Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell Analysis

Every author puts a great deal of effort in making their work successful, meaningful and symbolic however, some author do excellent job in achieving this goal and on the other hand some might be unsuccessful to achieve the goal. In the essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, the author George Orwell has worked extremely hard to express and relate the meaning of the symbols to the story. In the essay, the protagonist character George Orwell is the Indian imperial police officer in Burma and is hated by Burmese people because he is a part of the British Empire who is the oppressor of the Burmese people. Orwell does show sympathy of native people of Burma but he cannot do anything else to change the minds of the British Empire. Afterwards, he comes to the point where he has to make an unwanted decision of shooting an elephant due to the pressure of the Burmese People and also Orwell himself did not want to lose his pride to the native people of the Burma. Throughout the essay, George Orwell has used several symbols effectively such as, the

elephant, dead coolie, George Orwell and rifle in a way so that appears natural and has specific meanings related to the essay that readers can easily identify and can understand.
George Orwell has used the elephant in such a powerful way that it is visible in the story the elephant is symbolizing the British Empire and the vindictive rules against the rebellions. The use of an elephant is suitable in this essay because as elephant the British Empire is also powerful however, the elephant become helpless while Orwell was shooting it. Even though an elephant was enormous and powerful he was not able to do anything in front of Orwell because he was chained. Just like this, the British Empire had been dominant over native people of the Burma, however; the policeman George Orwell was not able to refuse to
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shoot an elephant when he was pressurized by the Burmese people. Moreover, the elephant is considered a costly piece of machinery in the essay; "It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant - it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly be avoided". (Orwell 3) This has also been understandable to compare a working elephant to the machine because at that time poor villagers of Burma were working under British colonial rules. The dead elephant symbolizes the British Empire, its rebellious rules and a costly machine since, as Burmese people are helpless with being oppressed by British Empire, the elephant is also defenceless when getting shoot by Orwell.
The dead coolie symbolized the vindication for Orwell to shoot an elephant. George Orwell did use the symbol efficiently to the story to understand the meaning behind it. In other words, after shooting an elephant Orwell was feeling extremely guilty over what he did. However, after when he found out that the coolie was dead by the elephant, he was relieved and this is significant in this quote, "And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." (Orwell 5) Orwell did not feel extremely blameworthy for shooting an elephant and was expecting from others to understand what he did was right. Orwell did not want to shoot the elephant but he had done it solely to avoid looking a fool in front of Burmese people. The purpose of having dead coolie in the essay shows the justification for Orwell to shoot an elephant because then Orwell would have been held responsible for shooting an innocent elephant. Nevertheless, Orwell still shot the elephant to hold his grudge some of the Burmese people would have gone against it and that is what the dead coolie makes symbolic.
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The next dominant symbol that the author utilized in the essay was himself, the main lead character George Orwell. The use of himself is symbolic because he is the part of the British Empire however, is powerless to the Burmese people. Orwell says, "I had to think of my problems in the utter silence." (Orwell 2), the author has used an incredibly interesting tone of the saying to describe what he feels throughout the story. Meaning, even though he had sympathy over the Burmese he could not do anything other than continuing doing the harm to the innocent people of Burma. Furthermore, the author does an exceptional job to bring out the real conflict to make the character more symbolic. In other words, by creating the intense situation when Orwell had to make a decision of what to do with an elephant; his symbolic behaviour is portrayed unquestionably. It was evident that Orwell had no control over Burmese people and this where he becomes understandable to the reader why Orwell is symbolic. Orwell is symbolic in the essay because he is aware of the injustice that is being done to the Burmese people but he has chosen to be neutral. Besides, by staying neutral Orwell is assisting oppressor to continue doing the bad deed and he is living a symbolic life of cruel British rules. George Orwell shows that he is neutral because he is not raising any voice against the vindictive rules that are being applied to the village Burma.
The rifle also played quite a superior role of symbolism in the essay. At that time, only the British Empire owned the rifles to control the Burmese people. According to the essay, it is safe to say that the rifles were British Empire's main power that they had to rule over the Burmese. Also, it was used to protect them from any danger that might occur in the village. However, when the author said, "I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of his hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives” and so in every crisis he has got to do what
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the “natives” expect of him.(Orwell 3); author shows how Orwell misused the power of British Empire to put his superlative impression to the Burmese. Since, Orwell uses the rifle to become superior of Burmese people; the significant meaning of gun is more visible to the reader. The rifle was used to protect village by any threat on the contrary, by shooting an elephant Orwell misused the power of the British Empire because the rifle is their main power and by exploiting it, Orwell is representing the British Empire as weak oppressor therefore a rifle plays an excellent role as a symbol in this essay.
In conclusion, as a critique, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell demonstrates rich using of symbols that are evident throughout the essay.

In the essay, many symbols are used such as, the elephant, dead coolie, George Orwell and rifle which have their specific meaning to the story and are understandable to the reader. George Orwell has used each symbol with reliable support in the essay that had effective meaning to it. For example, the elephant symbolized how Burmese people were pressurized to work under colonial British rules of the British Empire. The dead coolie represented the justification for Orwell to shoot an elephant. Moreover, the rifle symbolized the power of the British Empire that was misused by Orwell to put his superior personality towards Burmese people. All in all, these all symbols were incorporated in an outstanding way so that symbols were easy to understand and find out the meaning behind each of

them.