“Reading to Write” by Stephen King discusses the importance of reading and writing and what it means to him while also adding his own personal experience as insight to support his claim. In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell he gives a personal descriptive essay about his experience in Moulmein,Lower Burma in an anti-European society as a sub-divisional police officer and the turn of events he experiences when he encounters a runaway elephant. These two essays are magnificently told. With themes and recurring message on top of the effectiveness the authors use when using pathos and ethos, these essays successfully gains the reader's support.
It’s apparent that both “Reading to Write” and “Shooting an Elephant” have an overall theme it
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Both King and Orwell try to tap into or use the reader's emotions by adding their personal experiences and feelings toward a certain conflict. King admits “ A novel like Grapes of Wrath may fill a new writer with feelings of despair and good ol’ fashioned jealousy - “I’ll never be able to write anything that good” (King 73). With this image in mind readers can reference to a point in time where they felt like they would never be as successful as a person who's been doing what they have been doing for years and have made a legacy off of a certain profession or skill they have. This would tap into the reader's emotions of jealousy and internal thought. In “Shooting an Elephant” Orwell says, “I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs.” (Orwell 644). This makes the reader give sympathy for the poor animal with being shot for the third time it begins to stumble. Orwell later adds, “But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling , his trunk reaching skywards like a tree. He trumped..” (Orwell 644-645) This line gives a sense of triumph and gives hope that the elephant will get up. Orwell successfully captures the reader's emotions through …show more content…
For King, His moral or lesson he’s trying to communicate the reader is the importance of reading and how it is essential for a writer. “The importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing..constant reading will pull you into a place where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness”(King 76). And in “Shooting an Elephant” one of Orwell’s morals is his opposition to the government and how he truly feels about what his country has done. Orwell says “I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beast who tried to make my job impossible.” Orwell is very interested in social and political issues. Political issues can easily help gain the support for a reader. Political issues have always lasted throughout the years. These issues make the piece and what he is saying
This is an important example of the foolishness of writers that do not understand the metaphors, similes, and symbolic expressions to help the reader understand their ideas in the writing. I also agree that writers do not use words “precisely”, which can confuse the reader. Many writers are not fully aware of the meaning of the words they choose, which Orwell breaks down in the writings he is analyzing. Clarity in the writing process is conveyed with great accuracy by Orwell to make this second point.
Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. Ed. Sonia Orwell. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1950. 3-12.
The quest for power is one which has been etched into the minds of men throughout history. However, it can be said that true power is not a result of one’s actions but comes from the following one’s own beliefs without being influenced by others. This principle sets up the story for Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. The protagonist, Orwell himself, is a sub divisional police officer in Burma, a British colony. Orwell must try to find and use his inner power when he is faced with the decision of whether or not to kill an elephant which has ravaged the Burman’s homes. The state of power established through the imperialistic backdrop show that Orwell, as a colonist, should be in control. As well, the perspective and ideas given by Orwell show his true character and lessen the overall power set up for him. Lastly, the symbols shown are representations of traditional forms of power, but take on different implications in the story. In Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell uses setting, characterization and symbols to show that true power comes from following the dictates of one’s conscience.
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.
“But I did not want to shoot the elephant.... It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him.” (Orwell 95)
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...
In “Shooting an Elephant” writer George Orwell illustrates the terrible episode that explains more than just the action of “shooting an elephant.” Orwell describes the scene of the killing of an elephant in Burma and reveals a number of emotions he experienced during the short, but traumatic event. Effectively, the writer uses many literary techniques to plant emotions and create tension in this scene, leading to an ironic presentation of imperialism. With each of the realistic descriptions of the observing multitude and the concrete appeal of the narrator’s pathos, Orwell thrives in persuading the audience that imperialism not only has a destructive impact on those being governed under the imperialists’ oppressive power, but also corrupts
While he was obtaining a rifle and following the elephant, more people continued to trail behind him, eventually growing to become a crowd of more than two-thousand. Knowing that the force behind him was much greater than his own, it was distracting him and knew “…even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind”. The pressure from his military duty was eating away at him as well, thinking to himself “the crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the east, was one long struggle not to be laughed at”. Afterwards, the old soldiers believed he did the right thing because he was doing his duty by resolving a casualty; the young soldiers thought "it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie" because the elephant had already calmed down and the owner was not present. Relying on optimism, Orwell in the end was content with the casualty and saw his actions legally justified because of
Orwell’s writing showed he practiced what he preached. His use of metaphors created a picture in the reader’s mind. His essay stated clearly and concisely what is wrong with English writers and what is needed to be done to repair it.
Orwell, George. “Shooting an Elephant.” The Brief Arlington Reader. Ed. Nancy Perry. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. 334-339.
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
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...
Throughout "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell, he addresses his internal battle with the issues of morality and immorality. He writes of several situations that show his immoral doings. When George Orwell signed up for a five-year position as a British officer in Burma he was unaware of the moral struggle that he was going to face. Likewise, he has an internal clash between his moral conscious and his immoral actions. Therefore, Orwell becomes a puppet to the will of the Burmese by abandoning his thoughts of moral righteousness. This conflicts with the moral issue of relying upon other's morals, rather than one's own conscience.
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write because there is some lie I want to expose and some fact I want to draw attention to.” George Orwell investigated themes of power, totalitarianism and leadership in relation to Marxist theories throughout his novels yet seemed to direct them at a range of audiences. Investigate the extent to which Orwell alters his communication of the lies he wishes to expose and how they are conveyed to the reader through literary devices. Literature is an essential part of society in the present day and enables the communication between multiple parties in a written form.