Why Does Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell Have True Courage

Shooting an Elephant Essay

Courage is being able to drown out the voices of others and stay true to one’s own morals. In the memoir Shooting An Elephant, George Orwell describes his time as a British Colonial police officer in Burma. While he is there he develops hatred for the British Empire and his actions, throughout the memoir are contrary to his beliefs. There are several events that take place in Shooting an Elephant that reveal Orwell’s character flaws. He lacks the ability to make decisions based on his own morals, refuses to utilize his power to act according to his values and fears humiliation, proving that he does not possess genuine courage. True courage is defined by one’s ability to not only possess strong values, but
During a game of football, the Burmese continue to deliberately wear down and injure Orwell due to the fact that they know he will not step up and protect himself. Orwell fails to stand up for himself around the locals after being blatantly mistreated on several occasions because he fears embarrassment, resulting in him feeling humiliated. “When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee, a Burman, looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter.” Orwell is a minority, that is the bottom line and when you are the minority, you lack the courage to stand up for yourself due to the fear of humiliation. He feels powerless or out of his element, and in result is incapable of gathering enough true courage to stand up for himself. In another instance, Orwell’s courage is tested when he is faced with shooting the elephant in front of thousands of Burmans. When George Orwell is first informed of the elephant situation, his intentions are to observe the elephant’s behaviour and to ensure that it does not cause harm to the Burmese. Little does he know that he is about to be thrust into the spotlight, as nearly two thousand Burmans follow him to the scene. The audience hinders his ability to do the right thing, as his mindset changes to avoid humiliation. “The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh...That would never do.” George Orwell is under immense pressure during this time from the thousands of Burman eyes glaring at him. Orwell believes in the Burmans and wants more appreciation from them. Since the Burmans hate the British and Orwell is a British police officer, there is a great burden on Orwell to please the natives to