Previous
Jaffna
A small, socially privileged, mixed-race ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are descended from European male colonists and (usually, but not always) native Sinhalese or Tamil women. Generally, they retain cultural and linguistic ties to Europe, and many left Sri Lanka during the Civil War. Aunty Doris and Daryl Uncle are both Burghers.
Burgher Quotes in Funny Boy
The Funny Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Burgher or refer to Burgher. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
2. Radha Aunty
Quotes
Sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it in the end. To have made all those sacrifices. Life is a funny thing, you know. It goes on, whatever decisions you make. Ultimately you have children or don’t have children and then you grow old. Whether you married the person you loved or not seems to become less important as time passes. Sometimes I think that if I had gone to England with them maybe I would have met somebody else….” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and laughed. “Anyway, there’s no point in thinking about that—no?”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
3. See No Evil, Hear No Evil
Quotes
“You’re putting your life at risk for nothing,” Amma insisted.
“It’s not nothing,” Daryl Uncle said. “People are being tortured and killed even as we sit in all this opulence.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Funny Boy LitChart as a printable PDF.
Burgher Term Timeline in Funny Boy
The timeline below shows where the term Burgher appears in Funny Boy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
2. Radha Aunty
...making the right decision.” In fact, Doris regrets her own marriage to a Tamil man—her Burgher family never forgave her and left Sri Lanka in secret, never to be heard from...
(full context)
3. See No Evil, Hear No Evil
...family friend who speaks perfect Sinhalese. After 15 years away from Sri Lanka, Daryl—a white Burgher—returns on vacation, on a day when Arjie is sick with fever. Everyone is glad to...
(full context)
...boy starts to feel slightly better. That night, Daryl explains the history of Sri Lanka’s Burghers, many of whom left in the 1950s because they did not speak Sinhala, which the...
(full context)
