Analysis Of George Orwell 's ' Shooting An Elephant '

As a European white man in the British colony of India, George Orwell, in his narrative essay Shooting an Elephant, describes one of his most memorable events while living in the Southeast Asian nation of Burma. Orwell’s purpose is to share the absolute horror of living in imperialism. He adopts a tense tone throughout his essay by using vivid description and gruesome imagery in order to relate the incident with the elephant to what it is like to live in imperialism.

Staring down a gun barrel at one of the largest and most majestic animals can often times be extremely intimidating. One might be temped to do something they are normally uncomfortable with when an angry crowd is right behind you watching your every move. In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”, Orwell finds himself in the same situation having to make a drastic decision that normally he would not do. In Orwell’s essay, he is trying to inform his audience about the negative ways in which British Imperialism has on people involved.

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.

George Orwell who wrote a narrative essay Shooting an Elephant” has a tense tone of literature towards his life. He is using a stressed tone due to peer pressure, and lack of confidence toward himself as he is an imperialist who came to protect uphold the laws. He's difficult attitude sets the scene for the story in his eyes. Throughout the story the concept of his decisions and action will be projected through the uses of diction; the write words to express his feelings.

and disrupting the little bit of peace that they have. So in that instant he

As Orwell glanced at the growing crowd, he instantly perceived the common desires of the people “They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all” (3).These people wanted revenge for the death of the innocent man, the meat its carcass would provide, and the amusement of witnessing the shootings “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly” (3). Because of these collective expectations, Orwell had to appear determined, authoritative, and decisive through shooting the elephant or else his reputation and the rest of the British colonizers’ reputation would be

Story is about a Burma village where an elephant got loose and wreaked havoc on the town and kills a villager (a man). George Orwell is the sheriff and ultimately makes the choice to kill the elephant.

The white man’s burden is an idea that the white men have a job to take care of the uncivilized beings and develop them to be a more socially endowed race. Their belief that they are superior to the natives is where this is rooted. This idea excused racism and portrayed it as more of a positive element in our society, rather than the destructive mechanism that it actually is. It also caused white men to truly believe that they are better than any other race out there. In “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell, the narrator’s brain is subconsciously imbedded with this notion. He claims to be opposed to imperialism and everything about it while also hating his job and the people associated with it. These two things cannot go hand in hand.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell achieves two achievements : he shows us his personal experience and his expression while he was in Burma; he use the metaphor of the elephant to explain to describe what Burma looked like when it was under the British Imperialism. The special about this essay is that Orwell tells us a story not only to see the experience that he had in Burma; he also perfectly uses the metaphor of the elephant to give us deep information about the Imperialism. By going through this essay, we can deeply understand what he thinks in his head. He successfully uses the word choices and the sentences to express his feeling. By reading this essay, Orwell succeeds us with his mesmerizing sentences and shows us the

Orwell next faces the moral dilemma of whether or not to shoot the elephant. At first, it is clear that he does not feel the internal urge to shoot the elephant: "It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him" (Orwell.525). However, Orwell's virtue becomes dwarfed as the Burmese's "two thousand wills [press him] forward"(524) to kill the elephant. At this point there is an obvious role reversal as the Burmese begin to strongly influence Orwells decisions. Because he constantly dwells on what the crowd will think of him he shoots the elephant. Thus submitting to the will of the people and committing the immoral deed of abandoning ones own conscious because of the pressure of others.

George Orwell’s personal narrative “Shooting An Elephant” expresses the message that imperialism is wrong. He demonstrates this through his occupation as the sub divisional police officer in the essay when talking about an experience with an angry elephant. In Scott Russell Sanders personal essay “The Inheritance of Tools” he expresses the message that tradition and family are important. He demonstrates this by talking about his father’s death and the impact he made in his life. In both stories the authors use three rhetorical strategies to capture the reader's attention, which are, time, significance and persona.

The language that was used to express how George Orwell was feeling leading up to him killing the elephant shows how he felt the situation should of been handled compared to how he actually handled it. “ I had no intention of shooting the elephant”(Orwell 112) in this phrasing Orwell is clearly saying before

In the essay “Shooting an Elephant”, George Orwell recounts his experiences as a British police officer in the British Raj during the 1930s and 40s. During this time period, Great Britain controlled most of South Asia, including the Burman village where Orwell was stationed. He describes the futility of imperialism for both parties involved, directing his experiences to the European audiences of the time. This is meant to provide perspective towards the consequences of European imperialism and internal struggle which Orwell and the British Empire both face. The act of imperialism restricts both the conqueror and the conquered from true freedom and is pointless due to the resistance and morality of human nature.

Have you ever been pressured into doing something you didn’t want to, but felt like you had no other option? The narrator in Orwell's, “Shooting an Elephant” had a very similar experience. He was pressed by the Burmese into committing a senseless killing that he did not deem necessary. This transformation of the main characters mentality and morals gives the audience a terrific example of characterization, which would not be possible without the effective use of point of view in Orwell's story.

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.