The Story Archive

Burmese Days

George Orwell · 1934 CE · Novel · English · Contemporary

In a small station in Upper Burma a timber merchant with a birthmark across his face keeps one real friendship, with the Indian doctor whom a scheming local magistrate is working to destroy, and the Club's grudging vote on admitting a native member becomes the lever. A young Englishwoman arrives from Paris, broke and hunting a husband, and he mistakes her for a way out. Orwell served five years in the Indian Imperial Police, and the contempt here falls as squarely on the sahibs' own rot as on the system that keeps them.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalTragedy
Theme
ColonialismIsolation & AlienationBetrayalClass & InequalityLoyalty
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Anti-HeroVillain / TyrantTragic HeroEveryman
Plot structure
Tragic ReversalRise and Fall
Emotional arc (story shape)
Fall (Tragedy)
Symbol / motif
The MaskThe ForestThe Wound
Conflict
vs Societyvs Selfvs Person
Mode / tone
RealistIronicTragic
Culture / tradition
English

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