Reading the Club as Colonial Island in E.M.Forsters' <i>A Passage to India</i> and George Orwell's <i>Burmese Days</i>

This paper examines the “island effect” in two enormously influential colonial fictions published in the final decades of the British Empire in India. Through a detailed analysis of the Club scene in Forster’s <i>A Passage to India</i> (1924) and Orwell’s pervasive use of the Kyauktada Club in <i>Burmese Days</i> (1934), this paper brings critical focus to the phenomenon of the Club in British India. It explores the way the Club functions as an ‘island’ microcosm within a larger framework of colonial isolation, and the way intimate colonial relations prevail within its walls and sustain an isolated community which fears for its survival outside its enclosing border.