Sexual relationships

I find this quote in Stoler’s argument particularly useful in approaching Orwell’s Burmese Days:

none of these fears were very far removed from the more general concern that European men living with native women would themselves lose their Dutch or French identity and would become degenerate and décivilisé. Internal to this logic was a notion of cultural, physical, and moral contamination, the fear that those Europeans who did not subscribe to Dutch middle-class conventions of respectability would not only compromise the cultural distinctions of empire, but waver in their allegiances to metropolitan rule (533, 534)


Flory’s debauchery with May is made evident through his meeting with Elizabeth. Contact with Elizabeth brings out the ‘Englishness’ in him. Flory laments how his affair with May has “degenerate and décivilisé” him. Only by marrying Elizabeth can his ‘Englishness’ be restored. Flory’s affair with May ultimately destroys him. U Po Kyin attacks Flory’s “weakest spot” (his affair with May). Flory’s sexual deviance is, in Elizabeth’s opinion, a deviance from the ways of ‘Europeanness’ or ‘Englishness’ that is taboo and intolerable. Flory’s suicide in the end can be viewed as a self-destruction brought about by sexual deviance (métissage), an unpardonable sin in committed by the white man. Flory’s behaviour is subjected to changes depending on whether he is with May or Elizabeth. With May, Flory is more bolshevic, shows interest in the Burmese culture, leading a squalid and meaningless life. Elizabeth brings about a total change in Flory. He quits drinking and indulges in the English display of chivalry and gallantry (hunting and polo). This is closely linked to what Stoler is arguing about, how the sexual relations play an important role in colonial politics.