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Chapter 3
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
Flory is napping in his bedroom when his long-term loyal servant Ko S’la wakes him up by bringing him tea. Though the same age as bachelor Flory, Ko S’la is married to two wives, has five children, and pities Flory for being “childish” and having such a large birthmark. Ko S’la informs Flory that Flory’s mistress Ma Hla May is coming to tea. Flory asks for whiskey, which he pours into his tea.
Ko S’la’s pity for Flory for his birthmark hints that the birthmark may symbolize some weakness or suffering of Flory’s—for example, his oddity, alienation, and low social status relative to the other British people in Kyauktada. The revelation that Flory has a Burmese mistress, in tandem with earlier revelations that Mr. Lackersteen and Maxwell have both had affairs with non-white women in Burma, indicates that white British men in British colonies tend to use their status to sexually exploit native non-white women, another example of British imperial hypocrisy.
Themes
Soon Ma Hla May, a small woman in her early 20s, arrives and complains that Flory never wants to have sex anymore. When she laments having to pawn her bangles, Flory denies that it’s his problem. Recalling that he “bought” Ma Hla May two years before from her parents for 300 rupees, he accuses her of only liking him for his race and money. Ma Hla May insists that she loves him, though in fact she does only care for the money and status he brings her—she is secretly having sex with Ko S’la’s younger brother.
Flory’s belief that he essentially “bought” Ma Hla May and her investment in his economic support suggest a social context in which women are economically dependent on their male sexual partners. Racial hierarchy exacerbates the power imbalance between Flory and Ma Hla May: she derives not only economic support from Flory but also social status from proximity to his whiteness in British Burma’s white-supremacist culture.
Themes
Eventually, Ma Hla May and Flory do have sex, but afterward, Flory covers his birthmark—something he does when he feels ashamed. He demands Ma Hla May leave. When she complains that he treats her like a sex worker, he retorts that she is one and kicks her out of the house. Such partings are not an uncommon occurrence for them. Sullen and at loose ends, Flory decides to take Flo for a walk. They walk two miles into the jungle, where Flory bathes in a natural pool and contemplates his own terrible loneliness. On the way home, Flory gets a ride on a Burmese bullock cart and stops at a native village to drink some tea. At home, Flory and Ko S’la clean ticks off Flo. Then Flory shaves, bathes, eats, and heads to the club.
Flory’s impulse to cover his birthmark when ashamed is another detail that points to the birthmark as a symbol of his weakness or suffering. His petulant characterization of his mistress Ma Hla May as a sex worker makes clear that he knows that she is economically dependent on him and only desires him for his money and for the status he gives her as a white man in a white-supremacist context. Additionally, his intense loneliness after sex with Ma Hla Ma makes clear that proximity to others isn’t enough to solve his feelings of alienation and isolation: he needs some deeper connection that he has not been able to find.
Themes
