Shooting An Elephant Symbolism Analysis

George Orwell, other wise known as Eric Arthur Blair, is a well known British author. He spent a total of five years as an officer to the India Imperial police. This experience led him to resign and later become an author. In Orwell 's Shooting an Elephant, he describes this experience with the use of multiple symbolic characters. He uses items such as the gun used to shoot the elephant, the town’s people that watch him, and even the elephant itself to hold a specific symbolic meaning. One of the many symbolic elements in this piece is the gun. The gun symbolizes the power that the British Empire has over the Burmese people. Orwell states, “The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it” (321). The fact that

These people symbolise peer pressure, hatred, and an aspiration for acceptance. Orwell says “The people expected it of me and I had to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressuring me forward, irresistibly” (323). He talks about how the town’s people were watching and pressuring him with their wills. He never intended nor did he anticipate shooting the animal. Yet, he shot it in the interest of what the people expected of him. Another representation these town’s people hold is the sense of animosity that they carry for the British police and the empire as a whole. This is all explained in Orwell’s statement “As a police officer, I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so” (319). In addition to hatred one of the utmost important symbolic meanings that the town’s people hold is that of acceptance. As Orwell says “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool” (327). Orwell says it all himself with that simple quote. He is expressing how he did not kill the elephant to help the people nor did he even want to shoot it. He shot the elephant to avoid looking a fool in front of the Burmese and get acceptance, which he would not have gotten

The elephant is an immense symbol of pain. This animal represents the torment that the Burmese people feel while being under the British Empire and the oppression of Burma. Orwell states “He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him farther” (326). This statement represents how the Burmese people continue to suffer under British power. Orwell sees their agony, yet feels as though there is nothing he can bring about to lessen their pain because he is in fact a part of the power that is the source of their misery. As well as pain, the elephant is a fantastic symbol of the tyranny and oppression being brought upon the people of Burma. Orwell says, “The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing” (326). The owner of the elephant could not even act upon the shooting merely as a result of him being of Indian descent. This shows just a smidgen of the oppression occurring in Burma at the time. The final representation that the elephant holds is the power of the British Empire. Orwell describes “It had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls..” (321). This statement shows how the elephant is powerful and how it raids the town. Like the elephant the empire holds tremendous power over the Burmese and raids Burma with oppression and