How to Deal with Peer Pressure

Peer pressure it’s all around us every day, every waking moment and we all have to deal with it. It’s how we deal with the pressure that may differ from everybody else. A great example of having to deal with peer pressure is George Orwell’s story Shooting an Elephant. As the British has come in and has taken over Burma many of the natives dislike the military place that are put in to keep the peace. One of these police or MP’s is challenged with the task of having to shoot an elephant. Why just he do this you ask, because the elephant is in must this is when an elephant goes into heat and turns very aggressive. The native people want the young British man to shoot the elephant they see it as entertainment. The young man must deal with the peer pressure. The solutions to deal with peer pressure is, he can simply say no that he doesn’t want to, next is to just walk away, and finally is to explain to the people why he mustn’t do it.

In the great story of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell conveys a huge message of peer pressure and how the young man could have dealt with that pressure is by simply saying no. The young British soldier gave into peer pressure from the Burma’s Natives they wanted him to shoot the elephant whom was on a rampage. The man knew the elephant was in must and was uncontrollable without its mahout which is the elephant’s keeper and rider. Instead the man started to think that the Burma’s people already hated him, and if he were to not shoot the elephant they would laugh and ridicule him. As is stated here by the man “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly.” It is at this moment he should have gotten up and told the peo...

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...want to shoot the elephant.” Many of the people would not understand but, that’s okay because he knows that what he is doing is the right thing.

As you can see there is a wide arrangement of options the British soldier could have chosen to do other that to shoot the elephant. He could have just told him no he was obviously in charge he was armed and they weren’t. If in turn that didn’t work he could just walk away. Though he was so worried about being laughed at and ridiculed he could have just explained to them that he must not shoot the elephant for the reasons listed above. So for many people that give into peer pressure try to use some or all of these tactics to get out of doing something that you’re being pressured into doing. This are simple solutions that the British soldier should have used and solutions that many people can use in everyday occurrences.