George Orwell Imperialism

In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”, Orwell mentions how he was hated and harassed by the people of Burma. Essentially, because of the fact that he was part of the British colony that oppressed the Burmese. From the beginning, Orwell did not concur with British Imperialism, he states “I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better” (Orwell. 134). In addition, Orwell detested his job, he had to watch the prisoners who were oppressed and living in terrible conditions, it was there where he saw “the dirty work of Empire at close quarters” (Orwell. 134). The first time he was exposed to the “real nature of imperialism” (Orwell.134), was when he received a
Orwell questioned the villagers about the location of the elephant but their responses were different each time, which led him to believe it was a lie. It was then when the screaming of some villagers led him to the corpse of an indian laborer . George Orwell requested a rifle, as soon as the villagers saw him with the weapon in his hand they shouted in excitement, ready to see the incredible, beastly elephant get shot. As George Orwell approached the location of the elephant in the rice field, he began to worry about what the villagers would think about him. In reality, his intentions were not to kill the elephant, he only brought the rifle for self defense. If he killed the elephant, it would be worth almost nothing, but if he did not the villagers would humiliate him. In that moment, Orwell had acted similarly to those of the British Colony and decided to end the life of the the elephant that decided bring havoc to the village and rebel. After several attempts to kill the elephant, he becomes upset after realizing the elephant has not died yet. In the end, it took the elephant about a half hour to die and the Burmese people had taken everything from the elephant and only left his bones. “Orwell uses parallel between the British Empire and a Burmese elephant to convey a message about Imperialism”("Chegg.com." Imperialism In George Orwell's "Shooting An El... N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.) because the elephant was killed for breaking free from its chains and rebelling which made it a “threat”, an action that happened regularly during British Imperialism in Burma to those who acted out and did not follow british