It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the
It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the
George Orwell writes Shooting an Elephant with his experiences in Burma; so story is in Burma, Myanmar. Both Orwell uses his own experiences in past and he lives in the significant era of British in history, we see high rise at historical background in the story. Orwell prefers to indirect way to express his emotions using symbols. One of the main symbols is an elephant. The elephant symbolizes British Empire. The reason that Orwell chooses the elephant, the empire is powerful like an elephant. When it dies, Orwell makes narrative sentences about the elephant. These sentences help us the elephant is the British Empire.” One could have imagined him thousands of years old. (5)” “He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world…
The incident of shooting the elephant gave rise to a much-talked issue. It also created a tremendous negative impact on Orwell’s mind. Even the opinion of his fellow Europeans differed – the older people supported his act, while the younger ones condemned it and argued that ‘it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie’. However, deep in his mind Orwell always knew that he had shot the elephant ‘solely to avoid looking a…
On the other hand, the story "Shooting an Elephant” was wrote by George Orwell base on his personal experience in Moulmein, in Lower Burma .He served his country, "British Empire as a colonial administrator. The author described the effects on the oppressed Burmese Indians and theirs oppressor British Empire. The internal conflict of British men, his feelings and convictions linked to his pride from of the angry crowd. Shooting an Elephant is more than a personal experience story, is a reflection of the dilemmas of morals standards in real life and the costs that it represent as a human been and his nature as well .…
Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell is a story how a young Orwell, while stationed in Colonial Burma, became disillusioned with Imperialism. On one occasion he was faced with the dilemma of having to destroy a wild elephant that had gotten loose in the town he was stationed in. Throughout the story the reader will be able to see two alternating voices of Orwell. The first voice is a justification of his actions, while the other voice cites an honest excuse of why he shot the elephant. More than that the story talks about power and authority, pride v/s responsibility, ethical decision making and being morally correct or incorrect.…
Orwell responds to the call, taking his rifle, “an old 44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant” (2845 Orwell) in hopes of frightening it with the noise. This elephant was not wild, but normally tame and broke loose due to sexual desire. This first action is just an exercise of authority in maintaining order; however, in seeing a dead native victim he requests an elephant rifle and five cartridges. This is when the Burmese become quite excited and an “immense crowd of two thousand” (2846 Orwell) follow him. They believe that the imperial police officer is going to shoot the elephant when, in actuality, he just wanted to defend himself from becoming another devilish corpse.…
8. Orwell asserts that “the greatest enemy of language” is insincerity? What does he mean by this?…
The story is set in the 1920’s, when Orwell served as Assistant Superintendent in the British Imperial Police in Burma during a period of strong anti-European sentiment in the country. Though his sympathies and intellect are aligned with those of the Burmese, Orwell’s standing as an Englishman and his position with the authorities only serve to further alienate him from the citizenry and harbor negative public opinion. During an event when a labor elephant breaks free of its handlers and tramples a citizen to death, Orwell is charged with tracking the beast and putting it down. The author describes his conflictions with his task and tells us that upon finding the elephant in a more tranquil state, his resolve in following through with the sentence was even weaker. Here, we find the protagonist standing alone before a scrutinizing audience of thousands of onlookers. Orwell proceeds to shoot the elephant several times before leaving the scene, unable to end its life. Left to the whim of the emotionally charged mob, the animal is killed and stripped nearly to the bone mere hours after the event. In closing, Orwell…
This is almost a microscopic parallel to how when first Britain came to Burma and established its power through oppression and violence. The author also describes the elephant as a “powerful machinery” (950) which represents the economic foundation of the working Burmese and should not be destroyed. However, the elephant is hated by its people, and is demanded to be killed. During the critical moment during which it falls, the author uses the phrase “powerless to move, yet powerless to die” (951) and words such as “senile” to imply a true feeble state of Imperialism. The author lastly reveals the evil nature of Imperialism through the inner conflict of young Orwell as he faces the moral dilemma of whether or not he should kill the elephant. How young Orwell comes to form his decision is very paradoxical. This is because the officer himself does not want to kill the seemingly innocent elephant when he finds it eating in the field. Also on top of that, Orwell hates the imperialistic power as shown in quote “For at that time I had already made up my mind that Imperialism was an evil thing…and I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British”…
He felt comfort in knowing that because a man had died due to the elephant's rage, that he was legally in the right. However, he stated did not stand for imperialism, and that it was “evil”, yet he displayed the very thing he despised. The Burmese people were treated terribly by the Empire. Orwell even says, “The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.” By that, it reflects exactly what the elephants living conditions were. And with all of the rage pent up from being confined and living in deplorable conditions, once the elephant was freed, it had every reason to go rogue. Just like the elephant, the people of Lower Burman had a reason to be rebellious and filled with hate. Orwell was in a position to simply wait for the elephant's to mahout come back, as it harmlessly fed itself in the distance. Instead, he gave in to the pressure, let his ego take over, and took the life of an…
Nevertheless, Orwell was deeply disturbed, as he was in a postion he did not like, and was caught in the middle where he ought to make the decision of killing the mad elephant. He was indirectly force to do this in front thousands who hated him not knowing or care that he did not want to kill the elphant but the imperialism was evil. He seem to have become a hypocrite to himself, not liking treatment of his prisoners or the smelly cages, he was uneducated felt he could do nothing even in the position he held.…
The Burmese wanted Orwell to kill this elephant since it destroyed a bamboo hut, eaten the stock at the fruit stand, killed a cow, and had turned over a van. The elephant had basically torn part of the town apart and the Burmese people were not happy with it and wanted it dead.…
In the reading, Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell is narrating about his feeling and pressure shooting an elephant. A little about the writer, Orwell, is a British police officer who was born in India. He was hated by large numbers of people in Moulmein, in Lower Burma as the British had colonized Burma.…
When an elephant got loose, and began a deadly rampage through the city, the English policeman had to control the situation. With one option being to kill the beast, and the other to wait for the owner, the policeman had a difficult decision. However, in his head, he knew what he wanted to do. Despite having minimal hesitations killing animals, he did not feel it was necessary, nor did he want to kill the elephant. But, when the policeman noticed that thousands of Burmans were watching him, hoping for the kill, he was stuck with a dilemma. Whether it was his intention or not, Orwell begins to form a message around the policeman’s problem.…
The elephant in Orwell’s essay acted as a symbol of the Burmese people. The animal “looked no more dangerous than a cow” cows are known to be passive and possess calm traits much like the Buddhist population of Burma. Orwell saw himself as representing the British empire, regardless of whether he wanted to or not. In a strange twist, the 2000 plus Burmans that came to watch the shooting represented the high ranking officials in the empire that controlled Orwell and many others. Orwell felt “it was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd” (474) It was at that moment when Orwell saw himself as an “absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (475) Orwell had no desire to murder the beast, but he knew he could not back out. The choice was no longer his; the colonizer had become the colonized. The slow death of the elephant represents Burma and how it has been ravaged by imperialism. Orwell shooting the elephant multiple times (in an effort to end its pain) is similar to how the British believed they were helping Burma progress, but in reality were causing more agony.…
The short story, Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was written about Orwell’s experience in the early Twentieth Century. At that time India was ruled the British. While he was there, he had to do something that had caused some ethical conflicts in him. Orwell’s job was to kill an elephant that had ran rampant in lust throughout a village in Burma. “It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violence upon it” (Orwell 897). The villagers were obviously upset about the trial and he was called upon to restore the order before anything, or anyone got hurt. While he got there he decided that it was best to kill the animal. His reasons for doing so, however, were not as clear-cut. “The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie”(Orwell 901). His final decision was not to look bad in front of the villagers; that gave him a degree of shame. Orwell was in conflict with himself about his justification, otherwise there would be no justification. What had been seen was how he justified in shooting the elephant, regardless of what the ethical and moral issues he had suffered. Orwell needed to show the people that he was a man of authority. If he had not shown that, then he would be taken over by the villagers. The elephant had trampled a hut, killed a man, a cow, destroyed a fruit stand and ate the contents, and destroyed a van. These were some reasons to kill the it, and nothing like this will ever get out of control with another animal like this elephant.…