George Orwell Shooting An Elephant

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. Orwell describes imperialism as “an evil thing” (Orwell) and claims to be “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.”(Orwell) When he was notified that an elephant was ravaging the bazar he, out of curiosity, answered to the call of help and went to investigate. On his way to the location of the elephant he was made aware that the elephant was not wild. When he finds the elephant it is no longer running rampant

In that moment he changed his mind because “the people expected it of me and I had got to do it.” (Orwell) earlier in his essay he claimed to be against imperialism yet he fell to the pressures of it. The crowed can symbolize imperialism and the elephant represents the nations effected by it. Although he was the one with a weapon and seemingly with the power he went against his own decision and shot the elephant. The elephant does not die fast. After the third shot it finally falls “but in falling he seemed for a moment to rise”. The refusal to die by the elephant represents the strength of the nations under Britain’s rule. George Orwell published his account of shooting the elephant to show how he was a coward and fell to the pressure of imperialism. Despite knowing what he ought to do and “did not in the least want to shoot him” (Orwell) he shoots him in order to not be laughed