Shooting An Elephant Analysis

The essay is about an officer who must make a decision whether to shoot an elephant or not. From the very beginning the officer is saying that he is hated by a large number of people. He starts off as an honest man in my opinion. Will he continue being an honest man throughout the story? The officer was a subdivisional police officer of a town and the officer describes himself as an easy target. This officer even admits that he does not like his job. Like the officer, I too had a choice to make, whether to shoot an elephant or not. I shot the elephant just as the officer did too. The officer talks being stuck, being stuck between the hatred of the empire he served and the range against the evil spirited little beasts who tried making his job impossible. Then came the officers problem. The officer receives a call pertaining to an elephant that was on the loose. The elephant had broken out of the chains that were holding prison. The elephant had made his way to the Burmese town. The Burmese population had no weaponry to protect themselves from the elephant. While the elephant was in town, he had killed a man and destroyed some materialistic things along the town. By the
The people around the officer had not shown much interest on the elephant until they knew the elephant was going to be shot. The people around just wanted the meat. The officer however, did not want to shoot the elephant, he had a rifle only to protect himself. But, peer pressure was getting to him. Crowds of people were following him waiting for him to kill the elephant. The officer then finds the elephant and knows deep inside that he does not want to shoot the elephant. The officer just wanted to watch him till the mahout came back and caught the elephant. No one liked the officer but since he had the rifle ready to kill, the people thought he was worth