"If our prestige iss good, we rise; if bad, we fall"

Unlike in Forster's "Passage to India," where membership to the club is strictly British-only, the Kyauktada club in "Burmese Days" is considering the admission of orientals ( not sure what happens later. sorry, I'm only at chapter 10!). This seems to be an 'opening up' of the club. Hence, I find it strange that the narrative voice of "Burmese Days" should describe the club in esoteric terms -- as a "Nirvana" and as also as a "spiritual club." I believe it is through this contradiction that Orwell's "Burmese Days" highlights the importance of honor and reverence to maintaining imperial rule.

By describing the club as a transcendent space is to suggest that it is both exclusive to the honorable colonial masters and desired by the less honorable natives. When orientals are admitted however, spatial boundaries are eroded, and the colonizer/colonized relationship is threatened. Hence, the honor of this sacred space is vehemently protected by Ellis, when he says "No natives in this Club! It’s by constantly giving way over small things like that that we’ve ruined the Empire." Elli's sharp vehement dismissal simultaneously exposes the the frantic manner in which the colonizer clings onto his seat of honor -- "the real seat of the British power." This emphasizes the importance of maintaining this prestige. Similarly, as a colonial officer, the narrator in "Shooting an Elephant" must shoot the elephant in order to maintain the honor of the empire and by extension imperial rule.