An Elephant Essay

Shooting an Elephant Essays

In the essay, Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell illustrates his experiences as a British police officer in Lower Burma, and reflects it to the nature of imperialism. Since "anti–European feeling was very bitter" due to the British Empire's dictatorship in Burma, Orwell is being treated disrespectfully by the Burmese (12). This allows him to hate his job and the British Empire. However, the incident of shooting of an elephant gives him a "better glimpse ... of the real nature of imperialism – the real motives for which despotic government act" (13). Through his life experiences as a British man, Orwell efficiently demonstrates the negative effects of imperialism on individuals and society. With the usage of effective diction in his...show more content...

He calls himself a "puppet" to prove and emphasize the fact that even the oppressors lose their freedom and have to live under the pressure of the people they oppress when an imperialist system takes place in the society. Also, Orwell establishes particular effects in his essay by using different sentence structures. As Orwell comes to the decision of shooting the elephant, he states, "To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing– no, that was impossible" (15). The parallel phrases used in this passage recaps the whole situation but the usage of anacoluthon in the end of the link allows Orwell to show how much he is pressurized. In addition, it indicates the readers that there is no way for him to leave the elephant alive after coming to this stage of the situation. Orwell again uses parallel phrases to describe the effects on the elephant after the first shot: "He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralyzed him without knocking him down" (16). This structure helps Orwell to intensify the shock and the reaction in the readers as the elephant starts dying. Lack of a grammatical sequence is used when Orwell goes out to kill an elephant and says, "I had no intention of shooting the elephant – I had merely sent for the rifle

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Shooting An Elephant Essay

The story that my evaluation will be based on is Shooting an Elephant written in 1936. The author George Orwell was born in 1903 in India to a British officer raised in England. He attended Eton College, which introduced him to England's middle and upper classes. He was denied a scholarship, which led him to become a police officer for the Indian Imperial in 1922. He served in Burma until resigning in 1927 due to the lack of respect for the justice of British Imperialism in Burma and India. He was now determined to become a writer, so at the brink of poverty he began to pay close attention to social outcasts and laborers. This led him to write Down and Out in Paris and London (1933) during the Spanish Civil War. He embodied his hate for...show more content...

As he walked on to locate the elephant the realization that the whole town was watching and waiting for him to make his move was very apparent. The officer came across the elephant eating in a clearing and felt at ease that the animal was finished with his path of destruction. He glanced around him and realized that he would be forced to kill the animal. The town's people disliked him greatly, but with a weapon and the ability to kill the wild beast the quickly changed their opinion about the officer. Although the elephant was harmless at this point, the officer fell into the trap of peer pressure and felt obligated to terminate the animal's life. He walked as close to the elephant as he could without startling it and pulled the trigger. George Orwell then goes on to describe in great detail the horrible death that the elephant experienced. I liked the message of this story, but I did not care for the way that the author chose to present it. The message was very clear in that there was a common problem between people in general and certain races in the mid–thirties. The message was that even though peers may expect something of them it is not always the right thing to do. This is displayed in the paragraph at the top of page 683 and continues until the middle of the page. The main character mentions right before he shoots the elephant the first time that "

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Shooting an Elephant In life we as humans often make decisions that we would not have made on our own if we would not have been influenced by someone else. As humans others' opinions mean a great deal to us, and in "Shooting an Elephant", Orwell shows how true this idea is by the tone of the story. "Shooting an Elephant" is the story of a British policeman in Moulmein, a city inBurma, that is torn between shooting or not shooting an elephant that has gone ramped. The native people did not like him much, but when the elephant went on its rampage they were quick to call on him. What seemed like is should have been an easy task for the officer to do was harder than he ever could have imagined when he can face to face with it. When the...show more content...

In the opening sentence the officer says "В…I was hated by large numbers of people В–the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me." Here he is being very open, and letting the reader know that he was just doing his job and the people hated him. It was not all his fault, they hated him more for who he was than what he was doing or standing for. He later goes on to say how he would like to stab a Buddhist priest, but then justifies his words by saying, "Feelings like these are normal byproducts of imperialismВ…" As the story goes on the officer says, "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." In this one statement he shows just how rational he was being. He was honestly trying to decide what to do. His very lovable, likable tone is working for him. This is a very important move because before the reader really knows what's going on the reader already hopes the situation works out in the officers favor. One would almost feel bad for him when the pressure from the crowd starts to get to him and he say, "It made me vaguely uneasy." He was honestly torn between what he felt he should do and what the crowd wanted him to do. He later goes on to say "В…but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed

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In his essay, Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell illustrates his experiences as a British police officer, and reflects it to the nature of imperialism. He hates his job as a police officer in Moulmein because an "anti–European feeling was very bitter" due to British Empire's dictatorship in Burma. Therefore, Orwell, a white man is being treated disrespectfully by the Burmese which allows him to hate his job and British Empire, the root of everything. However, the incident of shooting of an elephant gives him a "better glimpse ... of the real nature ofimperialism –the real motives for which despotic government act" (13). In order to express the effects of imperialism, Orwell illustrates this "enlightening" incidence by using various...show more content...

When Orwell was followed by thousands of Burmese, he says, "seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind" (15). He calls himself "puppet" to indicate that even an oppressor loses his freedom and has to live under pressure when imperialism takes place in the society. Orwell also establishes particular effects in his essay by using different sentence structures. He describes the picture of, "To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing– no, that was impossible" (15). The parallel phrases are used in this passage to recap the whole situation but the sudden usage of anacoluthon in the end of the link allows Orwell show how much Orwell is pressurized and indicates reads that there is no way for Orwell to leave the elephant alive after coming to this stage of the situation. Orwell again uses the parallel phrases to describe the effects on an elephant after the first shot: "In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant" (16). This structure intensifies the shock and reaction in readers and helps Orwell to prove what it takes for one decision. The lack of grammatical sequence is used when Orwell goes out to kill

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