Women in Burmese Days

In class, we talked about the role of the women in Burmese Days. While Jayasena definitely had some out-there theories that I don’t necessarily buy into, I do agree with his statement that the English woman’s job in Burma was to keep the English men in check and remind them of how they should be behaving (as proper English men). Mrs. Lackersteen is a good example of this – she tries her hardest to keep Mr. Lackersteen from drinking too heavily or sleeping with Burmese women (both of which he jumps at the chance to do), and much of her movement seems to be dictated by him – she rarely goes anywhere without him or allows him to go anywhere without her, because she would then be unable to keep an eye on him. In her case, “wife” is just a glorified term for babysitter. Both Mrs. Lackersteen and Elizabeth (the only two English women we meet in this novel) are depicted as sharing a rigid opinion of the “proper” behavior of white men, and both display an intense dislike and distrust of the Burmese people. Orwell seems to use these two women to show how the British government’s idealized vision of the colonization of Burma. In this vision, British men would uphold the traditions and values of Victorian England while exerting their control over the Burmese people. The men in the novel, on the other hand, seem to be Orwell’s vehicles for depicting the adverse effects of colonization – a harsh landscape and pseudo-outsider status seem to drive many of them (particularly Flory) to a pretty miserable existence. While I was reading, I found myself thinking that Orwell did not seem very sympathetic to the plight of the English women, but I couldn’t think of why I got this feeling – after all, Orwell describes the men as being, on the whole, pretty nasty too. So why did it seem like he was less forgiving of the women? Thinking about it now, I’m still not sure why Orwell was harder on the women, but I do think that there is evidence that he was less sympathetic for the women. It was mentioned in class that while Orwell had respect for the British men who worked in Burma, he disagreed with the government and their reasons for being there. Given that Orwell chose to use the women to represent the wishes of the British government, while the men represented the adverse effects of colonization on the English (in addition to the Burmese), I think it seems plausible that Orwell did show the British women in a much more negative light.