There are two examples in the text “Shooting An Elephant,” where the protagonist Eric A. Blair’s role as an oppressor changed into the oppressed. Due to life complications, he is forced to join the tyrannical Imperial civil services. The tasks given to him with his place as an officer led people to view him as an oppressor. As Eric states his perception,“I was hated by large numbers of people...The wretched prisoner huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the gray, cowed faces of the long-term convicts the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos…” Eric is contradicted by his own consciousness, supporting the Burmese, but being a part of their oppressors. His guilt does not allow him to feel free, therefore leading
People’s perceptions of themselves and how they think others perceive them influence their actions. This theme is evident in The Death of Benny Paret, Shooting an Elephant, and On Dumpster Diving, but in different ways in each piece. Once people know who they are and are comfortable with themselves, they have reached self-actualization.
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 1800’s staged the universal dissemination and climax of British imperialism, thereby destructing and reconstructing the world into a new order. It is ordinary to depict the British as overindulgent consumerists, and the natives as magnanimous servers of the Empire, though history suggests that imperialism was not a mere black and white affair. It is certain that imperialism unjustly exhausted global resources and is therefore deserving of its condemnation. Yet, actual experiences of the time, as told by British men propel the reader to reevaluate the role of British moral authority during colonial times. The Man Who Would Be King (1888) by Rudyard Kipling and Shooting An Elephant (1936) by George Orwell are two such commentaries on imperialism in British India. The former is a novelette, narrated by a newspaper man and tells the journey of two determined Englishmen (Carnehan and Dravot) from inconspicuous “loafers” in India to godlike kings in Kafiristan. The latter recounts the story of a young British officer (Orwell), who served as a police to the Indian Imperial Police in Lower Burma. Kipling and Orwell narrate similar overarching themes such as the injustice of British imperialism and its inflicted misery both on the conquered and on the conqueror. Their motives and reactions to imperialism, however, are highly varied given their external conflicts with the Empire and the natives also vary. These stories by Orwell and Kipling conclude as symbolic mockeries of imperialism and its ultimate failure, thereby portraying the mixed elements of British nationalism during imperialism.
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.
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.
As a functionary of the “unbreakable tyranny” that the British empire holds over the Burmese, Orwell guiltily regards himself as a reluctant oppressor (145). Nevertheless, when pressured by the excited, starving Burmese to shoot an elephant, he realizes that “when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys” (148). In an ironic twist, Orwell now recognizes the Burmese people’s power over him, as they push him to demonstrate the authority expected from one aligned with their oppressors. Orwell’s experience with situational irony disillusions him to the reality that oppression operates in multiple directions. Similarly, Langston Hughes also encounters situational irony that brings him to a disillusioning realization. As a naive twelve-year-old in his narrative, Hughes takes his aunt literally when she tells him that a church revival will bring him to Jesus Christ. However, at the revival, Hughes never actually sees any sign of Jesus, and watches his friend impatiently “get up and be saved”, suggesting he, too, cannot see Jesus (97). Abandoning all hope of the advent, Hughes also pretends to see Jesus, and wonders why “God had not struck Westley”, his friend, “dead for taking” God’s “name in vain” (98). Here, Hughes encounters situational irony because he suffers in spite of his faithful disposition, while his lying friend receives praise
Two ways that citizens react to systems of oppression in the novel Forbidden City by William Bell are by being a bystander or upstander. A system of oppression is defined as intuitions that describe what is the norm in society. Such behavior is used to maintain an imbalance of power within the community being oppressed. When oppression occurs in a region, there is said to be four roles within the oppressed community. Those who are members of the group exploiting people, or victims, are the oppressors. Among the victims are upstanders and bystanders. Citizens represent the role of a bystander by passively watching oppression, afraid that if they take action, they will also be subject to the “bullying”. An upstander shows that he or she
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell is an essay about his experiences in Burma as a sub-divisional police offer while working for the British Empire in the 1920’s where it had imposed its power onto the Burmese. Orwell felt this strong disagreement with imperialism because how oppressed the Burmese were, but in a way of guilt and sympathy. To better understand what imperialism means we must get a clear definition of it; imperialism is the policy of extending power of a nation over another nation; with the addition of the possibility of economic and political gains through control. With Orwell having the position of being a police officer, he plays the role of being an oppressor and; and because of this, the Burmese look at him and make him – and other Europeans ¬– a target of hatred and frustration. And Orwell also uses a plethora of rhetorical strategies to explain his own sympathies and frustrations with the Burmese, but uses the elephant
A person may feel the need to submit to certain actions or behavior based off of their surroundings. In “Shooting an Elephant”, the narrator is a young Englishman serving as a police officer in Burma in the 1920s; Burma was part of British-controlled India. He strongly opposes the oppressive British rule of Burma. Although, at the same time, he resents the taunting he
The author began the essay with his perspective on British domination. He stated that it is evil and alongside of that it is oppressive. He felt hatred and guilt toward himself and the Burma people. He used allegories to describe the experience of the British imperialism and his own view of the matter. The audience became more aware of Orwell’s mental state is drawn to his pathos appeal as the essay continue in the story. Orwell describes the scene of the killing of an elephant in the British controlled island in the Caribbean. The authors used multiple techniques to express the feeling and irony in the story. The story eventually leading to a satirical demonstration of British domination. Orwell convicted the audience that the British are controlling imperialism does not negative impact on Burma people. He is well-known authors and political satirist.
Shooting an Elephant is an essay written by George Orwell to have people understand him better as to why he made the decision to shoot an elephant. After reading this essay, some might think that Orwell is a coward for not actually doing what his conscience told him to do. This is completely accurate. He does something that he himself knows is wrong, which is shooting the elephant. Now let’s look at the whole picture here first. For example: What caused this to happen? What was the motive behind it? Did he have motive at all? If not, why did he shoot the elephant? This entire tragedy could have been prevented if specific people’s morals were in the right places.
From the beginning of the narrative “Shooting An Elephant,” George Orwell creates a character with a diminished sense of self. The character narrates, “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, 58). All he wants is attention and it is evident that even negative attention is better than being ignored. He hates working for the British as a sub-divisional police officer in the town of Moulmein. He even makes it known to the audience that, “Theoretically -- and secretly, of course -- I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” (58). The character knows he does not want to be in this position, as a Anglo-Indian
Like the elephant, the empire is dominant. The elephant, an enormous being in the animal kingdom, represents the British Empire in its magnitude. The size represents power as it is assumed that the two are insuppressible. Also, the elephant and the British empire, both share hideousness in the effect it causes in Burma. To create a comparison between the elephant and the empire, the author describes the elephant as wild and terrorizing when the “elephant was ravaging the bazaar” (324); thus, it symbolizes the British Empire is restraining the economy of the Burmese. When the elephant kills the Indian laborer, it represents the British oppressing the Burmese. On the other hand, the elephant is a symbol of colonialism. Like the natives of Burma who have been colonized and who abuse Orwell, the elephant has a destructive behavior by being provoked and oppressed “it had been chained up” (324). Despite the fact of its aggressive behavior and the Burmese’ more astute rebelliousness could be undeniably good things, they are doing their best given the oppressive conditions, both the Burmese and the elephant have to endure. Also, the elephant symbolizes the economy of the oppressor, as well as the oppressed. This animal is a “working elephant” (326) in Burma, and for the colonial power. The Burmese are also working animals because they are hard workers and involuntarily are following the rules of the British empire.
In my second semester of seminar, we discussed several texts that dealt with the different types of injustice that our society was facing in the past. Specifically, we discussed Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr., which depicts the oppression that African American individuals were being faced with in the South. King Jr. depicts the feelings of going through oppression as being: “completely drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodyness" that they have adjusted to segregation…” In this same semester, I was taking my Senior Capstone class for my major in Justice, Community and Leadership and we happened to be reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. I remember specifically a point that Freire made in his book