George Orwell Shooting An Elephant Analysis

Although many people believe that racism has disappeared from our minds after all those solutions of trying to set equal rights in the world’s history, it still exists today, and will probably never vanish from our thinking. Some may clearly express it, whereas others may express racism unnoticeably, even to themselves. George Orwell, in “Shooting an Elephant”, tells a story of his past when he killed an elephant in order to please the Burmese crowd. At the time, Orwell was a white Indian Imperial Police officer who was disliked by the country's natives due to the fact that he was European. One day, he heard of an elephant's doing of ravaging the town, so he ran to the scene with a rifle. When he finally arrived, he found himself observing a peacefully feeding elephant while a huge crowd of Burmans gathered excitedly to observe his future action. Even though he does not feel it right to shoot the elephant, he has this huge, unavoidable pressure from the Burmese crowd. Eventually, his final decision was to shoot the elephant and
In order to survive this world at least a little more joyfully, people must follow their own beliefs and practices as many times as possible. Even though he had his belief about killing the elephant, Orwell purely abandoned the idea of following his way, and concentrated on how to please the natives. Only after he carried out the action did he admit that he “had done it solely to avoid looking a fool,” meaning he had no self-confidence or self-respect. In fact, by doing so what he decided to do, Orwell became a fool who was too afraid to speak out his belief: that the elephant does not deserve to be killed. As Orwell states, “he wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.” Basically, people first hide their belief and conform to others’, then without knowing, they become to be one of them completely, losing their true