More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis shooting the elephant by george orwell
In the story shooting an elephant what does the elephant symbolize
Two themes in shooting an elephant
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
A police officer in the British Raj, the supposedly 'unbreakable'; ruling force, was afraid. With his gun aimed at a elephant's head, he was faced with the decision to pull the trigger. That officer was George Orwell, and he writes about his experience in his short story, 'Shooting an Elephant';. To save face, he shrugged it off as his desire to 'avoid looking the fool'; (George Orwell, 283). In truth, the atmosphere of fear and pressure overwhelmed him. His inner struggle over the guilt of being involved in the subjugation of a people added to this strain, and he made a decision he would later regret enough to write this story.
Early on in his essay, Orwell describes how the abuses and treatment he witnessed oppressed him '… with an intolerable sense of guilt,'; (Orwell,277). This is not some minor pang, or nagging worry. The shame pressed down on his shoulders with an unbearable weight. He also describes the injustices in detail, using vivid pictures like 'The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages…'; (Orwell,277). This does not come from someone who condones such behavior. It stems from a troubled, remorseful soul.
The mob, thousands by his description, also pressured him. 'I could feel their two-thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly,'; he emphasizes (Orwell, 280). It is hard to resist the peer pressure of one or two people, much less a crowd of thousands. He admits, '…in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the faces behind.'; Thus, the desire and will of the crowd urge him on, ominously.
The people despised him. He speaks of being 'hated by large numbers of people'; and the 'sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere..." (Orwell, 276). As one man, how could he dare to go against them? Two thousand could easily overtake one. They would not have aided him, should anything go wrong, and eagerly anticipated that eventuality. He describes his fear that they would watch him be '…pursued, caught, trampled on, and reduced to a grinning corpse…'; should the elephant charge (Orwell, 281).
Orwell starts off his story by sharing that with us. “I was hated by large number of people, the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.” (181) Its only when there’s a time in need do they express appreciating. Hating his job because of certain beliefs. “…I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing…” So why did he shoot the elephant? He knew it was wrong, in fact he had a plan on what to do in order not to kill it. “The crowed would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East was one long struggle not to be laugh at” He deffinaly felt the pressure of the crowd. “It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute” In order for him to seem as he done the right thing even though in his heart he knew was wrong, he did it, he shot the elephant. He didn’t even shoot to kill, the poor guy was at a suffering state. He justified his action with the elephant’s wrong doing, killing a man. Orwell had lack of integrity to himself, but for the town’s people, he did what was in his jobs nature. And policemen need integrity to serve the law, even if its ageist your own
One feeling that is carried out through the end of the narrative is guilt. Orwell despised his job as he stated, “I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” (323) In a job like Orwell’s at the time, he got to see the dirty work of the empire at close quarters. As Orwell states, “The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos-all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of
After the Industrial Revolution, the act of stronger countries taking control of weaker countries became a common practice of colonization or Imperialism. When one think of “Imperialism” they might think of the country and the people that have been taken over. Their resources are being taken, their people are being mistreated so of course people will feel bad for the conquered countries. What people don't know is that imperialism is a double edge sword. In the story “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, we are shown Orwell's view on British's Imperialism, though the British empire found use in Imperialism, Orwell found faults and that it hurts the conqueror as much as it hurts the conquered.
The people of the town soon all crowd around Orwell waiting for him to slaughter the beast. He doesn’t want to but he feels if he wishes to keep up the "imperialist" impression he must kill the elephant. Orwell ends up shooting the elephant many times and leaves
Orwell was the kind of person that did not have a very high self-esteem. He did not have his ducks in a row, so to speak. I don’t think that Orwell was one to function under pressure. He would give in to what he thought the people of Burma wanted, not to what he wanted. But secretly inside he hated the environment in which he lived, he hated the imperialistic government in which resided in Burma. He hated the residents of Burma. He stated that he would love to stick his bayonette into the stomach of a Buddhist priest. He felt all of this hatred for the people around him, but yet he felt as if he had to go along with everything and everyone else just to live in harmony.
Every day, each individual will look back on decisions he or she have made and mature from those experiences. Though it takes time to realize these choices, the morals and knowledge obtained from them are priceless. In George Orwell’s nonfictional essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, a young Orwell was stationed in Burma for the British imperial forces, tasked to deal with an elephant who destroyed various parts of the village Moulmein while its owner was away. Backed by second thoughts and a crowd of thousands, he finds himself shooting the elephant and reflecting that it was not justified; however, it was a choice pushed by his duty and the people. Written with a fusion of his young and old self’s outlook on shooting the elephant, Orwell’s essay is a sensational read that captivates his audience and leaves them questioning his decision.
Orwell was a cop in another land where the people there didn’t really like him much because he was there to keep order because his country just took it over. The people there made him feel like a failure and like really bad. “As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter.” So being the guy that is from the country that just took over your country he was
Orwell uses language to express his remorse over shooting an elephant. In the first paragraph, Orwell draws attention to the enormous creature's "agony" after the third shot had "[knocked] the last remnant of strength from his legs". Then later in paragraph two, he continues to use language to describe how the elephant was "breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps". However, as the "agony" of the elephant continues, Orwell begins to describe the breathing as incessant rather than rhythmically. These examples of language allow us to visualize the powerless creature's never-ending suffering. With each breath the helpless animal takes, the more Orwell realizes he had never wanted to shoot it in the first place. He tries everything
People make mistakes every day, hour, minute, and second. Some mistakes are bigger than others and they take a lot of thinking and praying to fix. Man makes mistakes by giving into peer pressure on a daily basis because of things like money and popularity. We see one of these messages in the short story “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell. The message of this story is to show that man often lives with unnecessary regret, pleases others, and makes poor decisions.
First, Orwell displays many times throughout his essay where he feels guilty. Orwell says “The Wretched prisoners huddling in… the grey, cowed faces of the long term convicts… all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt” (320). Orwell is suggesting that seeing the way the prisoners had been treated, seeing the way they looked, and seeing their living conditions had made him feel so guilty he was oppressed by it. Another instance where Orwell feels guilty was when he killed the elephant. He only decided to shoot it when all of the people were behind him, and he did not want to look like a fool. Another way you can recognize Orwell’s guilt is in his word usage. He uses words like “dreadful” and “tortured” to describe the slow dying process of the elephant.
The people's’ control of him supports the idea that allowing others to influence you in society is harmful to oneself in that he now makes his decisions solely to avoid conflict with the crowd, and in the end does actions he is not proud of. When Orwell finally gives into the mob mentality of the crowd convincing him to shoot the elephant, he “heard a devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd.” (Orwell). This oxymoron juxtaposes the happiness from the crowd with that of a devil, representing the faux persona the crowd puts on of being harmless, yet in actuality they are dictating every aspect of society. The crowd sets the societal normalities which are expected to be followed by all, though the actions these normalities enforce contradict with the morals of Orwell. The people have Orwell under their total control, though they have a slight twinge of doubt that he will abandon their persuasions and do as he pleases, as mentioned when Orwell writes “The crowd grew very still, and a
From the beginning of the narrative “Shooting An Elephant,” George Orwell creates a character with a diminished sense of self. The character narrates, “I was hated by large numbers of people -- the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me” (Orwell, 58). All he wants is attention and it is evident that even negative attention is better than being ignored. He hates working for the British as a sub-divisional police officer in the town of Moulmein. He even makes it known to the audience that, “Theoretically -- and secretly, of course -- I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” (58). The character knows he does not want to be in this position, as a Anglo-Indian
According to Orwell his freedom was destroyed when he took on the role of the tyrant. His job was that of a sub-divisional police officer in Lower Burma. A crisis arose in which he was faced with a hard decision to make. An elephant had gone on a rampage in the village and had destroyed countless huts and killed a man. When Orwell came upon the elephant it was clear to him that it had calmed down and that the elephant would cause no more harm to anyone. Orwell was faced with a decision: he could either shoot the beast or wait until his master came to get him. However, this decision was made much more complicated. Orwell was surrounded by two thousand Burmans who, as Orwell said, “were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a magic trick.” Although the Burmans were all underneath him and subject to him, he was very concerned about what they thought he should do. He was so concerned in fact he concluded that he had to do as they wished of him.
The glorious days of the imperial giants have passed, marking the death of the infamous and grandiose era of imperialism. George Orwell's essay, Shooting an Elephant, deals with the evils of imperialism. The unjust shooting of an elephant in Orwell's story is the central focus from which Orwell builds his argument through the two dominant characters, the elephant and its executioner. The British officer, the executioner, acts as a symbol of the imperial country, while the elephant symbolizes the victim of imperialism. Together, the solider and the elephant turns this tragic anecdote into an attack on the institution of imperialism.
If a seven year old read Animal Farm he/she would have thought that it is a sad story about a farm in England. If an older person reads it however, he/she realizes that this story has much more meaning to it. The story is filled with themes that help us understand the world around us. In this essay I am going to talk about four themes that Orwell discussed in this story. They are power, totemism, coercion, and violence. Power leads to absolute power, the job of totemism is to keep the people loyal, and after that doesn't work coercion comes in effect by using violence.