In this short story, Orwell explores important themes such as the evils of imperialism, the crisis of conscience, and the struggle with pride. A third shot downs the elephant. Whether large or miniscule, situations that are faced everyday require serious decisions. Against his will and moral belief he decides to kill the elephant. After all, Orwell was an open critic of imperialism during the early 20 th Century.
He hates his own role. That is, when one knows deep inside what they should rightly do, but due to outside pressures and influences they choose another course of action. Some may clearly express it, whereas others may express racism unnoticeably, even to themselves. When he kills the Dravidian coolie, his aggression has reached its peak. He does not even know enough about marksmanship—or elephants—to kill the elephant painlessly.
Orwell uses other metaphors such as when he compares himself to being a magician about to perform a trick, or as being a lead actor in a piece, and even an absurd puppet, a posing dummy, and to be wearing a mask. However, the crowd behind the narrator waiting for him to show his muscle as a police officer makes him scared that they will laugh at him if he simply walks away or allows himself to get killed by the elephant. Orwell fells his strong hatred and tries not to be laughed at by the locals. After Orwell's death in 1950, the essay was republished several times, including in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays 1950 , 1957 , and Selected Writings 1958. By serving Britain is a Orwell paints a picture of another type of inner conflict that he experienced while working in Burma. This weakness plagues the author throughout the story and displays the softness of his character.
He comments on how, even though he is of the ruling class, he finds himself either largely ignored by the Burmese people or hated. Orwell heads toward the affected area. They were interested in seeing the elephant being shot dead and while Orwell did not intend to kill the animal but had got the rifle just to protect himself in case the beast went wild; he had already started feeling like a fool. Because he is, like the rest of the English, a military occupier, he is hated by much of the village. While Orwell contemplated shooting the elephant he knew out of the town he was the only one able to have a weapon to kill the elephant Orwell 67. The -inspired romance of the had been worn thin by the daily realities of his job in which,.
Suddenly, one night an elephant owned by an Indian man broke its chain and escaped. His job as a police officer gives him a close-up view of the brutalities of imperialism. We all do this in some form or fashion, we all have that inner voice telling…. It is this need of his to tell the world the truth about imperialism that enables him to write something so captivating. Being bound to the role of the oppressor trying to Lord over others, he stands to lose more peace of mind than those on the receiving end.
Orwell feels strong inner conflict between what he believes as a human being, and what he believes and should do as an imperial police officer. The man had come under the feet of the elephant. Respect among the people is highly valued to Orwell. While Orwell may theoretically be opposed to his position as a police officer in Burmese society, he is driven to uphold it out of fear of ridicule. Orwell explains one… 953 Words 4 Pages The area of focus I chose was a work from the Innocence and Experience chapter. He describes the feeling to be like theatre curtains finally opening to a waiting spectators. Orwell walks to the field, and a large group from the neighborhood follows him.
Against his will and moral belief he decides to kill the elephant. George Orwell was born in Burma in 1903 and died in 1950, where his father was working at the time. Orwell uses not one but two rifles to kill the elephant and still it keeps breathing and dies half an hour later than Orwell has poured several bullets into it and left the scene. So, Orwell fired the remaining shots where he thought its heart was. The narrator sends someone for an elephant rifle and a crowd gathers. While his actions were legally justifiable, Orwell describes his feelings of guilt for his true intentions and rationale for the killing, which he admits to himself as unnecessary and unjust.
The essay ends at a comic note but it is difficult to avoid feeling the hidden sarcasm. Finally the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885 was when the British finally took on total control of Burma. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. George Orwell uses his personal experience with a moral dilemma to convey to the reader the evils which result from colonial politics and imperialism. Anyway, fair to George if no guilty conscience haunted him.
The special about this essay is that Orwell tells us a story not only to see the experience that he had in Burma; he also perfectly uses the metaphor of the elephant to give us deep information about the Imperialism. Here is a list of a few vocabulary words commonly taught with the story, and an example of a. The officer decides to shoot the elephant in order to maintain his authority. Nothing is lost from humiliation apart from personal pride. Because the locals expect him to do the job, he does so against his better judgment. The fat beast was stuffing himself when Orwell approached.