Summary And Diction Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

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.

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.

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

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.

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,

The quest for power is one which has been etched into the minds of men throughout history. However, it can be said that true power is not a result of one’s actions but comes from the following one’s own beliefs without being influenced by others. This principle sets up the story for Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. The protagonist, Orwell himself, is a sub divisional police officer in Burma, a British colony. Orwell must try to find and use his inner power when he is faced with the decision of whether or not to kill an elephant which has ravaged the Burman’s homes. The state of power established through the imperialistic backdrop show that Orwell, as a colonist, should be in control. As well, the perspective and ideas given by Orwell

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

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 animal is a working animal and to do work is to engage in a recognizably social activity; the animal belongs, as Orwell later discloses, to an Indian, a person below the British in the local hierarchy but above the Burmese, a person of some wealth, for the elephant is the equivalent of “a huge and costly piece of machinery” in the local economy (par. 4). Orwell recognizes the facts from both sides of this situation: (1) the elephant should be killed because of

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.

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.

Orwell abandons his morals and kills the elephant to garner the approval of the Burmans. He feels compelled to shoot the animal because the Burmans "did not like me, but with the magical rifle in