Peer Pressure

Many people are influenced by other people and the pressure to do something they are uneasy about. This is called peer pressure, as people of all ages are persuaded and talked in to something they wouldn’t usually do. The outcome can be good or bad, as the person being influenced knows how they feel about the decision they made. In the short stories Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell No Witchcraft for Sale, by Doris Lessing, they both provide a sense of peer pressure, however, how can it be solved?

To begin, the first example of peer pressure was in the short story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell when the police officer was pressured by the crowd of townspeople to make a quick decision. The story takes place in Moulmein in lower Burma, in a small village. The townspeople were unrespectable to the officer as they would be rude and disrespect him. “When a nimble Burman tripped me upon the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter” (page 1319). The officer wanted to please the people when the elephant, which was...