The Elephant as a Symbol for Imperialism in "Shooting an Elephant”

The story, written in first person, gives insight of the narrator’s thought process. It is well conveyed that Orwell is very unhappy with his current position and is working for something he doesn’t believe in, which allows his audience to feel sympathetic to his current situation. His dilemma is clearly presented- whether he should shoot the elephant or not- which provides a universal theme of a personal battle, to choose what one believes is right, or whether to conform with society. Ultimately, this provides an emotional connection between Orwell and the reader, as they can relate to the feeling, which gives them a better understanding of the story’s main point. The shooting of the elephant itself also provokes an emotional response from the audience, as Orwell employs the element of death in a powerful and symbolic way. It is well persuaded throughout the story that he believed the elephant did not deserve to die, and the death itself is portrayed as devastating to him..” (Orwell, 5). The remorseful tone in this ending sentence exposes to the audience that just because something appears to be socially acceptable does not mean in any way that it is right for us to do, in which this case, the guilt exposed to the reader illustrates the negative consequences of social

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.

“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.

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

In “Shooting an Elephant”, the act of shooting the animal symbolizes cowardness because Orwell did it because he wouldn’t be laughed at, he

During the killing of the elephant, Orwell only cared not to be seen as a fool by his people, who he sees as judges: "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." Ironically, the British actually control the British officer instead of being the other way around. Even though, Orwell initially didn't want to hurt the elephant, the killing event actually makes him feel important. He lost his freedom

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

. By the type of language and the choice of words that the author used to write his essay, it is very likely that it was written for the British people, to make them aware of the injustice and cruelty of Imperialism in the colonies. The author’s aim is to make the reader feel disturbed and uneasy by describing in detail his negative experiences in India. This rhetorical analysis explores the success of the author in portraying the negative impact that Imperialism had on those being governed under it, but also on the impact on those in power. The way Orwell used the words for describing the scene of shooting the elephant, his aim was to get the reader’s mind to understand the injustice of Britain’s rule over the natives. While Shooting an

Orwell employs symbolism as a major literary technique, aiding our understanding of his stance against colonialism and our understanding of the setting. From the start, it is clear that he represents the modern, the western industrial English, at complete odds with the rural and primitive Burmese. It is believed that the focal symbolic point would be the narrators stand against the elephant. In the paragraph in which the narrator fires at the elephant, it is seen as docile, not bothering anyone anymore and having only made a sporadic wrong. The narrator then fires at the quite calm elephant once, but it does not fall and so, while it is still weak, he fires two more shots, bringing the magnificent creature down. Burma (The country in which the story is situated) has a long history of wars with the British Empire before finally giving in to Colonialism; three wars to be exact. It can be seen in the history books that Burma only wronged the British in a minor way and in fact was not directly bothering the British Raj and much like the narrator, it

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

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

He finds the elephant to be more important than the people because he finds a similarity with the elephant. He is very similar to the elephant because the narrator is compelled to do a job that he hates on impulse, and he watches death and causes a lot of agony in the Burmese people’s live. This is related to how the elephant went on rage and tried to wipe out any of the Burmese people who got in its path. He uses the phrase “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirted little beast who tried to make my job impossible” (Orwell 2). As Orwell finds the value of the elephant, he finds no value in the people; the elephant and him share the interest that they are hard workers and cannot handle what they have to do in

The glorious days of the imperial giants have passed, marking the death of the infamous and grandiose era of imperialism. George Orwell's essay, Shooting an Elephant, deals with the evils of imperialism. The unjust shooting of an elephant in Orwell's story is the central focus from which Orwell builds his argument through the two dominant characters, the elephant and its executioner. The British officer, the executioner, acts as a symbol of the imperial country, while the elephant symbolizes the victim of imperialism. Together, the solider and the elephant turns this tragic anecdote into an attack on the institution of imperialism.

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.

and disrupting the little bit of peace that they have. So in that instant he