Short Story

Thankfully the run of Elephant's Graveyard at GCC has come to an end. The plays overly dark, cautionary tale about the evils of using wild animals to entertain the masses, left its audience depressed and deflated. While many playwrights have dark themes such as this play, they usually balance it with some levity and humor so that audiences are entertained as well as motivated to react to the playwrights cause. Unfortunately this play forgot to entertain, and neglected to offer any light.

As portrayed in “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk”, an experiment was to be tested on the animals to study their behavior in certain situations. This article went on to illustrate the procedure and plan on what they were going to do. “To test the elephants’ cooperation skills, a team of scientists modified a classic experiment first administered to chimpanzees in the 1930s, which requires two animals work together to earn a treat” (Morell 30). This indicates the concept and procedure to the experiment. It continues to explain. “The findings

Furthermore, in the last article, “Elephants Console Each Other.” Written by Virginia Morell. The purpose that the author wrote this is to inform the people that are reading this, with facts about how elephants console each other. I know this because in the passage it states. “They help baby elephants stuck in mud holes, use their trunks to ift other elephants that are injured or dying, and even reportedly reassure distressed individual elephants with a gentle touch of their trunk.” This was written for someone who wants to learn about elephant behaviour due to the evidence in the

Then the elephant dropped to the ground, it was dead now. Arumba checked to see if the massive animal was really dead one more time by touching the elephant's eyelid with his spear, it didn't even blink. The hunt had

involving an elephant. The fate of the elephant lies in his hands. Only he can

The elephant had been chained up which is normal when they are about to enter the “must” time.

Throughout the process of shooting the elephant, Orwell’s attitude drastically changes as he pulls the trigger and the massive beast plunges to the ground. Orwell says “When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick-one never does when a shot goes home” (Orwell 11). This mindset tells the reader, as Orwell went to pull the trigger his mind went blank because he knew he was going to be successful at killing the elephant even though that was the last thing he wanted to do. Then the devilish roar of the elephant with glee of the crowd brought him back to real time and shows, how the cruelty brought happiness to the crowd. After the bullets hit the elephant, the tortured breathing continued to slowly annoy Orwell, as he reminded himself of why he did it.

The beast they encountered were told to be “panthers, tygers, wolves, and other beasts of prey” prey meaning predators. Due to the animals hunting at night, explorers had to work quickly throughout the day. The men were scared at night afraid of possible attacks “frightful ditty ‘till day appears” meaning they could barely sleep with all the predators around them. The explorers had made an enemy with nature.

There’s some controversy involved in what appeared in front of the elephant. One of the family members told a newspaper that a guard they were traveling with threw a piece of food to the elephant to deter it from the table. However, the video uploader mentions that a pod fell from the tree. Either way, it didn’t work,

In analyzing the internal conflicts, the narrator has with himself due to peer pressure, results in the loss of his freedom of choice. The first time the reader sees this internal struggle is when the narrator first arrives on the scene where the elephant is located. "Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home” (Orwell 3). The narrator truly does not want to shoot this massive animal that now seems to be calming down from its must. Even though he does not want to shoot the animal he feels a great pressure from the immense crowd surrounding him. After shooting the elephant, the narrator tells the reader , "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool” (Orwell 6). The sole purpose of the narrator shooting the elephant is to make himself look strong and brave in the eyes of the crowd. The narrator did not walk away from the situation, even though he truly wanted to, because the crowd would then become disappointed and most likely laugh and make fun of him. In a piece written by Joyce Moss she explains, “Orwell [the narrator] contends that his feelings of guilt, hatred, and self-hatred are shared by all”(405). Although the narrator did pull the trigger to kill the elephant, he did it only out of peer pressure. If the crowd was not present in this scenario, the narrator would have full control over his self

To begin, all three studies came to one conclusion that elephants work together for good. “Two bowls of corn were attached to the table, but the elephants could reach them only by pulling two ends of the rope… ‘That taught the to pull together’” (Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk paragraph 2). The scientists wanted to see if elephants were able to decipher when they needed someone to help them do something.

She sought to explain to us how the elephant’s behavioral patterns and their higher level intelligence compared to other species. As her article “Elephants Can Lend a Helping Trunk” states very clearly, "The ability to recognize that you sometimes need a little

The behavior of the elephant is very interesting. Elephants use sounds or grumbling to communicate. The sounds are loud to the Elephants but most times humans can't hear the grumbling. Their most developed sense is smell (Janssen). Elephants have a memory span of many years.

We need to get this bridge built as soon as possible. What if the pride comes sooner than we think?” The Elephant, rolled his massive body around and said to the Meerkat, “I’m the strongest animal on this side of the Nile. I could build us a bridge in a blink of an eye.” “Then why don’t you?” asked the Meerkat. The Elephant replied, “I am hot and tired, I could build it now, however I’m sure that everything will be calm till morning.” The Meerkat did not like this response, but he had no strength to stand up to the Elephant, so instead he turned to the Zebra. “What about you?” he said, “don’t you want to be ready for when those predators come?” The Zebra laughed and said, “I’m not one to argue with the Elephant, and if he builds a bridge large enough for himself, there will be no issue in me using

It was a long drive from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi. Dahl throughout his journey saw many astonishing animals as well as a wonderful sight. But just like a good day there comes a frightening night. Dahl says,