Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is an essay mainly describing a white British imperial police officer’s experience in Burma when he encounters a ravaging elephant while he was on duty. The story is set in the British-conquered Burma. Throughout this essay, the narrator describes his encounters with the natives and the way he feels towards them and how they they respond to the Europeans. Through the description and portrayal of imperialism the narrator attempts to convey that being a conqueror

George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant" portrays demanding situations as the leading cause of people desperately attempting, disregarding what is right or wrong, to save their egos from social criticism. More specifically, by saying that he was "an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind," Orwell argues that his actions felt predetermined by the will of the Burmese and that, just as he had done, humanity's fear of defying expected social roles causes people to

society. He shows that people know that “evil” exists. However, instead of spreading “innocence” in the society, people are spreading “evilness”. In the article “Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, he states that an elephant had gone mad and killed a man. The British officer does not want to shoot the elephant but he shot the elephant because of his reputation and his powers. Orwell argues that a people are “evil” for many centuries. However, people’s “evilness” reveal when they start to look for

are acutely sensitive to the environment we are embedded in. George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant” illustrates this point. The story is essentially a critique of British imperialism. We are introduced to the unnamed protagonist of the story who seems to represent Orwell himself. The protagonist is a police officer who is hated by the Burmese. Later, a sub-inspector rang him up to tell him that a mad elephant was ravaging the marketplace. In this event, the narrator describes that the people

nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies” (“Imperialism”). In short, imperialism is the act of an empire governing a foreign territory. George Orwell visualizes this act for us in the short story of Shooting an Elephant. Throughout the story, the reader follows through the eyes of a young English officer who polices the Burmese. The audience is introduced quickly to his bitterness, yet pity toward the Burmese, and his anger at his mother country for having

Moral Issues and Decisions in Shooting an Elephant    Throughout "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, he addresses his  internal battle with the issues of morality and immorality. He writes of several situations that show his immoral doings. When George Orwell signed up for a five-year position as a British officer in Burma he was unaware of the moral struggle that he was going to face. Likewise, he has an internal clash between his moral conscious and his immoral actions. Therefore, Orwell

received a call. It was the other side of the town calling the station to inform the police that an elephant was on the loose. He quite honestly did not know what to do, but he was curious what was happening so off he went. He got on a pony and grabbed a gun that was obviously incapable of taking down the elephant. While on his way to the elephant scene, he heard about the destruction the elephant caused: destroying a bamboo hut, killing a cow and destroying a van. As he kept heading in that

Technique Analysis of ‘Shooting an elephant’ Written by George Orwell Essay by Arthur Diennet In 1936, George Orwell published his short story ‘Shooting an elephant’ in an English magazine. Since then, it has been republished dozens of times and holds a place as a definitive anti-colonial piece of literature, in an era where the British Empire was at its peak and covered almost 1/3 of the Earth’s surface. George Orwell believed that “…imperialism was an evil thing...” and uses much themes

Rhetorical Analysis of George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell, a journalist and an author of 1903 through 1950, is not only the author of “Shooting an Elephant,” but surprisingly, he is also the narrator and the main character. Orwell’s narrative essay of 1936 takes place in squalid, British-occupied Moulmein, lower Burma. To begin, in the opening of his piece, Orwell describes himself as a young, British police officer who, ironically, despises the British imperial project in Burma

"Shooting an Elephant" is one of the most popular of George Orwell's essays. Like his essays "A hanging" and "How the Poor Die", it is chiefly autobiographical. It deals with his experience as a police-officer in Burma. After having completed his education, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police, and served in Burma, from 1922 to 1927, as an Assistant Superintendent of Police. His experiences as an officer in Burma were bitter. He was often a victim of the hostility and injustices at the hands