Throughout the novel A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster, and Burmese Days, by George Orwell, the authors use race, culture, economics, and liberal humanism to discuss various colonial issues. These issues include controversies, power structures, injustices, and the idea of syncretism between the colonizers and the colonized. A Passage to India focuses largely on using culture and liberal humanism to explore issues of colonialism while Burmese Days mainly uses race and economics to explore these topics. While the novels use different methods of exploration, both novels very successfully take on the task of discussing the very colonial issues of controversies, power structures, injustices, and syncretism.
One way that we can explore power structures in A Passage to India is through cultural misunderstandings. One of the main cultural misunderstandings that occurs in the novel is the invitation of Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore to Dr. Aziz’s home (69). Though he had meant it only as a gesture of goodwill towards the women, they take it as a literal invitation to his home. This misunderstanding is due to cultural differences in hospitality. Had the women been Indian as well, they would have understood Aziz’s invitation as simply a gesture of goodwill. Due to Aziz being a product of the raj and wanting to act like the Europeans want him to, he feels as though he cannot explain the misunderstanding. Because of this, he feels as though he must take the women on a trip. In this way, power structures are enforced and reinforced as the native people feel as though their culture is less important than the European culture.
Another cultural misunderstanding happens in the same passage between Ronny and Dr. Aziz. Aziz gives Fielding ...
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...occupy a space that is seemingly between both the world of the colonizer and the world of the colonizer. Ultimately though, he is unable to successfully occupy this space. Flory’s love for Elizabeth makes it impossible for him to continue to occupy both spheres and be happy. In the end he would have to choose between marrying Elizabeth and giving up his love for Burma, or giving up Elizabeth and continuing to occupy the place between the two worlds. As we know, however, the choice seemed to be too unsettling and he killed himself. I see this as proof that he is unable to continue successfully acting in both worlds; the tension between the two groups was too great to overcome.
Works Cited
Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984. Print.
Orwell, George. Burmese Days. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. Print.
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a short story that not only shows cultural divides and how they affect our actions, but also how that cultural prejudice may also affect other parties, even if, in this story, that other party may only be an elephant. Orwell shows the play for power between the Burmese and the narrator, a white British police-officer. It shows the severe prejudice between the British who had claimed Burma, and the Burmese who held a deep resentment of the British occupation. Three messages, or three themes, from Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” are prejudice, cultural divide, and power.
In “Shooting an Elephant” writer George Orwell illustrates the terrible episode that explains more than just the action of “shooting an elephant.” Orwell describes the scene of the killing of an elephant in Burma and reveals a number of emotions he experienced during the short, but traumatic event. Effectively, the writer uses many literary techniques to plant emotions and create tension in this scene, leading to an ironic presentation of imperialism. With each of the realistic descriptions of the observing multitude and the concrete appeal of the narrator’s pathos, Orwell thrives in persuading the audience that imperialism not only has a destructive impact on those being governed under the imperialists’ oppressive power, but also corrupts
I must say that Rudyard Kipling's Kim can be interpreted as a project that articulates the "hegemonic" relations between the colonizer and the colonized during British imperial rule in India. Kipling's novel explores how Kim embodies the absolute divisions between white and non white that existed in India and elsewhere at a time when the dominantly white Christian countries of Europe controlled approximately 85 percent of the world's surface. For Kipling, who believed it was India's destiny to be ruled by England, it was necessary to stress the superiority of the white man whose mission was to
One, its "point" is vague and this is a challenge to my current reading abilities and two, it rambles along its disjointed timeline to the point that I became easily lost. However, there is something that the story brought to light that I am now more fully aware of than before reading this story. That is my own abilities of intellectual analysis. It is these areas that I wish to elaborate upon.Donald Barthelme's deliberate twisting of the subtleties in meaning in his story is intriguing. However, as a recent popular movie so elegantly put it, it left me dazed and confused. I couldn't seem to figure out what the point or moral of the story should be.
In colonial Burma, the foreign, British minority ruled the large, local majority. In this setting, the British demonstrated its dominance and power through its gruesome treatment of the Burmese. Orwell described the locals as having “cowed faces” and “scarred buttocks” from Britain’s “unbreakable tyranny”. This exemplifies the typical imperialistic state- an oppressor and an oppressed. However, Orwell’s depiction of imperialism goes deeper than such a simplistic view. Orwell, who
Pandey, T.N., 2014. Lecture 1/14/14: Cultures of India: Hierarchy Structure in India. Cultures of India. U.C. Santa Cruz.
Over time, Westerners came in contact with the natives. In the book Burmese Days by George Orwell, the author tells the story of the Western dominance in Burma. During the early 20th Century, the British Westerners gained control of Burman civilizations. A group of about ten British individuals maintain control of over 2,000 natives. Each character has different reasons and methods for wanting control. The locals accepted European dominance because the Europeans had strategies to legitimize their dominance. The local Burmese people viewed the Europeans in different ways. Elizabeth, Mr. and Mrs. Lakersteen, Dr. Veraswami, U Po Kyin, and Ma Hla May all have specialized reasons for maintaining
Throughout the semester, one of the main topics that we focused on and that was found most interesting was gender identity and how it has grown and transferred into everyday life. Gender identity can be defined as a learned trait of how someone perceives their own gender and can be used to describe many different topics such as gender roles, homosexuality, and gender ambiguities. Each of these topics of gender identity can be found in a numerous amount of the works that we read including Cereus Blooms at Night, Anowa, and A Passage to India. The topic of gender identity is viewed as one finding themselves; however, in these texts, gender identity is being aware of how you feel about yourself and discovering when and how you want to speak up and show it.
This war was known as the First Anglo-Burmese war, ending in the February of 1826 with the signing of the Treaty of Yandabo. Burma relinquished the region of Arakan (now known as the Rakhine State). A second war between British and Burmese people was fought in 1852, and again Britain won, this time claiming the lower part of Burma. By the third of the Anglo-Burmese wars, Burma became a province of British India. In 1937, it was separated from India by the British and turned into a crown colony. Five years later, Burma would be invaded by Japan, which occupied the region with the assistance of the Burma Independence Army. Japan would later be resisted by this same group after it converted into the Anti-Fascist People 's Freedom League. In 1945, Aung San of Burma led
Orwell is an unhappy young policeman who lives in mental isolation. He hates British imperialism, he hates Burmese natives, and he hates his job. He is completely alone with his thoughts since he cannot share his idea that "imperialism was an evil thing" with his countrymen. Orwell sees the British rule as "an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down. . . upon the will of prostate peoples" because he observes firsthand the cruel imprisonments and whippings that the British use to enforce their control. Nor can he talk to the Burmese because of the "utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East." This "utter silence" results from the reasoning behind imperialism that says, "Our cultures are different. My culture has more power than your culture. Therefore, my culture is superior in every way, and it will rule yours." If one is a member of a superior culture, one must not make jokes, share confidences, or indicate in any way that a member of the inferior culture is one's equal. A wall, invisible but impenetrable, stands between the British and the Burmese. His hatred for...
Sharpe, Jenny. “A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.” Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. James P Draper, Jennifer Brostrom, and Jennifer Gariepy. Vol. 77. Detroit: Gale, 1993. 253-57. Rpt. of “The Unspeakable Limits of Rape: Colonial Violence and Counter-Insurgency.” Genders 10 (1991): 25-46. Literature Criticism Online. Web. 4 Mar. 2011. .
E.M. Forster's A Passage to India concerns the relations between the English and the native population of India during the colonial period in which Britain ruled India. The novel takes place primarily in Chandrapore, a city along the Ganges River notable only for the nearby Marabar caves. The main character of the novel is Dr. Aziz, a Moslem doctor in Chandrapore and widower. After he is summoned to the Civil Surgeon's home only to be promptly ignored, Aziz visits a local Islamic temple where he meets Mrs. Moore, an elderly British woman visiting her son, Mr. Heaslop, who is the City Magistrate. Although Aziz reprimands her for not taking her shoes off in the temple before realizing she has in fact observed this rule, the two soon find that they have much in common and he escorts her back to the club.
The hero of Burma was born on June 19, 1945 in Yangon, Myanmar, a country traditionally known as Burma. Her father, Aung San was the de facto prime minister of British. He played a major role in helping Burma win independence from the British in 1948. Unfortunately, he was assassinated on July 19, 1947 before Burma became independent. Her mother, Daw Khin Kyi, was also active in politics before and after being married. In 1960, her mother was appointed as Burmese ambassador to India. “From her father she developed a sense of duty to her country, and from her mother, who never spoke of hatred for her husband 's killers, she learned forgiveness” (Parenteau). The name of Burma’s hero is Aung San Suu Kyi also known as The Lady. Aung San Suu Kyi played a vital role in fighting to establish a democratic government and human rights at Burma now known as Myanmar.
In this short story the protagonist is a newly married Indian woman who is attending a party with her husband’s western friends. Throughout the short story the reader senses her anxiety of being introduced to people who are not as conservative as her. “She longed for the sanctuary of the walled home from which marriage had promised an adventurous escape. Each restricting rule became a guiding stone marking a safe path through unknown dangers” ("The First Party"). In this quote, the narrator explains how the Indian woman did not feel comfortable or at ease with this new world she had been introduced too. She fiend to be back home but because of her tie that she made to this man through marriage she is in her mind, stuck with him. In addition to her anxiety of being with non-conservative woman, who drank, smoked, dressed provocatively, and had painted nails, the protagonist grew angry in her own head. “She had been so sure of herself in her contempt and her anger, confident of the righteousness of her beliefs, deep-based on generations-old foundations” ("The First Party"). Is this the way that the Indian people reacted to British colonialism? The things that western people found normal, was this disrespectful to the Indian people. The protagonist surely thought it was and was certain that her anger was not misplaced. She felt as her anger was a sign of her strong faith. She came to the realization that her husband was someone who would challenge her beliefs but above all she knew that her beliefs state that her life must be one with his (“The First Party”). This realization must be heartbreaking, to realize that one 's comfort is not found in their life partner. The protagonist was raised to believe that her life must be one with her husband, that she is