Essay On Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

In George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell choice of shooting the elephant was made due to internal pressure. The British Officer is station at Lower Burma. He hates his duty and despises the British Empire; the Officer secretly likes the Burmese. The Burmese shouted at the Officer to shoot the elephant when they saw him holding the “magical rifle,” but his moral conscience made him not want to shoot the elephant. When the Officer notice thousandths of Burmese staring at him, he felt like he must “do what the natives expect of him,“ because if he doesn’t shoot the elephant “the crowd would laugh” at him.

2. In paragraphs 3-5 Orwell is shown as searching for the elephant and discovering all the damage that the elephant has caused while on its rampage, and we see orwell eventually “sent an orderly to a friends house to borrow an elephant rifle”(page 2). After he receives this gun he is shown as socially pressured because all the burmese people expect him to “shoot the elephant” (page 3), but he doesn’t want to shoot the elephant himself. These details intensify the conflict because he originally got the rifle to defend himself, but now since all the burmese people already expect him to shoot the elephant he can’t really back down since he would be laughed at and mocked if he did. Orwell has to decide

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.

Due to George Orwell’s many successful works, he has remained a recognizable and respected author from his first moments of fame until now. Orwell’s novels and essays touch on aspects of government and human nature that will always remain relevant. With America’s changing values and controversial times, Orwell’s warning seem more relevant than ever and prove that with strong ideas, a novel can remain current beyond lifetimes.

All the fuss, actions he was encouraged to make, lead back to his job he had to do, which was one he despised. Orwell’s introduction makes it very clear he doesn't not like being a police officer and especially does not like imperialism. “For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” (Orwell,1963,pg. 1) He wanted nothing to do with imperialism, he was all for the Burmese. He didn't believe in the cruel ways the British had forced him to act on. His words are spread among many sentences created this harsh tone. He was furious he was considered part of the imperialism. He was in the group though, and being part of this came with responsibility and standards. Orwell had to prove he was worthy and could hold up his end

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.

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.

When you know that everyone wants you to do something and their will is pushing yours, even if you feel like what they want done isn't what you believe should be done. This is the problem that George Orwell faced, he was pushed by a crowd to kill the the elephant even though he felt it was wrong.  The essay shows through the language that Orwell uses that his pride pushed him to kill the elephant and the deep regret he feels afterwards.

Throughout the passage, it mentions how Orwell was given a report to check up on, that explains how an elephant that is not under supervision has broken loose and is causing catastrophe around the people. While this was a serious case, Orwell took his rifle which he mentions how it is too small to kill a large animal like the elephant, but he thought that the noise would simply terrorize the animal. Suddenly, he came around a man that was killed by the elephant, therefore, Orwell decided to switch up his rifle for a much larger one as self-defense. On the other hand, the people of Burma noticed how Orwell made the switch to a larger gun, and assumed that he has decided to kill the elephant. As the news was spread all over, the crowd has gotten larger and had followed him to watch him shoot the elephant.

What is perceived as good and bad? Every person has a different standard of behavior or beliefs concerning what are and are not acceptable for them to do or morals. These morals are the base of how a person acts in a society. Morality plays a huge role in decision-making; people should never disregard their ethical and moral beliefs solely to justify societal expectations. Morals are what make an individual. We should not have to do something just because society says it is the right thing to do because we believe in actions and activities being right and wrong.

During the last few weeks of my senior year of high school, I was hanging out with a few friends; it was late at night and we were on our way to a nearby park. Out of sheer boredom, we started playing pranks on one another. Some of the pranks were downright awful. In one instance, my friends decided to hide in a nearby bush and scare people who walked by. Initially, I was against pranking people, but reluctantly agreed because I did not want to be known as the “killjoy.” One of the people we scared, a five-year-old returning from the park, fell in a puddle and hurt his knee. We all ran away to avoid getting caught. Actually, I did not want to prank people; however, the social pressure of being with my friends in addition to my role in the group eventually caused me to comply. In “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell, Orwell faced a similar dilemma. “Shooting an Elephant” is an essay that depicts Orwell’s conflictions about shooting a rampaging elephant while he served as an Imperial policeman in Burma during British colonial rule. In his essay, Orwell describes the difficult decision of whether or not to shoot the elephant and why he made his decision. Although he did not initially want to shoot the elephant, the social pressure of being surrounded by a crowd of Burmese natives encouraging him and his role as an Imperial policeman ultimately forced his hand. The concepts of social pressure and roles are studied in many different experiments and studies. Two prominent

The Burmese abhorred Orwell, and would antagonize him when possible. Orwell, however, felt different feelings towards the Burmese people. He had secretly been for the Burmese cause, and against their aggressor ― the British. His job as a sub-divisional police officer gave Orwell further insight into the ‘dirty work’ of the British Empire, and caused him to strongly dislike his occupation. The British huddled the oppressed, naked, abused prisoners and long-term convicts into stinking, dank jails and struck them into submission with bamboo. This

George Orwell was a police officer who was ill educated and witnessed many suffering and difficulties which faced Burmese under the British imperialism. Orwell became one of the greatest symbolisms who helped us to understand the evil of colonialism in the primitive Burmese. The hatless between British imperialism and the Burmese were growing rapidly which made George’s works of helping people more difficulty especially in the face of violence, robbery and restoring peaces to areas where European were seen as evil. The shooting of lose elephant by Orwell was seen as a golden opportunity to deliver the symbolism of European power and its superior cultures over the Burmese “Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd--seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind (pg.753)”. The elephant was already caused much destruction in some areas for example he destroyed a bamboo hut, killed a cow, raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock. As Orwell showed his intension of killing the elephant, he received a great supports from natives Burmese for many reasons, first, by killing the elephant, the natives would get the meat from elephant, will also

After reading George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” it made me think a lot about times when I stayed silent and went along with something that I thought was wrong or did not want to do. Orwell did not want to kill the elephant but thought that if he did he would be more respected or that if he did not shoot it the people would hate him even more. I have stayed silent for many things and there is one time where I should have said something and I did not. I was put in an uncomfortable spot and it really made me feel like I did the wrong thing afterwards.