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Mahmudul Alam Prof. Cope English 110 29th September 2015 Compare and contrast essay In "shooting an elephant," Orwell's writes about Burma when it was a British colony.The story told by a first-person narrator who is a British policeman serving in Burma. His relationship with the Burmese natives wasn't that good; he was hated by everyone because he was a foreigner and a authority figure of white English society. The action of the story starts with a rogue elephant that has killed a Burmese man. The narrator finds the elephant standing peacefully in a field. He does not want to kill the elephant, but he knows the large crowd of people who have followed him to the field expect
Throughout the story, Orwell described how he was heavily pressured by the Burmese into shooting an elephant, stating that he became "... an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind" (Capote 583). Through Orwell's diction it became known that Orwell was hated by the majority of his residing village since he upheld the position of a sub divisional police officer for the British Raj in colonial Burma. Orwell was driven to killing the animal out of desperation of the public dropping all forms of hatred towards him. Although killing the elephant was against his will, Orwell went through with the deed earning a new profound identity known as the elephant
Critical Response Essay In class, we read a short story by George Orwell called Shooting an Elephant. It was a story about courage, judgment, and the pressure of peers. I personally don't like this story. I found it boring, pointless, and just another "hasn’t -this -happened
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
In the essay titled, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, he explains the culture of where he worked in Burma. He explains “a small incident” that he had to confront, while he was a police officer in Burma. A small crowd wants an elephant, who escaped from its cage, dead. They want to stop the elephant’s treacherous deeds. These include: the elephant killed a man, killed a cow, and it destroyed someone’s hut. Orwell goes out with a gun in search of the elephant, but doesn’t intend to shoot the elephant. When he goes out in search for the elephant, who has supposedly gone crazy, a crowd of many people follow him. The crowd wants him to shoot the elephant. In this essay, Orwell was challenged
Orwell speaks of how he is so against imperialism, but gives in to the natives by shooting the elephant to prove he is strong and to avoid humiliation. He implies that he does not want to be thought of as British, but he does not want to be thought the fool either. Orwell makes his decision to shoot the elephant appear to be reasonable but underneath it all he questions his actions just as he questions those of the British. He despised both the British Empire as well as the Burmese natives, making everything more complicated and complex. In his essy he shows us that the elephant represents imperialism; therefore, the slow destruction of the elephant must represent the slow demise of British Imperialism.
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.
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
“Shooting an Elephant” is a self-portrait of George Orwell. In “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell details an unforgettable incident while he was stationed as a military officer in Burma. In detailing acts of violence in shocking detail as well as using violent metaphors throughout his essay, George Orwell indicates that Burma is a place charged with racial tensions that threaten to explode into chaos. George Orwell was being humiliated and hated by Burmese, many incidents reveal the harassment faced by him, like on the football field when he was tripped up the native, “the crowd yelled with hideous laughter”.(Orwell,436). He says tat young natives used to insult him a lot and was most offended by the hatred nature of the young Buddhist priests.
In two excellent piece of literature, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell and “Offensive Play” by Gladwell, they present effective arguments criticizing the society. “Shooting an Elephant” by Orwell argues on what is the true nature of imperialism. The theme of this article is to show how morals and the laws of imperialism influenced his decision to pull the trigger. Orwell knew it was morally wrong to shoot the elephant, however, he let natives to pressure him into doing so in order to prevent being humiliated and make the British Empire look powerful. The thesis is effective because it shows the irony of power, how something big and powerful as the British Empire could be reduced to being controlled by something small as unarmed natives.
Orwell struggles to find himself, but he does find himself by growing into his mask, and since he did not like the mask he grew into, he decided to find a different one. Shooting an elephant is an essay that George Orwell had written about his work in India as a British Officer. George Orwell talks about what it is like working near the prisons and seeing “the workings of imperialism” up close. Orwell speaks about how the Burmese feel about the British being there, and how he, himself feels about the British presence. There seems to be an alignment of dislike towards the oppressors in this case, the oppressors being the British.
Unanticipated choices can possibly have a long lasting impact in one person’s life or a whole society{Hook}. In “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell feels a certain hatred and guilt towards himself, his empire, and the “evil-spritted little beasts”, the Burma people when he was a representative of the British government during the English occupation of Burma. In the essay Orwell not only writes about his personal experience with the elephant but how metaphorical the experience is to imperialism. Therefore, he examines the effect of imperialism on the imperialist, and he reminds his audience that even though he is an authority figure with power of the Burmese, however, he does not receive any respect from the Burmese ““No one had the guts to
-Emma Watson. Trying to please everyone will lead to a person being unhappy, because no matter how hard you try, can’t make everyone happy. When making a decision, the only person that can really tell me what is right for me is, me. No one knows how a decision will affect me in the future, economically, or even emotionally. At times decision can be made more difficult when everyone thinks that they know what is better and try and push me in the right direction “because I have been where you are before” which in my opinion can’t be true. Every position is different because everyone is different; the only person that can make the right decision is me. Unlike Orwell, I reacted
In this article Orwell portrays the role of an caring, considerate man. Orwell grew up in a bias,anti semitic town which led to him becoming a sub-divisional officer. “As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear”, this statement justifies that Orwell make his life decisions upon what others think and feel towards him. Orwell felt that getting an authority job was the only way he would feel some type of importance In his life.
The glorious days of the imperial giants have passed, marking the death of the infamous and grandiose era of imperialism. George Orwell's essay, Shooting an Elephant, deals with the evils of imperialism. The unjust shooting of an elephant in Orwell's story is the central focus from which Orwell builds his argument through the two dominant characters, the elephant and its executioner. The British officer, the executioner, acts as a symbol of the imperial country, while the elephant symbolizes the victim of imperialism. Together, the solider and the elephant turns this tragic anecdote into an attack on the institution of imperialism.
"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.