Analysis Of George Orwell 's ' Shooting An Elephant '

George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (Orwel, 1936) represents a number of strangers being involved in a combined encounter. The situation throughout the essay represents the unjust British occupation of Burma, the hatred towards him as a British officer and the elephant symbolising the British. The part of the text chosen clearly exemplifies how a forced duty can lead to hatred. The text chosen displays that he is forced to encounter the Burmese people yet they despise him. Although the encounter with the Burmese improves with the arrival of the elephant, Orwell still has a sense of isolation. Throughout the text Orwell questions the presence of the British in the East exploring that the encounter with the Burmese should not have took place.

One day, an elephant broke free from it’s chains and in a fit of “must” began ravaging the bazaar. The Burmese were without weapons, so they had little defense against the beast. Thus, Orwell set out to find it with a rifle much too small to any damage. It was not until, the elephant killed a man that Orwell sent for an elephant rifle. However, upon seeing the elephant rifle the natives went into a frenzy, excited to see the beast killed, but more excited for the meat. The narrator had no intention of shooting the elephant, for once he found it, it was peacefully eating grass, its “must” already wearing off. In the moment, Orwell knew he should not shoot the animal, it was a source of income for someone, an expensive piece of machinery. However, with the crowd of two thousand standing behind him, this choice was far from easy. It is here where the paradox of imperialism begins. Despite Orwell being the one with the rifle and technically being in charge, he feels powerless against the natives. It was in that moment that the author realizes when a man “becomes a tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.” Orwell eventually chose to slay the elephant with multiple gunshots, much to the natives pleasure. To wrap up the story, Orwell explains that he simply shot the elephant to avoid looking a

Orwell does this to help give another example of how he is trying to inform his readers about imperialism. In James A. Tyner’s journal, “Landscape and the mask of self in George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an elephant”, Tyner agrees that, “for the moment, that the elephant does symbolize the British Empire” (265). Orwell gets a call that an elephant has attacked and killed a Burmese man for no reason. This allows the reader to make the connection the elephant’s attack on the Burmese was exactly what the British were doing to the Burmese. The British was trying to establish dominance over the Burmese people and would do whatever it took to gain control. The same thing applies for the elephant. The elephant establishes his dominance by “destroying somebody’s bamboo hut, killing a cow and raiding some fruit-stalls and devouring the stock; it also had met the municipal rubbish van, and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violence upon it” (Orwell, 44). This shows the reader that just like the British, the elephant would do what it took to establish its dominance. Orwell explains that the death of the elephant was a long and drawn out process. This is exactly what happened to the British Empire. The Elephants death shows the fall of the British Empire by its own members. Orwell mentions numerous times “I did not

He repeats over and again that he did not want to shoot the elephant. He confesses, “It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to.” Orwell gives emotional reasons for being against the idea of shooting the animal and not rational. He generalizes all elephants to have a “preoccupied grandmotherly air” and compares the elephant to a cow. The writer uses the simile, “They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick.” to explain the pressure he had from the crowd watching him. Orwell remarks that regardless of his decision to shoot the elephant, he cannot change the thinking of the public about him. Orwell was moved by the hefty crowd that followed him. He was left with no choice other than to shoot the elephant because that was what the crowd expected of him and this scene signifies the failure of imperialism which is the writer’s overall theme. The sentence, “I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East.” helps explain to the reader the real failure of imperialism. Orwell insists that although the white man in the East has power which is symbolized by the rifle, he is still not allowed to make use of it in accordance with his will. He is classifying imperialism as a hollow and futile way of governance. The Englishmen

“Shooting an Elephant” is a short anecdote written by George Orwell. The story depicts a young man, Orwell, who has to decide whether to bend the rules for his superiors or to follow his own path. George Orwell works as the sub-divisional police officer of Moulmein, a town in the British colony of Burma. He, along with the rest of the English military are disrespected by the Burmese due to the English invading their territory and taking over. Over time, Orwell, the narrator, has already begun to question the presence of the British in the Far East. He states, theoretically and secretly, he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” Orwell describes himself as “young and ill-educated,” bitterly hating his job. Orwell uses powerful imagery and diction to convey a depressing and sadistic tone to the story. At the end of the story, he faces a dilemma: to kill the elephant or not.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell retold an occasion where he was struggling to come to a final decision of whether to shoot the elephant or not. With his final decision, the elephant finally lay dying in front of thousands of people. He said that he was forced to shoot it because the Burmese people were expecting him to do that. In addition, he also explained that he had to do it “to avoid looking like a fool” in front of the crowd (14). At first glance, one would think that it makes sense for him to kill the elephant to save his face, but that was not the case. He effectively uses this incident to demonstrate the “real nature of imperialism” (3), whereas the elephant represents the British Empire.

George Orwell began the essay with his perspective on British domination. He stated that it is evil and alongside of that it is oppressive. He felt hatred and guilt toward himself and the Burmese people. The people of Burma did not feel threatened because the narrator of the story had killed the elephant. The Burmese people have lost their dignity and integrity while trying to fight off the British imperialism. Orwell uses allegories to describe his experience of the British imperialism and he had his own view of the matter of slaying the elephant. He successfully used ethos, pathos, and logos by attracting the audience to read his story. He had to make a scene in the story to make the people of Burma feel the same emotion. The elephant was the one reason why it makes this story emotional. He used logos to show that he can kill the elephant even if he does not want to so that it does not make him look fool.

He emphasizes on how it was a slow, painful, agonizing death. Orwell depicts the staggering elephant, and how it took five shots to kill the ‘beast’. The whole scene has an uncertain feeling, as if everything were moving in slow motion. There is a certain sense of helplessness in this scene, as if Orwell was the only person who had the power and authority to choose the elephant’s fate. The ‘beast’ did not put up a fight, but instead died a solemn, graceful death. This could be a comparison to the native people who died during the imperialism of Burma. How they all perished without putting up much of a fight. The elephant could symbolize the people of Burma, the slow, helpless death that the native people suffered. Just like the elephant, they had no value to the British Empire. Orwell goes into intricate detail into the movements of the elephant, he suggested that the elephant “seemed for a moment to rise” (12) as if he wanted to fight back. This could also be a direct reference to the Burmese people, suggesting that they wanted to fight back, but they didn’t because they realized they were no match for the British. It is evident that it takes a long time for the elephant to finally succumb to the pain. Orwell claims it was “dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die”, (12) this could suggest that he himself did not want to shoot the elephant, but he

Orwell uses this metaphor of an elephant’s rage and destruction of homes, theft of food shelves, and even killings as an example to the inner working of imperialism. Metaphorically, Orwell expands his argument about how imperialism is tyrannical towards to the Burmese people by comparing an elephant’s rage to the British Empire’s invasion of Burma and its destruction of the native life. Similarly, the elephant’s theft of food represents the oppressed of the British Empire’s imperialism has brought upon the Burmese people. They try to implement their aim of domination upon Burma without any care upon the Burmese way of life. This event not only makes the oppressed country become the victims of the imperialism, but it also is the foundation of Orwell’s dilemma regarding the killing of an elephant or the peer pressure he feels towards killing. In short, the use of metaphorical devices found throughout Orwell’s narrative help emphasizing the similarities of imperialism to that of an elephant ravaging through a town, illustrating the true effects it has upon the Burmese people.

In George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”,George explores the complexities of imperialism–and how they are mutually pernicious to both people involved. He wrote, “A story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes.” The idea is demonstrated when he hunts down the elephant. Though the Burmese people warn him of the elephant’s rampage and tell him he’s in danger, he finally finds the elephant peacefully grazing–and it is an entirely different creature than what the people described to him.The idea is noteworthy to the essay because, on a prodigious scale, it uncovers the complex characters of imperialism.

Orwell was able to catch the reader’s eye when making a point of imperialism using significance. The elephant had to do with significance a lot because it is the main reason people can tell what the point of the story is. The purpose of the narrative was clear by the end when the young men said Orwell did wrong in killing the elephant and the older men said

The short story “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell is a memoir dealing with the relationship between two groups of people, the British Empire and their previous colony, Burma. In the story Orwell executes an Elephant, who on accounts of the local Burmese people had killed a Burmese man. Throughout the story Orwell represents the two main groups of people in very different ways. The Burmese are seen as spiteful people that are wrongly oppressed and made to rely on the British for everything. These perspective comes from Orwell’s own ethical beliefs as well as being an enforcer of the Empire.

: George Orwell explains in his essay “Shooting an Elephant” that imperialism influences the people within its system, even if they are aware of its flaws, to leave behind their morals despite their intents.

Everyone has a moment in their lives that changes the way they think, or identifies our true views; an event that reveals a part of them that was never known before then. For example, in the essay “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, Orwell himself is working as a British police officer in Burma in the 1920’s. He does not like his job because of his hate for the oppressive nature of the British government. However, he does take the job seriously. One day, he gets a report about an elephant tearing through the town. He quickly gets his gun and rides to the scene with his horse. Once Orwell arrives, the elephant is long gone, but he sees all the damage it has caused, even killing a man in its rampage. Orwell asks for a larger gun, only to be used as a last resort against the elephant, and sets off to find the elephant. Many miles away, in a field, the elephant stands. However, it seems to have calmed down and is now eating as if nothing happened. By this point, Orwell has attracted the attention of hundreds of the natives, who have followed him in anticipation of seeing him kill the elephant. Although Orwell did not want to kill the elephant, he felt as though he had to, because of the position of power he held over the natives. He shoots the elephant, but is not content with his decision. Orwell believes that it was his position of power in the community that forced him into shooting the elephant, to avoid looking like a fool. It was through this event in his life that

In 1936, George Orwell published his short story ‘Shooting an elephant’ in an English magazine. Since then, it has been republished dozens of times and holds a place as a definitive anti-colonial piece of literature, in an era where the British Empire was at its peak and covered almost 1/3 of the Earth’s surface. George Orwell believed that “…imperialism was an evil thing...” and uses much themes, symbolism and irony to convey his strong anti-colonialist feelings.