Letter From Birmingham Jail

In his essay Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell was a police officer during the period of British colonization in Moulmein, Burma. He was told to take care of an elephant which had escaped from a cage and lost control. Orwell was demanded to kill the elephant by the Burmese, and thus experiencing a difficult moment which challenged his moral consciousness in deciding whether to shoot the elephant or not. Ultimately, he had cleared up his mind and decided to shoot the elephant. In fact, he shot the elephant was that he did not want to look like a fool. In another essay Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King was arrested for protesting without a permit on April 12, 1963. On April 16, 1963, he wrote a letter in replying to the eight

fellow clergymen from Alabama while he was confined in the Birmingham jail. The letter emphasizes how racism had been ignored and left the black communities behind due to the segregation in the south of the United States. He also points out that the existence of injustice, especially in Birmingham, needs to be changed across the nation. A comparison of these two essays show how Orwell and King make their decisions based on their own moral consciousness. When confronting volatile pressures and circumstances of civil inequality, Orwell and King effectively coped with these sorts of conflict through moral consciousness and ethics.
The principle of imperialism had affected how George Orwell makes his decisions through his personal belief. During the period of British colonization, Burma was one of the regions that was ruled by the British Empire under imperialism, and that the Burmese were once abused by the British. Because of that, most of the Burmese disliked and showed rebellion to the British. By observing how much the Burmese hated the British and were being oppressed, Orwell stated that “imperialism was an evil thing,” and felt sense of guilt while seeing the way how the British treated the prisoners as he called it “dirty work” (425). Even though Orwell is a British, he could not stand for the action of what his people had done to the Burmese. That triggered Orwell’s moral consciousness on whether he should keep his job or not. As he wrote that “I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited beasts who tried to make my job impossible,” he expressed the unwillingness of working as a police officer under the principle of imperialism (426). The quote also implies that he believes a nation should not be ruled by the concept of totalitarianism.
In the meantime, Orwell encountered another issue that had provoked his moral consciousness. He was asked to take care of an escaped elephant, which was threatening the safety of the Burmese and was demanded to kill it by the Burmese. However, he stated that he “did not want to shoot the elephant” with his rifle since he saw the elephant was in a peaceful state at that moment. As a result, Orwell was struggling with his mind in deciding whether to shoot the elephant or not due to the pressure that was given by the gigantic crowd (428). By thinking what the Burmese would think about him, he realized that he “was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (428). Yet, Orwell could have ignored the peer pressure from the crowd since he had the superior power to decide whether to shoot the elephant. If he had not shoot the elephant, he might have disappointed the crowd. At the end of the essay, although Orwell admitted that he “had done it solely to avoid looking a fool,” he had made a right decision to kill the elephant to make sure that the Burmese were safe (430). In fact, more people might have been killed if Orwell merely ignored the elephant.
However, some might argue that it is unnecessary for Orwell to shoot the elephant, and he could have shot it until it had gone wild again. But the fact is that the elephant had killed a human being. Even though it seemed like it was in a peaceful manner, it is difficult to predict the motives of the elephant, and thus, it had a potential threat to the people of Burma. Additionally, Orwell was told that the Burmese “had the elephant’s body almost to bones” (430). During that time of period, the poverty was significant in Moulmein, Burma. The Burmese who observed the whole process of the elephant being killed were benefited by collecting the elephant meat that they could not usually afford. As a result of that, thousands of hundreds of people could survive without suffering from hunger.
Similarly, social injustice in Birmingham had sparkled the role that moral consciousness and ethics play in decisions made by King.

Segregation and discrimination between black and white communities had been lasting for more than five decades in the United States. The idea of segregation and racism had become a norm in a society, passing down from generation to generation. The whites held the majority power, whereas the blacks lacked human rights and were once suffering because of the segregation and discrimination. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King claimed that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and had stand for his own personal belief to fight for freedom and equality for African-Americans in Birmingham (407). Yet, he was considered be an “outside agitator” by the white moderates since he came from another state, Atlanta. However, the idea of “outside agitator” appears to be illogical because both Atlanta and Alabama states are in the same nation. People who live in the United States should not be considered be an outsider (King, 407). Even though the fathers of this land have declared independence few centuries ago, segregation was still being practiced in the 1990s. King believes that a nation should be united instead of being

segregated.
It is unfortunate that the racial injustice was still exist despite King had engaged in nonviolent campaign to fight against unjust laws.

After requesting for negotiation with the leaders of Birmingham, they not only ignored the request but also showed no attention to the racial segregation issue. They simply told the blacks to “wait,” and that the purpose of telling them to “wait” seems like an excuse to avoid confronting the problem indirectly (408-409). This is one of the motives that sparkled King’s attention to enforce direct action. Segregation and discrimination are unjust laws that degrade the value of a human being, and identifies “persons to status of things” (King, 410). It also prevents African- American from voting and prohibits them to go to certain places based on the race. King suggests a most powerful points saying that no law can be considered “democratic structured” when the minority has no part in enacting the law due to discrimination. These unjust laws contradicts the term of democracy which was founded by the fathers of America as King refers to what Thomas Jefferson had said “we hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal” (414). A faith of a person should not be determined based on his or her skin

color.