Analysis Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

The oppression of third world countries in the 1930's were slightly known in Britain, but it was unfortunate that not many people actually acknowledged it. Knowing this, in George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant ”, first published by literary magazine in 1936, attempts a negative effects of British imperialism, by informing the reader of the very great situation. In his essay, he writes not just about his personal experience about the elephant but also he heavily criticizes the concept of British colonization which makes people on both sides of the issue very uncomfortable. Through an incident that he experiences, he successfully demonstrates how imperialism affects more than just the people that gather but also the ones who govern and why their real motives that is shifted.
He immediately starts the essay by

He argues that it is evil and he is sufficiently against the oppressors, the British. At the time in Burma, he is a British police officer, he feels a certain hatred and guilt himself, his empire, and the “evil-spirited little beasts” (602), the Burma people. Following his first experience of hatred and guilt towards himself, he states “I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him.” However, when he noticed thousand of people behind him, he changes his mind to “…but I did not want to shoot the elephant”(605). He repeatedly states how guilty it is to shoot the elephant. The reasons that he did not shoot the elephant, how it is worth more alive rather than dead, and yet he ultimately falls into the anticipation of the Burma people. Against his belief decides to kill the elephant.
Orwell uses the elephant as a metaphor of British Imperialism in Burma. Burma was a free kingdom until British enlargement came