Summary 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.

In the passage Orwell comes across an elephant. The elephant is a wild elephant and had just killed a man. So Orwell is conflicted about killing the elephant because the wild animal has killed an innocent men but when Orwell arrives the elephant is not doing anything. Shocked at the calmness of the elephant, Orwell decides he can and should let the elephant stay there and not kill him over the incident. Yet, he looks over his shoulder and see that over two thousand people have followed him to see what he is going to do. Upon realizing people are watching him he questions his original decision. The author displays the concept of peer pressure here. The influence of others cause him to think that he should shoot the elephant because the people are

Two of Orwell’s first literary works were his essays regarding his experiences as a policeman in Burma during imperialization from Europe. These essays include “A Hanging” and “Shooting an Elephant.” In these essays, he shows his clear disagreement of oppression, even while working for the oppressors. Orwell writes

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

THESIS: Although Orwell is justified, legally shooting the elephant is wrong because, the elephants “must” period was over, the way the animal was shot caused the animal to suffer, and Orwell violated his own beliefs because of peer pressure.

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.

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.

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

Readings for 23 January (Orwell and Mitford) Both Orwell and Mitford’s essays employ a dark, unnerving tone as they go about describing death. In Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” the essayist describes his time serving as an officer in Burma. Ridiculing the concept of Imperialism, Orwell’s prose expresses his hostile feelings toward the British and their hegemony over weaker nations. Orwell sets up the pessimistic, miserable tone of his essay in his introduction, stating, “In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by a large number of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.”

Everyone has a moment in their lives that changes the way they think, or identifies our true views; an event that reveals a part of them that was never known before then. For example, in the essay “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, Orwell himself is working as a British police officer in Burma in the 1920’s. He does not like his job because of his hate for the oppressive nature of the British government. However, he does take the job seriously. One day, he gets a report about an elephant tearing through the town. He quickly gets his gun and rides to the scene with his horse. Once Orwell arrives, the elephant is long gone, but he sees all the damage it has caused, even killing a man in its rampage. Orwell asks for a larger gun, only to be used as a last resort against the elephant, and sets off to find the elephant. Many miles away, in a field, the elephant stands. However, it seems to have calmed down and is now eating as if nothing happened. By this point, Orwell has attracted the attention of hundreds of the natives, who have followed him in anticipation of seeing him kill the elephant. Although Orwell did not want to kill the elephant, he felt as though he had to, because of the position of power he held over the natives. He shoots the elephant, but is not content with his decision. Orwell believes that it was his position of power in the community that forced him into shooting the elephant, to avoid looking like a fool. It was through this event in his life that

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.