Shooting an Elephant” is an autobiographically influenced short story written by George Orwell and published in 1936. It deals with the inner conflict of an imperial police officer in Burma who feels pressured by the Burmese and forced to kill an outraged elephant in order to prove himself and his status as an imperial police officer.
The short story can be divided into two parts. In the first two paragraphs the narrator introduces himself and talks about his life and experience in working as a “sub-divisional police officer” in the town of Moulmein in Lower Burma. He also talks about his ambiguous attitude towards the Burmese people who ridicule and mock him because of anti-European feelings and towards the British Empire whose “dirty work” he now has to witness in his job. In the second part of the short story the narrator tells the readers about a specific incident, already indicated in the title of the story, which gave him a better understanding of imperialism and the way it works. One day in his service as an imperial police officer he is asked to stop an outraged elephant from ravaging the town and attacking the people. He takes along a rifle just in case he needs protection from the wild animal and starts on his way to find the elephant and see for himself what is happening. When a man is killed by the outraged elephant and the Burmese people follow the police officer on his way to the elephant he realizes that the Burmese expect him to shoot the elephant. He knows it would not be right to kill the animal because of its worth and because it has started to calm down and would be the tame, harmless animal it is used to be. But under the pressure of the crowd the police man does not see leaving the elephant alive as an option...
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...iptive paragraphs ,which guide the reader through the shooting of the elephant, and the police officer's inner monologues which reveal his thoughts on the situation and his attitude towards imperialism, the Burmese people and the British Empire. While the descriptive paragraphs are mostly summarized and do not have the same time of their occurrence, the inner monologues are written in a time pause and the narrator reflects on what is happening at the moment. However when it comes to the point of the shooting itself the time is stretched in order to emphasize the narrator’s inner conflict and to build suspense.
Through the use of this particular voice and focalization the author achieved to compose a convincing, insightful and reflective way of presenting his own inner conflict, the situation in Burma during the early 20th century and the faith of the British Empire.
The British police officer in Shooting an Elephant had never been respected by the Burman natives a day in his life. He was regularly mocked and cheated, even by the religious students of Burma, simply because he was one of the many enforcers of their imposed oppressor’s government. When the elephant went on a “must”, he found himself in an interesting position. The very natives who had always jeered and spat at him were cheering him on. Suddenly, he is faced with the choice between his personal morality and the ever so f...
Every day, each individual will look back on decisions he or she have made and mature from those experiences. Though it takes time to realize these choices, the morals and knowledge obtained from them are priceless. In George Orwell’s nonfictional essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, a young Orwell was stationed in Burma for the British imperial forces, tasked to deal with an elephant who destroyed various parts of the village Moulmein while its owner was away. Backed by second thoughts and a crowd of thousands, he finds himself shooting the elephant and reflecting that it was not justified; however, it was a choice pushed by his duty and the people. Written with a fusion of his young and old self’s outlook on shooting the elephant, Orwell’s essay is a sensational read that captivates his audience and leaves them questioning his decision.
Therefore, without friction, the story would be uninteresting to the reader. Arguments, disputes, and struggles are the main causes of conflict. However, there are two categories which conflict falls under: individual and group conflict. Individual conflict revolves around man vs. man and man vs. self. The first sign of conflict in “Shooting an Elephant” represents man vs. self: “In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me” (Orwell 619). The importance of man vs. self-conflict in “Shooting an Elephant” is used to affect the reader’s emotions. For this reason, the reader feels compassionate towards the sub-divisional police officer. Man vs. man conflict is between the officer and the Burmese citizens: “a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter” (Orwell 620). There are several types of conflict and they each have a significant
When he finial find the elephant Orwell say “I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” But when he lays his eyes on the crowd he changes his stance to “but I did not want to shoot the elephant.”(Orwell 199). He felt guilty for shooting the elephant when he describe that the elephant worth more alive than dead, but despite the many reason not to shoot the elephant, he took a shot. Orwell describes “when I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick …I fired again into the same spot…I fired a third time. That was the shot that did it for him.”(199) the shooting of the elephant represent the Burma people trying to stay alive and over powering by the
Although shooting the, now seemingly calm, “mad elephant” is morally wrong to George Orwell, in his narration of Shooting an Elephant, he has to do so as he is a representative, or more so a pawn, of the British authority in the occupied country of Burma. Being such, he wages a war with his inner self to seek which decision needs to be carried out. With two outcomes in mind, one being that he will be seen as a fool if he does not shoot the elephant and the other being an authority of the law by truly showing it and protecting the villagers, he has an epiphany. With such an authority, the law and someone’s moral conscience diverge. He then realizes what must be done and shoots the elephant to protect the imperialistic authority. As the excitement
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a short story that not only shows cultural divides and how they affect our actions, but also how that cultural prejudice may also affect other parties, even if, in this story, that other party may only be an elephant. Orwell shows the play for power between the Burmese and the narrator, a white British police-officer. It shows the severe prejudice between the British who had claimed Burma, and the Burmese who held a deep resentment of the British occupation. Three messages, or three themes, from Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” are prejudice, cultural divide, and power.
The essay “Shooting an Elephant,” was written by George Orwell. Orwell was a British author best known for his essays and novels. In “Shooting an Elephant,” the title essay of his 1950 collection, Orwell is a British Police Officer in Lower Burma. After an elephant comes rampaging through the village in must, killing an Indian man, Orwell is looked upon to take care of the problem. The intense scene causes Orwell to make a crucial decision, reflecting on the vicious imperialism with the military in Burma during this time. The author portrays his feelings through the theme of the narrative with feelings such as, guilt, hate, and pressured.
George Orwell, an ardent opponent of endemic social inequality, records in his persuasive essay Shooting an Elephant a life-changing moment that discloses far more than just shooting an elephant. In his essay Orwell eloquently describes the scene of killing an elephant and articulates the sensations he feels during the brief yet emotional event. Orwell utilizes a myriad of literary techniques to convey the situational, ironical presentation of imperialism. Orwell's objective is to convince his audience, the working class of Britain, that imperialism both has a negative impact on those governed and degrades those exercising their power. First and foremost, Orwell begins to describe the atmosphere of Moulmein, Burma in order to set the scene for the events that follow.
A police officer in the British Raj, the supposedly 'unbreakable'; ruling force, was afraid. With his gun aimed at a elephant's head, he was faced with the decision to pull the trigger. That officer was George Orwell, and he writes about his experience in his short story, 'Shooting an Elephant';. To save face, he shrugged it off as his desire to 'avoid looking the fool'; (George Orwell, 283). In truth, the atmosphere of fear and pressure overwhelmed him. His inner struggle over the guilt of being involved in the subjugation of a people added to this strain, and he made a decision he would later regret enough to write this story.
Orwell George. “Shooting an Elephant” English Compostition II, Writing about your world: Global Sociocultural Awareness 3rd Edition; Jacksonville Fl. 2011 Pg. Electronic book edition.
I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool." So ends George Orwell's poignant reminiscence of an incident representing the imperialist British in Burma. Unlike Soyinka, who wrote about colonialism from the African's point of view, Orwell, like Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, presents the moral dilemmas of the imperialist. Orwell served with the Imperialist Police in Burma while it was still part of the British Commonwealth and Empire. His service from 1922 to 1927 burdened himwith a sense of guilt about British colonialism as well a need to make some personal expiation for it (Norton 2259). "Shooting an Elephant" chronicles an incident in which Orwell confronts a moral dilemma and abandons his morals to escape the mockery of the native Burmans. He repeatedly shoots and kills an elephant which had ravaged a bazaar and scared many Burmans even though "As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him" (6).
The state of power established through the imperialistic backdrop show that Orwell should have control over the Burmese. Orwell is a British colonial officer in Burma, which is under the control of the British, and because of this he should have authority and control over the Burmans. The presence of the empire is established when Orwell explains that, “with one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny...upon the will of the prostrate people; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s gut.” (144) This ideal imperialistic circumstance, where ...
Shooting the Elephant In George Orwell’s essay, Shooting an Elephant, he recounts one of his experiences as a sub-divisional police officer in lower Burma in which he is faced with the decision whether or not to shoot an elephant. Orwell’s feelings, actions, and reason show the real power of imperialism and how he was a coward by shooting the elephant. His experience was when Europe was highly imperialistic.
Shooting an Elephant is a great short story about how a police officer has to face peer pressure from locals that want him to shoot an elephant. The story begins in Moulmein, which is in lower Burma. The police officer, sent there by the British Empire, is hated by many of the local Burmese people. Mainly because he is European and the locals do not like Europeans. However, he is secretly against the British and with the Burmese, but no one knows that. The police officer also has a problem with people making fun of him and to him he cannot be insulted.
"Shooting an Elephant" is perhaps one of the most anthologized essays in the English language. It is a splendid essay and a terrific model for a theme of narration. The point of the story happens very much in our normal life, in fact everyday. People do crazy and sometimes illegal moves to get a certain group or person to finally give them respect. George Orwell describes an internal conflict between his personal morals and his duty to his country to the white man's reputation. The author's purpose is to explain the audience (who is both English and Burmese) about the kind of life he is living in Burma, about the conditions, circumstances he is facing and to tell the British Empire what he think about their imperialism and his growing displeasure for the imperial domination of British Empire.