7. Prose Passage Chart #1

From Burmese Days by George Orwell, pages 5 through 7:

Unblinking, rather like a great porcelain idol, U Po Kyin gazed out into the fierce sunlight. He was a man of fifty, so fat that for years he had not risen from his chair without help, and yet shapely and even beautiful in his grossness; for the Burmese do not sag and bulge like white men, but grow fat symmetrically, like fruits swelling. His face was vast, yellow and quite unwrinkled, and his eyes were tawny. His feet— squat, high –arched feet with the toes all the same length— were bare, and so was his cropped head, and he wore one of those vivid Arakanese longyis with green and magenta checks which the Burmese wear on informal occasions . He was chewing betel from a lacquered box on the table, and thinking about his past life.

It had been a brilliantly successful life. U Po Kyin’s earliest memory, back in the ‘eighties, was of standing, a naked pot-bellied child, watching the British troops march victorious into Mandalay . He remembered the terror he had felt of those columns of great beef-fed men, red-faced and red-coated; and the long rifles over their shoulders, and the heavy, rhythmic tramp of their boots. He had taken to his heels after watching them for a few minutes. In his childish way he had grasped that his own people were no match for this race of giants. To fight on the side of the British, to become a parasite upon them, had been his ruling ambition, even as a child. 

At seventeen he had tried for a Government appointment, but he had failed to get it, being poor and friendless, and for three years he had worked in the stinking labyrinth of the Mandalay bazaars, clerking for the rice merchants and sometimes stealing. Then when he was twenty a lucky stroke of blackmail put him in possession of four hundred rupees, and he went at once to Rangoon and bought his way into a Government clerkship. The job was a lucrative one though the salary was small. At that time a ring of clerks were making a steady income by misappropriating Government stores, and Po Kyin (he was plain Po Kyin then: the honorific U came years later) took naturally to this kind of thing. However, he had too much talent to spend his life in a clerkship, stealing miserably in annas and pice. One day he discovered that the Government, being short of minor officials, were going to make some appointments from among the clerks. The news would have become public in another week, but it was one of Po Kyin’s qualities that his information was always a week ahead of everyone else’s. He saw his chance and denounced all his confederates before they could take alarm. Most of them were sent to prison, and Po Kyin was made an Assistant Township Officer as the reward of his honesty. Since then he had risen steadily. Now, at fifty-six, he was a Sub-divisional Magistrate, and he would probably be promoted still further and made an acting Deputy Commissioner, with Englishmen as his equals and even his subordinates. 

As a magistrate his methods were simple. Even for the vastest bribe he would never sell the decision of a case, because he knew that a magistrate who gives wrong judgments is caught sooner or later. His practice, a much safer one, was to take bribes from both sides and then decide the case on strictly legal grounds. This won him a useful reputation for impartiality. Besides his revenue from litigants, U Po Kyin levied a ceaseless toll, a sort of private taxation scheme, from all the villages under his jurisdiction. If any village failed in its tribute U Po Kyin took punitive measures— gangs of dacoits attacked the village, leading villagers were arrested on false charges, and so forth —and it was never long before the amount was paid up. He also shared the proceeds of all the larger-sized robberies that took place in the district. Most of this, of course, was known to everyone except U Po Kyin’s official superiors (no British officer will ever believe anything against his own men) but the attempts to expose him invariably failed; his supporters, kept loyal by their share of the loot, were too numerous. When any accusation was brought against him, U Po Kyin simply discredited it with strings of suborned witnesses, following this up by counter-accusations which left him in a stronger position than ever. He was practically invulnerable, because he was too fine a judge of men ever to choose a wrong instrument, and also because he was too absorbed in intrigue ever to fail through carelessness or ignorance. One could say with practical certainty that he would never be found out, that he would go from success to success, and would finally die full of honour, worth several lakhs of rupees.

	Linguistic	Semantic	Structural	Cultural
Specific textual  examples of what you’ve observed when reading at this level—cited in MLA format. (You may use numbers or bullets here to take notes)	·         “Like a great porcelain idol” (Orwell 5) ·         “To become a parasite upon them, had been his ruling ambition” (Orwell 5).	·         “He was a man of fifty, so fat that for years he had not risen from his chair without help, and yet shapely and even beautiful in his grossness; for the Burmese do not sag and bulge like white men, but grow fat symmetrically, like fruits swelling. His face was vast, yellow and quite unwrinkled, and his eyes were tawny. His feet—squat, high-arched feet with the toes all the same length—were bare, and so was his cropped head” (Orwell 5).	·         At that time a ring of clerks were making a steady income by misappropriating Government stores, and Po Kyin (he was plain Po Kyin then: the honorific U came years later) took naturally to this kind of thing” (Orwell 6). ·         “[B]ut the attempts to expose him invariably failed; his supporters, kept loyal by their share of the loot, were too numerous” (Orwell 7).	·         “He would probably be promoted still further and made an acting Deputy Commissioner, with Englishmen as his equals and even his subordinates” (Orwell 6). ·         “U Po Kyin levied a ceaseless toll […] If any village failed in its tribute U Po Kyin took punitive measures—gangs of dacoits attacked the village, leading villagers were arrested on false charges, and so forth” (Orwell 6).
Demonstrate the development of complexity of thought at each level by writing a descriptive response to what you’ve written in the row above.  (Analyze your thought patterns when observing the examples you’ve listed above—these may also be in note-taking form)	Through this we see contrasting descriptions of U Po Kyin’s physical and interior qualities. He is depicted as a fat, round man. This is characteristic of jovial individuals in literature, but this is Orwell, so of course, his personality is belied by his appearance.	Orwell, in his works, used extensive imagery in order to create living, breathing worlds that would be more believable and realistic to his readers. In this quote we see how Orwell uses his imagery to craft U Po Kyin’s appearance. We are told everything about Kyin, and Orwell’s description almost makes us feel as though we are reading about a “great porcelain idol” (Orwell 5). Furthermore, this description becomes key later on because it contrasts so greatly with the description of the normal Oriental people. It shows how Kyin has been corrupted by his interaction with the white man.	Orwell was not renowned for being wordy. His preference was to be direct and blunt. In these quotes we see evidence of this. Orwell makes clear what he wants to say and he uses parenthetical interjections as well as clauses set off by commas to further explain what he means in each and every sentence.	In this section we notice how Kyin has been acclimatized to English society. He sees that the Burmese are no match for the English (in terms of brute force) and he makes his intent to feed off the English. After becoming Magistrate, Kyin is more oppressive to his people than the Englishmen could ever hope to be. In this, Orwell shows how the Europeans’ mission to civilize the Orientals has backfired. Instead of creating a more cultured people, it has encouraged   the rise of degenerate and corrupt individuals like Kyin.