Paragraph 3-5 Orwell Analysis

George Orwell’s ‘Shooting an Elephant’ (Orwel, 1936) represents a number of strangers being involved in a combined encounter. The situation throughout the essay represents the unjust British occupation of Burma, the hatred towards him as a British officer and the elephant symbolising the British. The part of the text chosen clearly exemplifies how a forced duty can lead to hatred. The text chosen displays that he is forced to encounter the Burmese people yet they despise him. Although the encounter with the Burmese improves with the arrival of the elephant, Orwell still has a sense of isolation. Throughout the text Orwell questions the presence of the British in the East exploring that the encounter with the Burmese should not have took place.

“Shooting an Elephant” is a short anecdote written by George Orwell. The story depicts a young man, Orwell, who has to decide whether to bend the rules for his superiors or to follow his own path. George Orwell works as the sub-divisional police officer of Moulmein, a town in the British colony of Burma. He, along with the rest of the English military are disrespected by the Burmese due to the English invading their territory and taking over. Over time, Orwell, the narrator, has already begun to question the presence of the British in the Far East. He states, theoretically and secretly, he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” Orwell describes himself as “young and ill-educated,” bitterly hating his job. Orwell uses powerful imagery and diction to convey a depressing and sadistic tone to the story. At the end of the story, he faces a dilemma: to kill the elephant or not.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell retold an occasion where he was struggling to come to a final decision of whether to shoot the elephant or not. With his final decision, the elephant finally lay dying in front of thousands of people. He said that he was forced to shoot it because the Burmese people were expecting him to do that. In addition, he also explained that he had to do it “to avoid looking like a fool” in front of the crowd (14). At first glance, one would think that it makes sense for him to kill the elephant to save his face, but that was not the case. He effectively uses this incident to demonstrate the “real nature of imperialism” (3), whereas the elephant represents the British Empire.

The author is introduced as a police officer who is sympathetic to the Burmese people. This is not a rare feeling among off duty British police officers according to Orwell. Ironically, the people hate Orwell, because he is a police officer and a representation of the British. It is clear the Burmese don’t like Europeans. Orwell says a European woman would probably get spit on if she was alone at the markets. This hate is understandable, because the Burmese people were conquered. This resentment is transferred to Orwell in verbal abuse on the street and physical abuse on the football field. This is interesting because even before the elephant Orwell is conflicted with his role and his beliefs.

While the elephant continues to break away, his force begins to diminish “ One could have imagined him thousands of years old.”(5). We now see the power that the Burmese are capable of putting out. The British army is slowly giving up. Orwell shoots again “...he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness…”(5). Again, “ That shot did it for him”(5), the British army has lost all their strength to the Burmese, as the Burmese flock to the dying elephant Orwell fires two more times to end the pain and suffering once and for all. The British army has been robbed of all their power, you see them have the vision of re-rising but can not. Eventually the elephant dies, symbolizing the freedom the Burmese have just

Orwell next faces the moral dilemma of whether or not to shoot the elephant. At first, it is clear that he does not feel the internal urge to shoot the elephant: "It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him" (Orwell.525). However, Orwell's virtue becomes dwarfed as the Burmese's "two thousand wills [press him] forward"(524) to kill the elephant. At this point there is an obvious role reversal as the Burmese begin to strongly influence Orwells decisions. Because he constantly dwells on what the crowd will think of him he shoots the elephant. Thus submitting to the will of the people and committing the immoral deed of abandoning ones own conscious because of the pressure of others.

Orwell recalls an event that happened to him while he was a British police officer in Burma. One day in Burma, Orwell receives a report that an elephant has gone a “must”. While investigating, he hears the screams of terrified children. Orwell rushes to the scene and discovers the corpse of an Indian with obvious elephant foot markings all over his body. When Orwell finally tracks down the elephant, “he was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth” (Orwell 279). Orwell immediately realizes he shouldn’t shoot it, because the elephant is tame and calm. In addition to the behavior of the elephant, Orwell also considers how shooting the elephant would affect its owner, because a working elephant is worth 100 euros alive versus a measly 5 euros dead. Although Orwell believes the elephant is “no more dangerous than a cow”, he ultimately chooses to let his perceived thoughts of the crowd force him to take action opposite of his personal beliefs (Orwell 280). Instead of reaping the benefits of his beliefs, Orwell pays a consequence for his

This indicates why he hated the Burmans so much; even though he sympathized with their plight. If the Burmans revolted against their oppressors, they could end their oppression. Instead, they made due with bullying and insulting the people who oppressed them, which changed nothing. This is encapsulated with Orwell’s final message in which he says oppression happens because we allow it, so don’t. The second insight into oppression that Orwell gained from his experience of shooting the elephant, is that the oppressors oppress themselves.

Orwell will be put in a circumstance that he does not want to be in. He knows deep down that shooting the elephant is wrong. It is not something he wants to do. An elephant is an expensive, huge piece of machinery and can do amazing work. In this moment of pressure of deciding what to do, Orwell wants to pretend that he doesn’t care what the natives think, but it is extremely evident that he does. However, the moment he is worried about what they think, allows these citizens power which is exactly what Orwell doesn’t want to give them. Through feeling the peer pressure of the natives, Orwell shoots the elephant, knowing that it is not the right thing to do. The reading shows this as it rea ds, “It is the condition of his rile that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the natives, and so in every crisis he has got to do what the natives expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had to shoot the elephant…with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing-no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me.” Peer pressure only works because humans allow it to work through fear of getting humiliated. This statement ties right into the next theme of the

Orwell’s charitable reasoning makes it seem as though his high-born instinct may yet prevail. Unfortunately, his desire not to be humiliated by the villagers and the fact that he is more afraid of humiliation and perhaps how it might influence the local's sense of Orwell as an authoritarian figure triumphs over his humane side. It is clear that the pressure of the crowd makes Orwell feel compelled to perform a particular inhumane and illogical role. In spite of his well thought out self analysis, he cannot combat the duties that his role as an officer that he must make in order to display his authorization.The part in where Orwell describes the elephant’s physical suffering when having been shot is the most agonizing part ,and in this specific

Comparatively the British were treated extremely well by the Burmese, potentially because the Burmese were too afraid to strike back, “no one had the guts to raise a riot”(1). 2. In paragraph three of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, there is no mention of an elephant, however despite this the tone is set for the encounter in paragraph five. The quotes before the event set the stage for a darker atmosphere, “it gave [him] a better glimpse than [he] had had before of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic governments act” (2). By instilling a darker atmosphere, it allows for Orwell to have a smoother transition to the elephant attack and foreshadows that Orwell will not kill the elephant

Have you ever been pressured into doing something you didn’t want to, but felt like you had no other option? The narrator in Orwell's, “Shooting an Elephant” had a very similar experience. He was pressed by the Burmese into committing a senseless killing that he did not deem necessary. This transformation of the main characters mentality and morals gives the audience a terrific example of characterization, which would not be possible without the effective use of point of view in Orwell's story.

Orwell abandons his morals and kills the elephant to garner the approval of the Burmans. He feels compelled to shoot the animal because the Burmans "did not like me, but with the magical rifle in

Orwell was powerless to fulfill the wishes and requests of the people and the order for the government. Even when he knew he was the wrong individual to correctly and sufficiently complete the task, he tried it anyway to try and gain the approval of the locals. Orwell goes on to explain the excitement in the people eyes, as he was preparing to carry out the task of shooting the elephant. As describes in his analysis of “Shooting an Elephant”, he explains “it is clear that there is no ethical or practical reason to hurt the elephant” but Orwell is forced into taking the shot at the elephant because there are thousands of people watching. The immense pressure of trying to please the people is a huge distraction to make the appropriate

George Orwell writes an autobiography story called Shooting an elephant, he wrote the story in 1936, 50 years into British rule. In this story George talks about how two values collide in conflict and he is forced to decide which one he values more. The two values that come into question are the value of the animal's life and the value of being accepted. The event that is forcing George Orwell to choose what value he has a stronger belief in is a must elephant that has tormented the village. He called for a gun in case he needed it for self defence, but he had no intentions to use the gun unless completely necessary, he even said, “I did not want to shoot the elephant”. Two thousand Burmans gathered around the streets for