This essay examines Anthony Burgess's novel Time for a Tiger to explore the significance of its representations of the decline of White colonial masculinity during the period of British decolonization in Southeast Asia. It argues that a text like Time for a Tiger deploys representations of the breakdown of White masculinity to obscure the contradictions between the narratives of gender, imperialism, and rationality. The problems resulting from colonialism are portrayed as rooted in the emasculating qualities of the East rather than in the conflicting narratives of Empire.