Keywords
Metropole and Periphery- Analytical category for examining the dialectical relationship between the nation-state and empire
Gender-Socially prescribed roles for men and women, based on purported biological differences of males and females
Sexual Politics-power struggle over the enforcement or transgression of prescribed gender roles, including sexuality
Memsahib-refers to European female colonizer, usually a dependent of a male as daughter, niece or wife
Pukasahib-refers to European male colonizer who is connected to the colonial state in an official capacity or is preferentially association with it such a European resident and/or employee of a British firm or business

I. Burdens of Identity: Memsahib and Pukasahib
A. Empire as Space for Making Britain an Imperial Nation State
1. organized to serve Britain’s economy:
a) access to raw materials, i.e. timber, oil, silver, tungsten
b) market for India as well as British manufactured goods
c) source of employment for the lower middle class
(Orwell references: pp. 14, 128 & 142)
2. realized middle class identity:
a) management or supervisorial positions
b) guaranteed social status based on privilege of whiteness
c) personal and household servants
d) exclusive social institutions (Club) and activities--tennis, riding and hunting
(Orwell references: pp. 19-20, 65; 201-202)

B. Empire as a Gendered Space
1. gender structured opportunity and social life in the empire:
a) bachelors less expensive to support without dependents
b) lives structured in relation to work and pleasure
c) leisure economies developed to accommodate unattached males
d) sex trade tolerated but involved health risks; concubinage preferred for stabilizing effect on colonial order and colonial health
e ) biracial progeny undermined racial hierarchy while confirming it
(Orwell references: pp. 65 & 122-123)
2. presence of white women highly regulated; generally accompanied males in the capacity of dependents:
a) maturing or multi-generational colonial personnel
b) need to assert prestige and power by restricting access to colonized to colonizer through legally sanctioned monogamy.
c) unfavorable ratio of females to males in domestic marriage market
(Orwell references: pp. 53, 115, 98 & 110)
C. Memsahib and Pukasahib: Elizabeth Lackersteen and James Flory
1. class insecurity frames Elizabeth’s self-perception and relation to Empire:
a) resented penury and subordinated status after leading a life of privilege
b) preferred predictable social relationships and suspicious of “foreigners”
c) prestige of whiteness restored her sense of entitlement that she could not experience in Britain or Europe without means
(Orwell referenes pp. 94 & 96)
2. white masculinity (pukasahib) revolves around willingness to control circumstances and command subordinates:
a) good: Flory rescued her from “danger”, skilled as a hunter, knowledge of the surrounding natural world, secure (employed and owns bungalow)
b) bad: Flory transgressed spatial, social and sexual boundaries within colonial society; no real prospects for moving up in the world (cf. Lieutenant Verrell) (Orwell references: pp. 105-106 & 124)
3. Flory’s ideal of white femininity (anti-memsahib) based on authenticity or conformity to imagined “English womanhood”:
a) female friend or wife; an equal
b) non-judgemental; open to freedom of thought
c) share knowledge of Burma in exchange for knowledge about London and Paris
d) create an alternative space to the European Club through shared activities of reading and gardening
(Orwell references: pp. 151-152)
4. marriage is doomed because Flory is at best a reluctant Pukasahib while Elizabeth embraces status as Memsahib:
a) fails to uphold white prestige in general and her’s in particular
b) unwilling to observe boundaries
c) cannot reconcile the lie of colonialism; Elizabeth wants the prestige that comes with colonial power
(Orwell references: p. 196)