Native-Colonial Friendships

What struck me as interesting of Orwell's Burmese Days was the seemingly similar relationship between Forly and Dr. Veraswami, and Forster's Fielding and Dr. Aziz in A Passage to India (Hey. They're both doctors.. interesting. Not.)

To me, these two native-colonial friendships reveal the inevitable strain between people of different races during the colonial period. As A Passage to India aptly ends with the notion that it was a matter of 'wrong time, wrong place' (316).

In Burmese Days, Flory and Dr. V share a close intimate relationship which is strangely 'allowed', unlike an "alliance, partisanship" (Burmese Chap. 6) which was forbidden. (Why so?) This, to me, is rather odd. And as much as Flory disses the colonial enterprise he "lack[s] the small spark of courage" (Chap. 5) that is required to make the right choice. He gives in to the immense pressure to act like a sahib (Chap. 13), this calls to mind Shooting An Elephant.

Similary, in A Passage to India, this pressure is summed up by the line, "The English always stick together!" (235) and that Fielding has once again abandoned Aziz for Miss Quested (236).

I think this native-colonial relationship presented in Burmese Days highlights an interesting point that not all the Englishmen were nasty buggers, some were under immense pressure to conform to both colonial and native expectations. To an extent, I actually find Shooting An Elephant and Burmese Days slightly sympathetic of the plight of 'certain' Englishmen.

P.S.: Am using the online text for Burmese Days so no page numbers! Pardon!