Winter Essay #5

Winter 2006

Essay 5: Causal Analysis
George Orwell's Burmese Days

Overview

At first sight, James Flory seems to embody British rule. He is white, male and middle class. As a representative of an imperial race, this combination of characteristics explained and indeed justified British rule throughout the world. But, as George Orwell shows in Burmese Days, Flory is not what he appears to be. Orwell's representation of Flory's life and death may also reveal many of the internal contradictions of the British empire in the early twentieth century.

The following assignment asks you to explore causal arguments that focus on the significance of a particular factor that could be considered essential to understanding why Orwell's colonial protagonist self-destructs at the end of the story. The causal factor on which you will be focusing will be chosen by your section leader.

You will be expected to 1) identify causal claims; 2) articulate a thesis that features a causal argument; 3) defend your causal explanation; and 4) anticipate objections from those who are persuaded by other possible causal explanations.

Causal arguments examine narrative processes by asking questions. Just as historians and other scholars in the humanities have particular interests that influence the subjects they choose to study or the way they rank causes or evaluate evidence, this essay offers an opportunity to develop your own interests. At the technical level, good causal arguments recognize that it is possible to confuse a coincidental conjunction with a true cause and effect relationship, that there is a difference between a "necessary" cause and a "sufficient" cause, that events often have multiple causes, and that events often have less apparent causes. Good causal arguments also consciously avoid incomplete arguments or logical fallacies. It is not necessary to relate your argument to whether or not you believe that there is ever a sufficient cause for suicide in real life.

Remember that you are reading a fictional text in which techniques of narration, plot, imagery, and linguistic choice are employed by the author to support both literary themes and political and economic arguments about colonialism.

Read "Active Reading and Textual Explication" (99-106), "Integrating Quotations Logically" (107-110), "Integrating Quotations Stylistically," "Causal Logic" (115-120), and "Causal Arguments" (121-124) in the Writer's Handbook before beginning. You will be using close reading skills that you have already used in previous essays.

Your essay should be 4-6 pages and will count for 30% of your writing grade. Plan on writing more than you need and cutting at least one page in the course of writing this assignment.

Sample topics that your section leader may choose as causal factors

General factors discussed in lecture

The economic structures of colonialism
Political resistance to British rule
Britain's public policy dilemma: forces of reform and reaction
The divisions between colonizer and colonized
The maintenance of spatial boundaries
The crossing of spatial boundaries
The maintenance of social boundaries
The crossing of social boundaries
The maintenance of sexual boundaries
The crossing of sexual boundaries

Specific causal agents and events in Flory's life

Flory's failed romance with Elizabeth
Flory's doomed friendship with Dr. Veraswami
Flory's complicated sexual history with Ma Hla May
Accidents and coincidences that make him the target of U Po Kyim
How Flory's trouble began "in his mother's womb" when he was disfigured by the birthmark (64)
Flory's early education
Flory's initial "corruption" by the East (67)
Flory's choice to "live in books when life was tiresome" (67)
Flory's hatred of his own countrymen
Flory's need to self-censor and repress his own opinions
Events that "test" Flory's masculinity in which he succeeds (shooting the leopard, intervening in the riot, etc.)
Events that "test" Flory's masculinity in which he fails (being rattled by the earthquake, falling off Verral's horse, etc.)
Flory's ethnographic observation and participation in native culture
Flory's tolerance for cultural hybridity
Flory's class position
Flory's understanding of economic exploitation in the colonial mission
Flory's cynicism toward the British government's stated religious and educational objectives in Burma
Flory's cynicism about the natives themselves

A successful essay will do the following:

Demonstrate that you understand the complexities of a causal argument about colonialism by explaining the causal factors chosen by your section leader.
Demonstrate that you have read the primary source on the subject in-depth and more than once.
Acknowledge limitations in the evidence.
Apply principles of causal analysis from the Writer's Handbook.
Keep the reader on track by means of clear signals, clear paragraphing, interesting topic sentences, and relevant evidence in the form of quotations from the text.
Cite all sources properly in MLA citation format.
Use the conventions of Standard Written English

Thinking about Audience . . .

Many readers associate the work of George Orwell with 1984 or Animal Farm and think of him as a writer of political allegory or futuristic fiction. Instead, you will be focusing on a literary work about British colonialism in Burma. You will face the added task of considering Burmese Days both as a work of literature and as a primary source. If Flory had many of the same experiences as author George Orwell did in his time in colonial Burma, how did Orwell escape a similar fate?