George Orwell's Style of Writing

Just by a simple glance at George Orwell's style of writing one can grasp a lot. He first starts the essay by discussing how the narrator was poorly treated in Lower Burma when serving as a police officer. More specifically the narrator states, "I was hated by large numbers of people,", and "anti-European feeling was very bitter." From there one could interpret that although he was a British soldier with much power he was "baited whenever it seemed safe to do so." He then goes into much detail and paints scenes into the reader's mind such as how a European woman could not cross the market without having someone "spit betel juice over her dress," to create a sense of remorse for the roughly treated Europeans. Furthermore, Orwell creates detailed imagery throughout his text to show how poorly Europeans were treated in Burma. He uses connotation words in the scenes he creates to display a certain feeling. For an example, in football scene where someone trips he uses the word "hideous laughter" to display the audience's support of bad treatment to the Europeans and their cruelty. Soon after succeeding in gaining the reader's sympathy by expressing the narrator's feelings as an Anglo-Indian in Burma, Orwell shifts his focus on criticizing imperialism.

In his second paragraph, the narrator overtly utters his criticism towards imperialism when he says "I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing... I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British."At this point, the reader can interpret that the narrator has sympathy for the Burmese; however, is put in a circumstance that he has no choice but to obey the oppressor, the British due to his position. This is where the reader can relate the them...

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...irony in his essay to come across with the point to put an end to imperialism; which is symbolized as the "Elephant" in the essay. There are many parts of the essay where irony can be found. For an example, when the narrator was being poorly treated by the Burmese and, then later on, the narrator sympathizing for the Burmese being part of the British domination. The other type of irony Orwell implies is when the narrator, a leader in Burma, follows the Burmese expectations and shoots the elephant to avoid looking like a fool and being part of the 'imperialist leaders'. The irony here is him stating at the end of the essay "I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant." because he was glad that someone has been killed, so that he can help out the Burmese by also killing.