History Literature / BurmeseDays

* BerserkButton: Merely being in the same room as a native is enough to light the hyperracist Ellis' nerves on fire. And this is a man whose nerves are ''[[HairTriggerTemper constantly on fire to begin with]]''.

* ExecutiveMeddling: Victor Gollancz, Orwell's editor, requested several changes be made for the first British edition, as the very first edition was the 1934 American print. Part of Gollancz's concerns were that Orwell might be at risk of libel suits, as some of the names referred to RealLife people and places. The 1935 UK edition thus had character names changed (with U Po Kyin being replaced with "U Po Sing", a name that [[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign wasn't even accurate Burmese]] by Orwell's own admission).

* BerserkButton: Merely being in the same room as a native is enough to light the hyperracist Ellis' nerves on fire. And this is a man whose nerves ''are'' [[HairTriggerTemper constantly on fire to begin with]].

* BerserkButton: Merely being in the same room as a native is enough to light the hyperracist Ellis' nerves on fire. And this is a man whose nerves ''are''[[HairTriggerTemper constantly on fire to begin with]].

* BerserkButton: Merely being in the same room as a native is enough to light the hyperracist Ellis' nerves on fire. [[HairTriggerTemper And this is a man whose nerves ''are'' constantly on fire to begin with.]]

* BerserkButton: Merely being in the same room as a native is enough to light the hyperracist Ellis' nerves on fire. And this is a man whose nerves ''are'' constantly on fire to begin with.

* HairTriggerTemper: Ellis. You do '''NOT''' want to be within a ten-mile radius of him if your skin is darker than his.

* FatBastard: U Po Kyin is so enormously fat—like a villainous laughing Buddha—that he even needs assistance to stand up.

* AsianHookerStereotype: Ma Hla May, a sort of UrExample before American wars in the Asia-Pacific region popularised the trope.

* PurpleProse: In stark contrast to Orwell's later writing style.

* [[MagicalNegro Magical Indian]]: Dr Veraswami, at least in-universe. While he does get slightly more characterisation, and Orwell appears to have portrayed him in a genuinely sympathetic manner, his hopes of getting into the European Club do hinge upon his friendship and connections with Flory.

* Sssssnaketalk: Dr Veraswami sibilates his S's slightly. It's not meant to characterise him as being like a snake, but is treated as a natural function of his accent.

* {{Suburbia}}: Not directly, but discussed by Flory with Dr Veraswami, as a future scenario of what should happen to Burma when all the trees are cut down. Mind, this was also decades before the idea of Suburbia became standard American urban planning.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The plot and characterisations are almost certainly fictional, but several names and places were taken from RealLife sources. U Po Kyin, for example, gets his name from a native colleague of Orwell's in the Indian Imperial Police, but that is about where the similarity ends, for surviving photographs show the real U Po Kyin to be an Indian-looking man of average build, not the fat, sinister official of the novel.

-->'''Sometimes I think that in two hundred years all this--' he [Flory] waved a foot towards the horizon--'all this will be gone--forests, villages, monasteries, pagodas all vanished. And instead, pink villas fifty yards apart; all over those hills, as far as you can see, villa after villa, with all the gramophones playing the same tune.'''

-->'Sometimes I think that in two hundred years all this--' he [Flory] waved a foot towards the horizon--'all this will be gone--forests, villages, monasteries, pagodas all vanished. And instead, pink villas fifty yards apart; all over those hills, as far as you can see, villa after villa, with all the gramophones playing the same tune.'

* {{Suburbia}}: Not directly, but discussed by Flory with Dr Veraswami, as a future scenario of what should happen to Burma when all the trees are cut down.
-->Sometimes I think that in two hundred years all this--' he [Flory] waved a foot towards the horizon--'all this will be gone--forests, villages, monasteries, pagodas all vanished. And instead, pink villas fifty yards apart; all over those hills, as far as you can see, villa after villa, with all the gramophones playing the same tune.

Meanwhile, Flory has become thoroughly jaded and fed up after almost fifteen years in the sticks; his health is shot, he has no other friends, and the ragged birthmark on his face has subjected him to constant ridicule or ostracism from almost all quarters. Other than his tiny local mistress, Ma Hla May, he has not known the genuine affections of a woman, and so understandably Flory gets his hopes up when Elizabeth Lackersteen, the niece of a drunkard acquaintance of his at the European Club, rolls into Burma in general (and Kyauktada in particular) looking for a potential husband.

* CorruptHick: U Po Kyin.

* JabbaTableManners: U Po Kyin is absolutely ''barbaric'' at the breakfast table, as shown in the first chapter when he pigs out on a huge array of curries, prawns and green mangoes.

Once upon a time in [[GenteelInterbellumSetting 1926]], in the stifling, lonely, tropical backwaters of British-controlled Burma, intrigue is slowly brewing. In the small rural outpost of Kyauktada, the corrupt native magistrate U Po Kyin has shifted his predatory mind into high gear, plotting against the Indian Dr Veraswami, the community doctor and surgeon. News has it that the local European Club, heretofore exclusive to Europeans in their unassailable bigoted logic, is finally opening membership to nonwhites and natives, and Dr Veraswami stands a good chance of being elected due to his close friendship with the very white and very English timber merchant, John Flory. To that end, U Po Kyin begins a covert smear campaign to devastate the good doctor's reputation, chiefly by accusing Dr Veraswami of sedition and disloyalty to the Raj, as well as by getting in between his and Flory's friendship.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Most of the Europeans, of course, but the incredibly repulsive Ellis wins by many, many miles, spouting bigoted profanities that would put Creator/AdolfHitler ''and'' Creator/HPLovecraft ''combined'' to shame.
* PurpleProse: In stark contrast to Orwell's later writing style.

''Burmese Days'', first published in 1934, was Creator/GeorgeOrwell's first novel, inspired by the five years he (as Eric Arthur Blair, his real name) spent in the then British colony of [[ThatSoutheastAsianCountry Burma (aka Myanmar)]] as a member of the Indian Imperial Police, in the days when Burma was ruled as the easternmost province of TheRaj.

* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Most of the Europeans, of course, but Ellis wins by miles, spouting bigoted profanities that would put Creator/AdolfHitler or Creator/HPLovecraft to shame.

* HolidayInCambodia: Burma, in this case, is presented as a tropical hellhole.