The Glass Palace

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Part 6, Chapters 37-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 6, Chapter 37 Summary

Dinu, Alison, Saya John, and Ilongo travel back to Morningside. The towns that were abandoned the day before are now filled with soldiers. The soldiers seem exhausted and the homes seem to have been looted. A soldier, drunk, tries to flag them down but Dinu insists they drive on. Morningside seems untouched by the chaos. Alison spends her final few hours with Dinu.

Kishan investigates the world outside. The Japanese have left, so Arjun is carefully lifted out of the hiding place. With a branch as a crutch, Arjun walks with Kishan until they find the coolie line. From a hidden position they watch the people below and spot the flag of the Indian National Movement. Among the crowd is Hardy, who is deep in conversation with an unknown Sikh. Arjun breaks from the hiding place and limps toward Hardy, shouting.

Hardy ushers Arjun into a medical bay and the bullet wound is re-bandaged. The battalion, Hardy explains, found the coolie line in the night and was offered shelter. Another officer has broken ranks with the English and is trying to form an independent unit. Arjun and Hardy have been invited to join the fight on the Japanese side. Hardy wants to join, but Arjun tries to persuade him otherwise. They resolve to put the argument to the men and allow them to decide for themselves. To a man, the soldiers side with Hardy, including Kishan. Arjun agrees, on the sole condition that they allow their British commanding officer to go free. Hardy eventually acquiesces.

Part 6, Chapter 38 Summary

Alison and Dinu clear out the house at Morningside, backed by the sound of distant gunfire. In the dark house, they agree to be together soon and decide to get married. With her dead parents’ wedding rings, Alison performs a mock ceremony with Dinu. They wake to the sound of planes overhead. Then, it’s time to leave. Alison takes her car and her father’s revolver, as well as Saya John, who blesses their intention to marry. Dinu watches the car speed away.

Arjun is shown to the commanding officer. He is glad to see Arjun, who salutes. As he is led to the path and shown the way, the officer refuses to shake Arjun’s hand and accuses him of being a traitor. For the first time, Arjun is sure of his course of action. He salutes and, reluctantly, the officer returns the gesture.

As Alison drives, she notices steam pouring out of the car’s engine and pulls over. Propping open the hood with a branch, she tells Saya John that they must wait a while for the engine to cool. Eventually, she drives on but only manages a few miles before the engine sputters and she pulls over again. As Saya John sits in the car, he mentions his hopes of attending church the next day. Alison tells him that he will have to miss the service and he soon falls asleep.

Alison wakes at dawn to find her grandfather missing and she chases after him along the empty road. A group of Japanese soldiers on bicycles are on the road ahead and she hides in the trees. The soldiers spot Saya John, who is dressed for church. As Alison runs toward them, she sees a soldier strike Saya John and knock him to the ground. When a soldier aims his rifle at her grandfather, Alison reaches for her revolver. She fires once and, in the confusion, the soldiers bayonet Saya John. Alison fires again and again. They return fire and Alison feels herself knocked to the ground by a bullet. As the soldiers’ footsteps approach, she raises the revolver to her temple and closes her eyes.

Part 6, Chapter 39 Summary

Doh Say leaves his family’s Christmas celebrations to help Rajkumar move the teak. Rajkumar must visit the bank to obtain the money for his workers but before he can enter, air raid sirens sound and he must seek shelter. Bombs fall around Rangoon and Rajkumar worries what effect the deafening blasts will have on the elephants in his yard. He walks as quickly as he can through the chaos. Rajkumar arrives at his timber yard to find it on fire. Doh Say stumbles through the smoke, dragging a dead body. Rajkumar recognizes Neel instantly.

Manju cuts her hair in mourning, hacking at it with a garden scythe. She wounds her scalp but feels no pain. Raymond finds her and takes her back to her baby, insisting that she take care of the child.

The next day is Christmas and the bombers return. The sirens make the baby cry and Manju, unable to bear the sound, steps out into the night air. She finds Rajkumar standing alone, still wearing his clothes from the day before. They stand together and watch the sky.

The next day, the inhabitants of Rangoon are fleeing. The family piles into a car and leaves the city. It takes them days to exit Rangoon, navigating a crowd of Indian refugees heading home toward the border. They stay in Huay Zedi a short while, until it becomes clear the Japanese advance is not slowing down. Doh Say moves his village deeper into the jungle while Rajkumar and Dolly decide to take Manju and the baby into India. The walk is long and hard; Manju is so exhausted that she wants nothing more than to sit beside the trail and die. Rajkumar and Dolly convince her to continue. When they reach a river crossing, Manju throws herself from the raft, leaving her baby with Dolly.

Part 6, Chapters 37-39 Analysis

These chapters portray two important deaths: Alison’s suicide and the untimely end of Rajkumar’s business empire. Though there are other deaths in these chapters, such as Saya John and Manju, neither encapsulate the themes of the novel quite so succinctly.

Alison’s suicide is one of the first times in which she makes an entirely self-assured decision in her life. Throughout the novel, she has happened into circumstances. She came to run Morningside following her parents’ deaths and entered into a relationship with Dinu without ever really defining the terms of their love. In the case of the latter, she found herself actively fighting back against these circumstances through her relationship with Arjun, which she immediately regretted. At the end of her life, the only thing Alison has left to control is her suicide. She has found herself in an inescapable situation: desperate to flee to Singapore, forced to leave Dinu behind, forbidden from escaping with the Europeans, and unable to properly convey the situation to her grandfather. For too long, Alison has been caught between different worlds. She has been too European for Asia and too Asian for Europe. Finally, laying on the ground with the Japanese soldiers advancing, she is able to dictate the course of her own narrative. In her last moments, Alison wrestles back agency over her life and ends it on her terms.

Rajkumar has no such agency. His life has been built on teak and, in one last desperate attempt to provide for his family, he gambles everything he has on one final sale. Just as he is on the cusp of victory, the Japanese invasion has destroyed everything he owns. As well as the death of his son, it is the choking smoke of the burning teak which is most horrifying to Rajkumar. The timber yard, then, becomes a symbol of his folly and his foolish ambition. In one moment, everything he has burns to a cinder. There is no more money, no more business, and no more potential left for him in Burma. He is forced to return home to India along the same refugee trail as his compatriots, no longer afforded the luxuries in life. Despite a rich and eventful life, Rajkumar travels home in the same fashion as everyone else: impoverished and terrified.