History Literature / BurmeseDays

-->''"[[{{Epigraph}} This desert inaccessible]]
-->[[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Under the shade of melancholy boughs.]]"''
-->—''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''

* AsianBabymama: The ''Burmese Patriot'' editorial alleges that Mr Macgregor has left several of these in each district he's been posted to. U Po Kyin marks it as libellous and decides to jail the editor for it. Also, implicitly, the unseen Asian mothers of MixedRace residents Mr Francis and Mr Samuel.

* ItTastesLikeFeet: Elizabeth complains once that a local green tea "tastes exactly like earth".

* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Most of the British here are a least a bit racist (and often much more than a little racist) against all the Asians present: native Burmese, Indians, even [[HalfBreedDiscrimination half-European]] [[MixedAncestry children born of wedlock]]. Ellis is just the most stridently oppressed by these Asians' very existence but the Club's other Europeans will make no secret of their own disdain, such as with Elizabeth Lackersteen and her aunt, with whom the racism combines with a general classist snobbery with which they disdain even lower-class Englishmen back home.

* AsianBabymama: The ''Burmese Patriot'' editorial alleges that Mr Macgregor has left several of these in each district he's been posted to. U Po Kyin marks it as libellous and decides to jail the editor for it.

* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Most of the British here are a least a bit racist (and often much more than a little racist) against all the Asians present: native Burmese, Indians, even [[MixedAncestry half-European]] children out of wedlock. Ellis is just the most stridently oppressed by these Asians' very existence but the Club's other Europeans will make no secret of their own disdain, such as with Elizabeth Lackersteen and her aunt, with whom the racism combines with a general classist snobbery with which they disdain even lower-class Englishmen back home.

* FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence: Most of the British here are a least a bit racist (and often much more than a little racist) against all the Asians present: native Burmese, Indians, even [[MixedAncestry half-European children out of wedlock. Ellis is just the most stridently oppressed by these Asians' very existence but the Club's other Europeans will make no secret of their own disdain, such as with Elizabeth Lackersteen and her aunt, with whom the racism combines with a general classist snobbery with which they disdain even lower-class Englishmen back home.

* MotorMouth: Mr Francis, the mixed-race son of an American Baptist missionary and a South Indian local, will jump at any opportunity to ramble in rapid-fire about his life history. It's what turns Elizabeth off when she and Flory meet him briefly.

* SocialClimber: Elizabeth's personality is this for all it's worth. Everything she ever considers good (or in her terms, "lovely") is tied to the English aristocracy or in general the upper classes: ponies, dog shows, hunting and shooting, officer husbands, etc. etc., and everything she considers bad (or to use her terms, "beastly") has to do with the poor (and with foreigners), like her squalid couple of years in Paris prior to coming out her to Burma. Blame her two terms in a very expensive and exclusive girls' school where her late—and financially incompetent—parents put her before they went insolvent.

* SocialClimber: Elizabeth's personality is this for all it's worth. Everything she ever considers good (or in her terms, "lovely") is tied to the English aristocracy or in general the upper classes: ponies, dog shows, hunting and shooting, officer husbands, etc. etc., and everything she considers bad (or to use her terms, "beastly") has to do with the poor (and with foreigners), like her squalid couple of years in Paris prior to coming out her to Burma. Blame her two terms in a very expensive and exclusive girls' school where her late parents put her before they went broke.

* TheSocialClimber: Elizabeth's personality is this for all it's worth. Everything she ever considers good (or in her terms, "lovely") is tied to the English aristocracy or in general the upper classes: ponies, dog shows, hunting and shooting, officer husbands, etc. etc., and everything she considers bad (or to use her terms, "beastly") has to do with the poor (and with foreigners), like her squalid couple of years in Paris prior to coming out her to Burma. Blame her two terms in a very expensive and exclusive girls' school where her late parents put her before they went broke.

* MaliciousSlander: How U Po Kyin decides to destroy Dr Veraswami's local reputation—by alleging that the latter has seditious, anticolonial/anti-British leanings. Not to mention the ''Burmese Patriot'''s libellous accusation of Macgregor as leaving {{Asian Babymama}}s in his previous postings[[note]]though whether it is actually based in fact is left unstated—although since it was written by Hla Pe, assistant to local clerk Ba Sein, whom U Po Kyin quite approves of, it appears being factual was never an issue here anyways[[/note]].

* MaliciousSlander: How U Po Kyin decides to destroy Dr Veraswami's local reputation—by alleging that the latter has seditious, anticolonial/anti-British leanings. Not to mention the ''Burmese Patriot'''s libellous accusation of Macgregor as leaving {{Asian Babymama}}s in his previous postings (though whether it is actually based in fact is left unstated).

* MaliciousSlander: How U Po Kyin decides to destroy Dr Veraswami's local reputation—by alleging that the latter has seditious, anticolonial/anti-British leanings. Not to mention his responsibility for the ''Burmese Patriot'''s libellous accusation of Macgregor as leaving {{Asian Babymama}}s in his previous postings (though whether it is actually based in fact is left unstated).

* CorruptHick: U Po Kyin is the colonial Southeast Asian version of this, practically controlling Kyauktada beneath the veneer of British authority.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Katha, the Upper Burmese town where Eric Blair was last posted, serves as the primary inspiration for Kyauktada, but Katha itself appears to have been much more progressive (at the time of the author's service there, the local European Club had already admitted several natives, Indians and Burmese alike).

* AuthorityInNameOnly: Rather played with. On the one hand, the narrator frequently makes it clear that the British Empire is the ultimate source of despotism in places like Burma, and so even native civil servants like Dr Veraswami and native magistrates like U Po Kyin can only do so much—but on the other hand, what little spelled-out authority U Po Kyin has to work with, he uses—and abuses—for all it's worth, even to the point of manipulating ''pukka sahibs'' and other Europeans considered higher in status than him (the ultimate example of this of course is [[spoiler:ruining Flory's life, although Flory himself doesn't hold any high office in the Empire]]). Indeed a large part of why the Empire even functions is because millions of native collaborators allow it to keep running, as Dr Veraswami unironically points out.

* MaliciousSlander: How U Po Kyin decides to destroy Dr Veraswami's local reputation—by alleging that the latter has seditious, anticolonial/anti-British leanings.

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:U Po Kyin's planned BargainWithHeaven doesn't prevent him from dying right after he gets into the European Club and even formally awarded by the colonial government. His widow fears his sins caught up with him anyway and he either went to hell or will be reincarnated as mere vermin.]]

* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:U Po Kyin's planned BargainWithHeaven doesn't prevent him from dying right after he gets into the European Club and even formally awarded by the colonial government. His widow fears his sins caught up with him anyway and he either went to hell or will be reincarnated as some vermin.]]

%% zce * TheAlcoholic: Mr Lackersteen, Elizabeth's uncle.

* EvilBrit: Sans Flory and perhaps Mr Macgregor, the rest of the European Club (the ultra-racist Ellis in particular) are this to varying degrees toward natives and all other nonwhites in Burma. Natural given their role as …

* DirtyOldMan: Mr Lackersteen sleeps with Burmese prostitutes (and even ''attempts rape on his own niece'') whenever his wife isn't around, the ''Burmese Patriot'' editorial alleges that Mr Macgregor did the same, and U Po Kyin regularly rapes village girls despite being in his fifties.