George Orwell Imperialism

Imperialism must be destoryed

In George Orwell’s “shooting an Elephant”, it was clear that Orwell was trying to criticize British Empire for their tyrant imperialism. He had this thought during his action of killing an elephant, “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” (2570) Orwell was not act on his own will. His mind is controlled by Burmese people and lost his ability to act morally. Orwell loses his freedom of act morally because he can’t show any weakness in front of those colonized people. Orwell was successful in making me feel that imperialism and colonialism makes people ill, and must be eliminated from human society.

Orwell feels a lot hatred from Burmese people. “They were watching me as they would watch a conjuror about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching.” (2569) In this paragraph, Orwell clearly states “they did not like me”. And he compare himself to a conjuror performing a trick. Burmese people ignored him as a police officer but look at him as a conjuror. Rifles suppose to represent power and authority. But Orwell described it as a magical prop he about to use to perform a trick. We can understand Burmese’s hatred toward their

Huge contradiction and distrustful occured between this two group. Orwell criticized British’s system of imperialism. Orwell said this to British Empire “ Theoretically--- and secretly, of course--- I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. in a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters.” (2567) And that’s all George Orwell trying to argue in this short essay: British imperialism and colonialism must be