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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Dog-like:
In Chapter 2, Mrs. Lackersteen bemoans the "laziness" of "servants" in the modern age, reminiscing about simpler times when it was appropriate to pay one's butler "only twelve rupees a month." She resents the newfound audacity she senses in those she believes—in her racist worldview—are inferior to her. In her frustration, Mrs. Lackersteen uses a simile to characterize her former butler, using him as an exemplar of how things used to be:
"I remember when we paid our butler only twelve rupees a month, and really that man loved us like a dog. And now they are demanding forty and fifty rupees, and I find that the only way I can even KEEP a servant is to pay their wages several months in arrears."
Mrs. Lackersteen asserts that her Burmese butler "loved" her and her family "like a dog": with unswerving, ignorant, pandering loyalty. This simile is not only racist but reminiscent of the rhetoric used by White Americans who enslaved Black people. To appease what semblance of a conscience they had left, these White Americans would claim that the people they enslaved were happier in chains—delighted to serve their "masters" with unswerving loyalty. This was, of course, a myth. Enslaved people did everything they could to survive in an unthinkably cruel system of oppression. Mrs. Lackersteen's butler likely did the same, doing everything he could to get into her good graces as a way to protect himself. What Mrs. Lackersteen perceives as audacity is, in reality, an oppressed class growing tired of the boot on its neck.
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