falls off: the girth wasn’t adequately tightened. Elizabeth walks right by the fallen Flory without acknowledging him. That evening, when Flory corners her at the Club and asks what he did to offend her, she tells him she learned that he has a Burmese mistress. (Mrs. Lackersteen, upon learning that youthful Verrall was the son of an aristocrat, decided he was a better prospect for Elizabeth than Flory and turned Elizabeth against Flory by telling her about Ma Hla May.) Flory, his hopes dashed, travels from Kyauktada into the jungle to look after his timber company’s operations.
Verrall, though he disdainfully avoids the other British people in Burma, attends the Club to talk and dance with Elizabeth, and he invites her to come riding with him almost every evening. In the jungle, Flory, missing Elizabeth terribly, decides to return to Kyauktada and give her the leopard skin he promised her as an excuse to talk to her and explain himself. Though he discovers that the curing process has ruined the leopard skin, he still takes it to Elizabeth—but she stalls his attempts to explain himself with a flurry of small talk, hurries him out of her house, and goes riding with Verrall.
The tiny rebellion that U Po Kyin fomented breaks out in a rural village. Maxwell, who goes with U Po Kyin to put down the rebellion, shoots one of the rebels after the rebellion has already been subdued. Weeks pass. Verrall flirts with Elizabeth but doesn’t propose to her, and one night, a drunk Mr. Lackersteen tries to rape Elizabeth. On the day of the general club meeting, Flory proposes that they elect Dr. Veraswami to the Club. As Ellis is throwing a fit in protest, some Burmese boatmen carry Maxwell’s corpse into the club: he has been murdered by relatives of the subdued rebel he shot. After Maxwell’s funeral the following day, Ellis—furious that non-white people have killed a white man—strikes a Burmese high-schooler across the eyes with a cane because he believes that the high-schooler was laughing at him. Following inadequate medical treatment, the boy goes blind.
That evening, when all the Europeans are at the Club except Verrall and Westfield, two thousand Burmese villagers surround the Club and demand that the British send Ellis out for punishment. When the British refuse, the villagers throw rocks at the Club, one of which breaks the shutters and cuts Elizabeth’s elbow. When she begs Flory to do something, he realizes aloud that if he can get to the river behind the Club, he can swim to police headquarters. Macgregor and Ellis encourage him, both suggesting that he order the police to shoot to kill. Flory gets to the river, summons the police, and tells them to shoot over the heads of the villagers to disperse them. It works, and the other British—including Elizabeth—see Flory as a hero. U Po Kyin—angry that the unexpected riot has improved Flory’s status and thus the status of Flory’s friend Dr. Veraswami—decides to take action against Flory directly.
Flory returns to the jungle for 10 days to avoid Elizabeth and Verrall until Verrall leaves, as he is expected to do when the rainy season begins. Though Elizabeth still expects Verrall to propose to her, he leaves without even saying goodbye. After Flory returns from the jungle, he finds Elizabeth at the Club and asks whether Verrall has left. When she says yes, they kiss. Flory plans to propose soon. Then, during one of Kyauktada’s rare Christian church services that all the British people in town attend, Ma Hla May—paid by U Po Kyin—appears, screams that Flory has ruined her, and demands that he pay her. Though Ma Hla May is dragged from the church, Flory is disgraced. Later, when he tries to explain himself to Elizabeth, she tells him that she’ll never marry him now. Convinced he will be lonely forever, Flory goes home and shoots himself through the heart.
After Flory’s death, U Po Kyin succeeds in ruining Dr. Veraswami’s reputation, getting Dr. Veraswami demoted and transferred to an inferior posting. U Po Kyin is elected to the European Club and has a very successful career but dies abruptly a few days after his retirement, before he has executed his plan of building Buddhist pagodas to ensure a good reincarnation after his life of evil deeds. Ma Hla May ends up a poor, abused sex worker. Elizabeth, meanwhile, marries Macgregor, who has always liked her because she listened to his boring anecdotes without interrupting. She becomes an entirely conventional British woman in Burma, terrorizing her servants and obsessing over her social status.
