In the novel, Orwell describes the various physical and mental subjugation of native people as well as the established institutions that propagated the suppression of the poor, brown people that inhabit the Indian subcontinent. Burmese Days exposes the racist and classist attitudes that wealthy, white elites maintained that attempted to prop up the rapidly depleting British rule in modern day Myanmar. In the novel, the protagonist Flory - An Englishman residing in British Burma, speaks in place of Orwell, voicing his admiration for the native Burmese and their culture, while condemning the very system that allows him to prosper. Orwell witnessed the cruelty of the British Raj firsthand during his tenure in the Indian Imperial Police only seven years prior. Orwell’s first novel Burmese Days sharply criticizes England’s role in Burma as part of the British Raj - a period of time that directly affected him. Whilst Conrad merely questioned the morality of conquest, George Orwell outright condemns British imperialism, and the inhuman subjugation of native peoples that dovetail it. Nearly thirty-five years after Joseph Conrad called into question the nature of Western imperialism in his novella Heart of Darkness, the English empire became subject to critique for its ambitions of colonialism by its own authors. Critiques of Colonialism - George Orwell’s Criticisms of the British Raj in Burmese Days
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