Everyone can pant a pretty picture of how wonderful their life may be. In fact, doing so may come with a consequences. Reading these three short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell and a short biography by Malcolm X called “My First Conk”, set off many different emotions. I felt as these author’s wanted to me to feel in such way. I believe there is a life lesion in every life story someone has to share, no matter how small or big. Jackson pants what seems to be a perfectly normal day. “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” She incorporated children playing, working families, …show more content…
and an established village. Already setting the stage as she describes the children start collecting stones, some already having a pocket full. Later learning those stone would be thrown as a rural causing death to a person who displayed what she portrays as integrity, or was it? Tessie Hutchinson. The village host a yearly lottery, everyone in the village participates knowingly they may be the chosen one. However; I believe the way Jackson wrote the story, that all along it was going to be Tessie. She is displayed as a village rebel, an outcast, someone the elders in the village wouldn’t want around. She shows up late, and when her husband is picked as the chosen as the “prize”, she raucously speaks up “You didn’t give him time enough to take the any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!” The irony behind that was she later was the one who the villager chose to be stoned to death. Integrity in her eyes might had been sticking up for her husband, being loyal and saving his life. However; integrity to the villagers was all of them participating in the lottery yearly without a word out their mouths. Often people despise figures of authority such as police officers.
Orwell starts off his story by sharing that with us. “I was hated by large number of people, the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.” (181) Its only when there’s a time in need do they express appreciating. Hating his job because of certain beliefs. “…I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing…” So why did he shoot the elephant? He knew it was wrong, in fact he had a plan on what to do in order not to kill it. “The crowed would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East was one long struggle not to be laugh at” He deffinaly felt the pressure of the crowd. “It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute” In order for him to seem as he done the right thing even though in his heart he knew was wrong, he did it, he shot the elephant. He didn’t even shoot to kill, the poor guy was at a suffering state. He justified his action with the elephant’s wrong doing, killing a man. Orwell had lack of integrity to himself, but for the town’s people, he did what was in his jobs nature. And policemen need integrity to serve the law, even if its ageist your own
beliefs.
In “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell is the officer of the town in the time period of Imperialism. In the beginning of the story Orwell shows the readers that despite him being an officer, he didn’t have much credibility. Orwell states, “When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter.” (p. 229.) Orwell also describes further the hate the people had for him in the town and mentions that the people continuously treated him in a disrespectful manner. Throughout the story it is reported to Orwell
We can transform our life by altering our thinking process, and the stories by Shirley Jackson and Chris Abani emphasize on changing the thought. Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, conveys a great ironic tradition of a certain American community at some time in history, probably not that old. Similarly, “The Lottery” by Chris Abani also explores a similar tragic story about a loss of a life, and presents the life and survival as a lottery, which is never certain. In these regards, both these stories express a common theme of a traditional belief and a tragic end of a life but in a very contrasting fashion and settings.
Jackson creates suspense by describing a sunny June day filled with flowers and green grass, and “the
Initially, in the text Elephant, by Orwell, the speaker, who is actually a younger Orwell back when he was a policeman for England stationed in Burma, is faced with the decision to shoot an elephant that is running around like crazy, destroying everything because it is in must, or in heat. Although the elephant is destroying things, it is also a very important animal to the people of Burma, because they use it for farming, and other things. The thing that really messes Orwell up is the fact that there is peer pressure mixed into his feelings. The other police officers believe that killing the elephant is the ri...
The shock value of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is not only widely known, but also widely felt. Her writing style effectively allows the reader to pass a judgment on themselves and the society in which they live. In “The Lottery” Jackson is making a comparison to human nature. It is prominent in all human civilizations to take a chance as a source of entertainment and as this chance is taken, something is both won and lost.
According to Orwell his freedom was destroyed when he took on the role of the tyrant. His job was that of a sub-divisional police officer in Lower Burma. A crisis arose in which he was faced with a hard decision to make. An elephant had gone on a rampage in the village and had destroyed countless huts and killed a man. When Orwell came upon the elephant it was clear to him that it had calmed down and that the elephant would cause no more harm to anyone. Orwell was faced with a decision: he could either shoot the beast or wait until his master came to get him. However, this decision was made much more complicated. Orwell was surrounded by two thousand Burmans who, as Orwell said, “were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a magic trick.” Although the Burmans were all underneath him and subject to him, he was very concerned about what they thought he should do. He was so concerned in fact he concluded that he had to do as they wished of him.
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.
In this story ,Orwell is taking part in imperialism by proving his power and dignity to the natives presenting imperialism metaphorically through the use of animals. He is using the elephant as a symbol of imperialism representing power as an untamed animal that has control over the village. He uses a large and very powerful animal to represent a significant metaphor for imperialism.. In doing so he leads to the understanding that the power behind imperialism is only as strong as its dominant rulers. Orwell?s moral values are challenged in many different ways, ironically enough while he too was the oppressor. He is faced with a very important decision of whether or not he should shoot the elephant. If he does so, he will be a hero to his people. In turn, he would be giving in to the imperial force behind the elephant that he finds so unjust and evil. If he lets the elephant go free and unharmed the natives will laugh at him and make him feel inferior for not being able to protect the...
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 becomes a puppet to the will of the Burmese by abandoning his thoughts of moral righteousness. This conflicts with the moral issue of relying upon other's morals, rather than one's own conscience.
What thoughts come to mind when you think of "The Lottery?" Positive thoughts including money, a new home, excitement, and happiness are all associated with the lottery in most cases. However, this is not the case in Shirley Jackson’s short story, "The Lottery." Here, the characters in the story are not gambling for money, instead they are gambling for their life. A shock that surprises the reader as she unveils this horrifying tradition in the village on this beautiful summer day. This gamble for their life is a result of tradition, a tradition that is cruel and inhumane, yet upheld in this town. Shirley Jackson provides the reader’s with a graphic description of violence, cruelty, and inhumane treatment which leads to the unexpected meaning of "The Lottery." Born in San Francisco, Jackson began writing early in her life. She won a poetry prize at age twelve and continued writing through high school. In 1937 she entered Syracuse University, where she published stories in the student literary magazine. After marriage to Stanley Edgar Hyman, a notable literary critic, she continued to write. Her first national publication “My Life with R.H. Macy” was published in The New Republic in 1941but her best-known work is “The Lottery.”(Lit Links or Reagan). Jackson uses characterization and symbolism to portray a story with rising action that surprises the reader with the unexpected odd ritual in the village. While one would expect “The Lottery” to be a positive event, the reader’s are surprised with a ritual that has been around for seventy-seven years , demonstrating how unwilling people are to make changes in their everyday life despite the unjust and cruel treatment that is associated with this tradi...
He describes, “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro” (60). He is dealing with the internal conflicts of who he should align with: himself, the British, or the Burmese. If he were to acknowledge his beliefs and align with himself, he could be the start of an uprise. Surely, others would follow. He even confirms his “thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny” and says, “Ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you catch him off duty,” referring to the hatred of the English empire (58). By expressing his dislike for the British, Orwell is finally attempting to stand up for his beliefs. The fact that his character is unable to execute his beliefs, though, highlights him trying to not look foolish in the presence of others. Clearly, he is in an unbearable circle of self-deprecation and doubt. By the end of the narrative, Orwell’s character regrets his decision to shoot the elephant. This ultimately represents Orwell’s uncertainty as he goes through life. He, like all of us, is struggling to predict which path is the best for him to go down as he ventures through his existence. Because of this, his actions for shooting the elephant are justified. He is just trying to accomplish all that he can while simultaneously dealing with his own questions of identity. This allows Orwell to be seen as a humble individual who is just trying
One of Orwell’s distinctive characteristics is his emphasis of his emotional response to life and death in every situation. Orwell engages readers in his pieces because they feel that they can sit back and imagine what is going on in every situation through the narrator’s eyes. Every sentence is a new description that touches the audience’s emotions. In “A Hanging,” Orwell describes the death sentence scene by stating, “gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, they half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck” (Orwell: A Hanging). Orwell’s perspective on the scene was that the prisoner was slowly walking to his death in a torturous way. He focuses on the sadness he feels versus other people’s perspectives and feelings. It seems that Orwell does not take death easily, so he uses evocative words to describe the trauma through his eyes. In “Shooting an Elephant,”Orwell’s point of view is that killing the elephant will not only hurt the animal, but it will destroy his own pride as a reluctant shooter. He looks at the big picture, but he also identifies with the subj...
His murder of the innocent elephant and the Indian coolie represented the barbaric nature of imperialism. The expansionist essence of a country is supposed to epitomize prosperity and strength. However, the imperialists treated innocent people like savages and reverted to barbaric ways. Orwell and the Burmese population ignored the freshly dead coolie in the mud because they focused on the bigger picture- the elephant. To them, the corpse was just another casualty, but the main attraction was the rouge giant. Similarly, imperialist nature desires for more, more, more, never focusing on the small accomplishments but instead on the big important goal ahead. Orwell’s fear of becoming the laughing stock of the Burmese deterred him from acting humanely and sparing the elephant. However, he already typified the puppet of the local population, wielding to their whims in order to maintain the power he thought he
Eric Arthur Blair, or better known by his pen name, George Orwell, was an early 20th century European writer. He lived from 1903 to 1950, where at one point he became a police officer in Moulmein, Lower Burma. He was not accepted in this anti-European society where if a woman would walk through a bazaar alone, someone was bound to spit betel juice all over her dress. Orwell then explained in his encounter with an elephant. Because he was the police officer of the town, he was told that an elephant ran rampant through the town, killing an Indian man. The town wanted Mr. Orwell to kill the elephant because it killed a person of their town! Orwell was being peer pressured by the townspeople to shoot the elephant, and he took the shot. Was the life of the elephant worth the death of one Indian man? Orwell made that decision when he pulled the trigger of his rifle. Every last bit of the elephant was gone within hours. The townspeople needed the elephant more for themselves than to commemorate the life of the Indian man. Orwell was pressured to make a decision that he did not ...
Orwell?s extraordinary style is never displayed well than through ?Shooting an Elephant,? where he seemingly blends his style and subject into one. The story deals with a tame elephant that all of a sudden turns bad and kills a black Dravidian coolie Indian. A policeman kills this elephant through his conscience because the Indians socially pressurized him greatly. He justified himself as he had killed elephant as a revenge for coolie.