The Machiavellian Oriental in Burmese Days

*Spoiler Alert*

In some ways I see a striking resemblance between U Po Kyin and Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello. They are Machiavellian villains and (I find) rather delightfully so. Both exude fierce cunning and insight in reading human nature and manipulating it for their own ends. Devious yes, but laudable in their cleverness. UPK can then be seen as a figure through which Orwell critiques the social laws and strictures of colonial society, which attempts to demarcate White superiority vis-à-vis the colonized Burmese. U Po Kyin manipulates colonial society’s regulations on sexual behaviour, like the White female’s fear of being raped by the colonised subject, “raped by a procession of jet-black coolies” (142) in order to defame Dr Veraswami and attain the elusive Club membership for himself. Through the figure of UPK, Orwell indirectly critiques these paranoid assumptions of natives, as firstly we the readers know Dr Veraswami wouldn’t hurt a fly. Ironically he adores them and would have been an ideal Club member. Orwell can thereby be seen as critiquing the social laws set in place by the colonial subjects with regard to sexuality. While “kid-glove laws” are set in place by the English colonial government to include the natives as “equals” in theory, ultimately cultural strictures in the novel, particularly regarding that of sexual relations ingrained and perpetuated by colonials, uphold “white prestige” (Stoler’s essay), and darkly prevents justice from being perpetuated.

However certainly, a negative Oriental stereotyping, on Orwell’s part, is starkly evident in his depiction of UPK, like other natives in the text, as a grotesque figure “so fat that for years he had not risen from his chair without help” and UPK is detestable and cruel in raping young helpless virgins in front of their mothers. Moreover, I think his crime is foiled at first by Flory (not finished yet. And we are led to think he’s another Fu Manchu (Sax Rohmer character) defeated by the heroic Anglo-Saxon male.

But ultimately his plotting and scheming, sees him through. Unlike Iago (I read the ending…dislike being left hanging so I always ruin endings for myself by skipping ahead.) UPK does get away with his crime (well somewhat) as the English justice fails to be served. And it might be just me but I find he's also adorably comic in his childish delight and the text does make us biased against Englishmen like Ellis, who deserve to be hoodwinked.