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A white British person living in India without personal wealth or stable employment—a former soldier or servant, for example. In British colonial India, the word was roughly equivalent to “white trash.” At the beginning of the story, Peachey Carnehan and Daniel Dravot describe themselves as loafers.
Loafer Quotes in The Man Who Would Be King
The The Man Who Would Be King quotes below are all either spoken by Loafer or refer to Loafer. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Man Who Would Be King Quotes
There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated.
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The story begins with the narrator, a newspaper correspondent for a paper called the Backwoodsman, traveling across India by train as part of his work. He is forced to travel by intermediate class, and in explaining what this entails, he offers a succinct account of the racial hierarchy in colonial British India. Wealthy, white British people, who are at the top of the hierarchy, generally travel by first and second class. The narrator views Eurasians—that is, people of mixed European and Asian descent and Indians who have adopted British customs—as the natural passengers in intermediate class. Native Indians, on the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero si
They do not understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end of the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid.
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On the train, the narrator meets Peachey Carnehan, a loafer who has a scheme to blackmail the king of a nearby native state (that is, a vassal state allied with the British Empire but not under the empire’s direct control). Carnehan plans to pose as a newspaper correspondent and threaten to publish information about the king’s cruelty. This plan is plausible, the narrator explains, because the kings of native states are under the mistaken impression that the rest of the world cares about how they run their internal affairs. The narrator describes the native states as brutal, uncivilized, and technologically Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro p
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Loafer Term Timeline in The Man Who Would Be King
The timeline below shows where the term Loafer appears in The Man Who Would Be King. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Man Who Would Be King
...Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated.” One of these loafers strikes up a conversation with the...
(full context)
...at Marwar Junction, he finds the train car of Carnehan’s friend, Daniel Dravot, another British loafer, and delivers the message. However, the narrator becomes concerned that his two new friends will...
(full context)
