Mixed Representation of the "Other" in Orwell's Burmese Days
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of English
Abstract
Colonial discourses have created various images to represent the Eastern countries
and people as the 'Other'. It establishes a created form of reality in the readers' mind.
It functions as a power to dominate, educate and govern over the non-western
countries. George Orwell's Burmese Daystextualizes the mixed representation–the
mixed attitudes of the author–of Burma and Burmese people. Orwell has partially
expressed his love-hate attitudes towards the native Burmese and the white
imperialists through his characters. He has readjusted the paradigm of center and
margin by creating central position to the white Europeans and by marginalizing the
native Burmese people as the 'other'. In this sense, the novel shows how Orwell
detested imperialism and the native people as well. It also reveals his colonial
mentality i.e., how he shares the sense of superiority as the white race. Besides, he
presents the white characters as superior beings and the black Indians as helpless and
worthless inferior beings. So through these mixed representations of Burmese people,
Orwell tries to justify the mission of colonization as the mission of civilization.