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Shooting an Elephant

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Shooting an Elephant
S. Zamb.
November 29, 2001

“Shooting and elephant” Erick Arthur Blair better known as George Orwell was born in Mohitari, India on June 25, 1903. India into a family of the “lower-upper middle class. George Orwell’s education brought him to England where he was unable to win a scholarship to continue his studies. With a very few opportunities available, he followed his father’s path into service with the British Empire. Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927. When Orwell left the police service he traveled Europe and started writing In that time he wrote several short stories including “Shooting an Elephant”, which was publish 1936. On January 21, 1950 Orwell died at University college Hospital. He was buried at All Saints Churchyard, Sutton Courtenay.
Shooting an Elephant takes place in a town in southern Burma. Orwell writes of his experience in British ruled India in the early twentieth century. The story concerns a colonial officer if obligation to shoot a rogue elephant. The narrator does not want to shoot the elephant, but feel forced to by a crowd of indigenous residents, before whom he does not want to appear indecisive or cowardly.
The situation and events that Orwell describes the hostility between the British Empire and the “natives” as a British police officer in hillside town of Burma, Orwell frequently endures jeers from the natives. They do not realize that he is also against English occupation of Burma, in his position he sees the misery that imperialism produces. Orwell refers to Imperialism as evil. He says that it humiliates the occupied people reducing them to inferior status in their own country.
One morning at the beginning of the rainy season, an incident occur that enlightens him about imperialism. An elephant was loose in a bazaar in a poor section of town, and a Burmese inspector calls him to come and remedy the situation. Orwell had to kill and elephant that had run rampant in lost through a

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