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Shooting an elephant narrative essay
Interrelationship between literature and society
Shooting an elephant narrative essay
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In conclusion 'Shooting an Elephant' is a success because Orwell added a great tone, pace, and developed his main character in a way that was just right to get his message across. The message was that society will always find a way to judge people on the little things and pressures you into making actions that wouldn't be right to do. For example, the narrator did not want to shoot the elephant at all. At the end of the story he admits that he shot it because he didn't want to give out an image that he was a coward.
George Orwell writes 'Shooting an Elephant' in a depressing mood that is also very descriptive. The narrator is insulted and constantly given an unwanted look because of the way people see his race. Everyone has a aggressive attitude towards him that makes him bitter towards the world.Orwell used his bitterness as a way to make a point about society. One example of why the story is depressing and gloomy is because he describes the main character coming upon a "grinning corpse". The man wasn’t really grinning but he had a facial expression that made him looked as if he was. Readers can tell by this tone that that is a moment he will never forget.
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The story was mainly about his opinion on his actions and decisions as if he were telling it when he was much older. The character heavily describes how he watches the elephant slowly die and how unbearable it was for him to watch. He explains that it's features quickly turn from youthful to old when the bullet hits it but not yet knocking it down. Another illustration is the character coming across a corpse in the streets with a grinning facial expression left on his face. Orwell set this story with a great deal of characterization added to what he
Orwell shot the elephant not to save the people in the village but for his own benefits. Fearing what the people might think if he did not shoot it. In paragraph nine he weighs the options of shooting it or not. Reasoning if he did not shoot it and got trampled they would laugh at his defeat. Thankful that the coolie man got killed so he could shoot the elephant. The guilt would be easier to deal with since someone was killed. Shooting the elephant was not necessary, when he thinks about the owner who would be coming and how the elephant’s terror had ended already the only thing Orwell was thinking about was the people laughing.
“Shooting an Elephant” focuses on society by pressure. In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell is pressured by the native people to shoot and kill the elephant, even though the elephant is no longer harmless. In the beginning of the essay, the natives repeatedly attack Orwell every day. When the elephant goes insane, the natives go to Orwell for help. The natives were constantly pressuring Orwell as he said, “For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him” (Orwell par. 7). Orwell is pressured by society to do the opposite of what he feels is morally
George Orwell is a novel writer, born in India and have only spent five days there. Ida Mabel Limouzin, his mother, brought him and his sister too England while his father stayed in India. The novel Shooting an Elephant, that George wrote, took place in the bottom of Burma in the middle of Moulmein. The story is about George Orwell hesitating to kill an Elephant that has killed a man. All George planned to do was to test the elephant to see if it really meant any harm. George feels pressured by the crowd following him because they expect him to kill the elephant. He eventually made the decision to kill the elephant to make the mad crowd happy and plus he doesn’t want to fail at doing his job. Throughout the story George Orwell exert many Metaphor
In George Orwell’s story, “Shooting an Elephant,” he goes through numerous emotions. It is a very thought provoking work that takes the reader inside his mind. He goes through many emotions throughout the text, he experienced humiliation, evil, and confliction.
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.
The short story by George Orwell “Shooting an Elephant” brings into sharp light the nature of humanity, the narcissism and callousness we exhibit when it comes to creatures we consider to be a rogue animal. Within the story a rogue elephant going through a bought of “must” has escaped its owner, gotten into a town and caused damage and a death. At the point that help arrives the elephant is no longer being a terror, and is peacefully eating grass, and yet finds itself shot anyway, and left to die an agonizingly slow and painful death. The narrator of the story explains that he did not want to look foolish and be laughed at as his ultimate reason for killing the animal. This leaves the audience wondering, should that elephant really have been killed, and why do we immediately kill animals before trying to help them?
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...
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
In his essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, Orwell utilises figurative language to convey his purpose of discussing the dangers of societal influences on others. “Shooting an Elephant” illustrates a corrupted town and the inhumane acts of the people living there, as shown through Orwell’s use of metaphor, simile, and oxymoron. The use of this figurative language aids in amplifying the monstrous acts of the people.
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...
The symbolic story in the Shooting an Elephant is an attack towards imperialism. Orwell presents the ironic truth that imperialism benefits neither the imperialist nor the countries they colonize. It is perhaps sad to see that men were once willing to buy in to the fraudulent and ephemeral glory that imperialism have offered. Hopefully, men have learned their lessons and no other animal will be sacrificed for men's greed.
...o the wrong spot cause the poor animal to die "very slowly and in great agony." In spite of Orwell putting "shot after shot into his heart and down his throat," the elephant lives thirty minutes after its "tortured gasps" force Orwell to leave. Many years later, Orwell still seems bothered by the fact that pride, not necessity, caused him to destroy the animal.
Focusing on the fleeting concept of writer’s motivation, Orwell challenges readers to find the same drive while reading this work, so they can apply it when they read other pieces. Orwell wants his audience to practice the motivation to read, in order for his audience to do justice to authors by digging deep enough in written works to find the message that was so politically, demonically driven. The purpose of this piece was to inform an audience of readers about the struggles of a writer. Since writers and writing are the subjects of the paper, Orwell would not likely be addressing this community because it is probably a struggle they already know. Orwell goes to great depth trying to explain his own writing journey and the general realizations he has gleaned from them, and in doing so, he speaks to an audience of readers who enjoy reading material that has this same depth. Orwell know’s that an author’s purpose is important to his audience because of the detail he goes into, comparing the writing process and the struggle for finding motivation to differing ideas and
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.