In Burmese Days, the large blue birthmark on John Flory’s left cheek represents his alienation from British imperial society, which he tries but fails to hide. During the novel’s introductory description of Flory, it explains that the birthmark is “the first thing that one notice[s]” when looking at Flory, but that he is always turning sideways to people in a vain attempt to keep them from seeing it. This description heavily hints that the birthmark symbolizes some essential but socially maladaptive characteristic of Flory’s that he wants to hide from others. Later, readers learn that when Flory was a schoolboy, his classmates called him “Blueface” and “Monkey-bum” because of his birthmark until he won them over by mastering “the two things absolutely necessary for success at school”: lying and playing football (soccer). This backstory suggests that while the birthmark represents Flory’s internal state of social difference and alienation from others, he can compensate for that difference by conforming—at least temporarily.
Notably, early in Flory’s romance with Elizabeth Lackersteen, a young Englishwoman newly arrived in Burma where the adult Flory works as a timber merchant, Elizabeth “scarcely notice[s]” his birthmark despite its physical prominence, suggesting symbolically that Elizabeth fails to realize how different Flory is from the other British men in colonial Burma. By contrast, after Elizabeth has learned of Flory’s strong sympathies with colonized people and his former sexual relationship with a Burmese woman named Ma Hla May, Elizabeth describes on Flory’s birthmark as “dishonouring” and “unforgivable,” language that indicates that she sees the birthmark as a symbol for Flory’s pro-Burmese sympathies and distaste for imperialism, which British colonial society cannot accept. Finally, after Elizabeth rejects a disgraced Flory and he dies by suicide, his birthmark “fade[s] immediately,” a detail suggesting that British society will quickly forget about Flory as an individual, including his social alienation and strongly held beliefs, after his death.
Birthmark Quotes in Burmese Days
The first thing one noticed in Flory was a hideous birthmark stretching in a ragged crescent down his left cheek, from the eye to the corner of the mouth. Seen from the left side his face had a battered, woebegone look, as though the birthmark had been a bruise—for it was a dark blue in color. He was quite aware of its hideousness. At all times, when he was not alone, there was a sidelongness about his movements, as he manoeuvred constantly to keep the birthmark out of sight.
If only he would always talk about shooting, instead of about books and Art and that mucky poetry! In a sudden burst of admiration she decided that Flory was really quite a handsome man, in his way. He looked so splendidly manly, with his pagri-cloth shirt open at the throat, and his shorts and puttees and shooting boots! And his face, lined, sunburned, like a soldier’s face. He was standing with his birth-marked cheek away from her.
With death, the birthmark had faded immediately, so that it was no more than a faint grey stain.