Shooting An Elephant

The consequence of imperialism is discussed in “Shooting an Elephant”; The victim of imperialism is not only the natives but also the narrator. Indeed, this essay is about the suffering and the struggling of Orwell who is torn between the Burmese’s actions and the Imperial System.

The story “Shooting an Elephant” is told by an ongoing and first person narrator, who was committed to events he was faced with and obtained insight and wisdom from these adventures even though he struggled internally and externally.

One factor that is used in this story is the passage of time. Granted, not a lot of time passes during this short tale, it lasts only about an afternoon, but none the less; time is important to the story. When the traveler first enters the village, the villagers are first apprehensive and taken back by this bulking behemoth, commanding so much of their square. After all; these are people who cannot see and have never encountered an elephant, making it impossible for them to know the nature of this creature. For a quick moment, the villagers analyze this “elephant,” and not too long after, an elder musters up the courage to reach out and make his first physical discovery of the creature. Soon thereafter; the rest of the villagers join in the probing of this creature. This first encounter tells a

This story is a representation of George Orwell’s perception of British imperialism around the world. It is a firsthand account of how imperialism affects both rulers and the oppressed using a short story. The author shows how imperialism is a prison to not only the Burmese, but also the British. The message can clearly be seen though Orwell’s regret in being forced to kill an elephant. The purpose of this essay is to explain Orwell’s true message of anti-imperialism using the nature of tyranny and the British Empire as examples.

As society has progressed, the evolution of imperialism has come to a point where people see it has pure history. It has vanished from our daily lives as we have not recently witness a country trying to dominate another. In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, we are able to envision the lives of the Burmese as they were involuntarily controlled by the British. In the early 1900’s we are told a true story of Orwell himself where he was once established in Burma was apart of his military service. During his service, he describes his living situation by noting that the army as well as himself were not appreciated. He mentions, “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so.”(1) One day he

George Orwell describes to us in “Shooting an elephant” the struggle that his character faces when to win the mobs approval and respect when he shoots down an innocent animal and sacrifices what he believes to be right. Orwell is a police officer in Moulmein, during the period of the British occupation of Burma. An escaped elephant gives him the opportunity to prove himself in front of his people and to be able to become a “somebody” on the social

Elephants have been victims of not just the incessant poaching but also of the civil wars; ultimately making them to fight back. The killing case have gone over the roof, as the “singular perversity” (Siebert 353) of the attacks. In India, “nearly one thousand people have been killed by elephants between 2000 and 2004” (Siebert 353). Several frequent attacks were recorded in Africa and other villages where the denizens were forced to evacuate their houses. ‘nearly one thousand’ which accentuates the gravity of the situation in 4 years had gained a lot of attention from the elephants researchers. Seibert’s prime third perspective, Gay Bradshaw, Oregon State psychologist, claims that that “everybody pretty much agrees that the relationship between elephants and people has dramatically changed” (Siebert 353). The choice of diction ‘dramatically’ indicates that elephants are not being violent towards human beings but they are also doing it intentionally. Dramatic behavior changes over the years are now being explained in the elephants. “Bradshaw and several colleagues argued that today’s elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma” (Siebert 354), due to “decades of poaching and habitat loss” (Siebert 354). Elephants are becoming more destructive and Bradshaw looked into combining “traditional research into elephant behavior with insights about trauma drawn from

Being from the east, nobody is fond of him, but he sees this as an opportunity to prove himself. This story reveals his meaning of violence as he is stuck in this dilemma. Is it really worth it, to shoot the elephant? Thomas C. Foster’s chapter, “. . . More

This leads to a stagnation of ability and a moral failure to assist their fellow man, both Burmese and English. Our narrator knows nothing about Elephant behavior but when faced with one he only asks the bare minimum of questions, because he does not wish to act in a way that would misrepresent the sahib

George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, describes his experience in Burma involving the Burmese people and an elephant ravaging the community. Orwell was disliked by many because he was a British police officer, and was often ridiculed and taunted by the Burmese people. Despite being mocked constantly, Orwell was not against the people of Burma, but was on their side. He was displeasured with his job and stated, “… I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear.” The major conflict in the essay was the shooting of the elephant itself.

One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism — the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant 's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone ‘must’. It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when

In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, Orwell paints a picture of an event he faced in Burma. As an unexperienced British officer of the British Raj, he was ridiculed and disrespected by the community. Robert Carr says in “Concession & Repression: British Rule in India 1857-1919”, “The period 1857-1919 in the British Raj can be seen as one of concession and repression” (3). The essay displays more than just a simple storyline, it was life changing. Towards the end of the story Orwell ends up shooting the elephant.

The narrator decided to shoot the elephant because he realized he will lose face and be humiliated if he does not shoot it.

The elephant, in this case, represent imperialism. Orwell, being in the middle of imperialism and the Burmese people, did not want to destroy imperialism in the first place even though he does not like the way it treated the innocent Burmese people. However, seeing the elephant destroying Burmese’s homes and lives, he finally realized what imperialism had done to the people of Burma. The Indian man who died represent the fact that Burmese people are weak against the British; they are poor and have neither strength nor “the gut to raise a riot” (1) against imperialism regardless of how much they hated it. Even though he did not kill imperialism like the way he did to the elephant, he believes that it will be destroy one day for the evil thing that they had done. As illustrated by Orwell,

I whole-heartedly believe that “To Shoot an Elephant” told the is a classic piece of literature. When reading it for the first time through, I felt that the narrator was the oppressing force in the narrative. But with the second read through I came to