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Summary of the essay shooting an elephant by george orwell
Summary of the essay shooting an elephant by george orwell
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In his essay Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell uses diction effectively to convey an ambivalent tone that displays his complex attitudes toward the Natives. Orwell uses “evil-spirited” (285), “beasts” (285), and “crucified” (287) to describe the Burmese, and the word choice demonstrates the variety of connotations against the Natives. George Orwell states that he is “all for the Burmese and still against their oppressors, the British” (285), however, he characterizes the Burmese by using animalistic words which dehumanize them. Throughout the essay, George Orwell chooses his word choice to demonstrate a negative and positive attitude toward the Natives.
Well known author and journalist, George Orwell, in his essay, Shooting an Elephant, describes his experiences as a Policeman in Moulmein, Burma during European Imperialism. Orwell’s purpose is to convey the ideal that what is right and what is accepted don’t always align. He adopts a remorseful tone in order to convey to the reader the weight of his actions. By looking at George Orwell’s use of imagery and figurative language, one can see his strongly conflicting opinions on Imperialism. Orwell begins his essay, Shooting an Elephant, by explaining the actions of the Burmese people and by expressing his contempt for imperialism.
Shooting an Elephant Analysis Orwell mentions in the beginning of his essay that he was hated by the Burmans because he worked as a police officer under the British Empire. He was made a joke of in front of the town. When the incident with the elephant came, it gave him a chance to show his strong character to the natives by solving the problem. Orwell wrote Shooting an Elephant to inform his readers.
Orwell was a British police officer living in Burma at the time. A tame elephant had gone wild and escaped from its cage. It killed one of the Burman’s and then ran away to a field when it began grazing. The elephant was no longer
In George Orwell 's short story titled “Shooting an Elephant” presented an event that changed a countries civilization. George’s life in Burma, and the prejudice placed by the people he oppressed inspired his writing through the uses of setting, style, and theme. In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” Orwell no specific event influenced this piece rather it was an accumulation of many small events of prejudice and hate by an opposing group of
Orwell acknowledged both the practical advantages of the living elephant as well as the ethical significance of life. Because of this, he “had no intention of shooting the elephant” (Orwell 5) and believed it would be unjustified to do so. Despite this, Orwell felt the urge to shoot the elephant because of his desire for public acceptance from the Burmese. Orwell’s views shifted as he attempted to please the public that he was supposedly in control of. This made him feel as if he was “an abused puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (5).
The essay that I read was Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell. Orwell used several methods of development. He used methods such as description, example, cause and effect, and narration. This essay has tremendous examples of description. It is unreal how Orwell puts his words into images in your head.
In George Orwell’s, “Shooting an Elephant,” he is working a very difficult job in an even more difficult environment. He is put in a complicated situation where he has to make a complex decision that will torment him for the rest of his life. The decision not only affects him individually, but it also affects how other people around him view him. Orwell ultimately made the right decision to shoot the elephant. Orwell is trained to handle dangerous situations because of his work, the people around him are judgmental, and the elephant killed a human-being.
Learning From Tragedy (A Discussion on the Three Messages from Killing an Elephant) George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a short essay centered around the killing of an Elephant by a rich white man that presents many more problems other than just killing an Elephant. This white man is faced with so many things. Some are inevitable but others seem very evitable. Racial disputes seem to be the main problem between the white man, sent to kill the Elephant, and the native blacks, that told him to come and kill it.
George Orwell Shooting an Elephant Analysis “And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay” (Orwell 788). In George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, he describes his strife as a British Indian Imperial Police officer In Lower Burma. Nevertheless, throughout the essay Orwell construes his internal clash of hating Imperialism while also being loathed by the Burmans. Furthermore, Orwell is presented with the task of taking care of a big quandary.
In his essay, “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell describes his experience of killing an elephants when he was an officer in Burma. He explains how the local Burmese hated him and saw him as the authority of the repressive white British. He mentions that he also had the same feeling about the local Burmese. Even though he hated the Thyestean imperialism but he also hated what he called the yellow-faced and evil-spirted Burmese people. One day, he was told that an elephant was destroying the bazaar and killing people.
Through this incident, there is a clear examination of the empire with the eyes of a single officer and how an individual tends to behave when he fights with his own motivation to perform an action. Orwell himself never intended to kill the elephant because he believed that it was not worthy to kill a tame animal, he said in text “it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery”. Towards the end of the story he finally kills the elephant not because he did not want to come out as a coward or he wanted to, but in order to fit in the personality of a police officer. He uses elephant as a metaphor in the text to show the hatred of Burmese people, and shows how Imperialism is weakling the empire. Another metaphor used in the text was, the use of word “elephant” till the time Orwell saw the elephant lying nearly dead, however in the very end author calls it a great beast in the sentence “it seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there powerless to move, powerless to die” (ORWELL 477) just to symbolize the negative opinion of the crowd towards the animal.
We all know that he shoots the elephant was because thousands of people were watching behind him and expects him to do what is ought to do. He does not shoot the elephant, the British empire would also be at loss to. Even more, he has struggled a lot not to be laughed at by the people of Burmese and in an instant, it would be a historical momentum for him if chose the elephant over his pride. The main purpose of the riffle bringing it with him was just a protection from the elephant that it might cause trouble again. But then again, it was a mistake for him to bring the rifle because people mistook it in a different way.
Throughout “Shooting An Elephant” , Orwell’s narrative style brings out internal and external conflicts that are relatable in society today. The narrator faces multiple internal and external conflicts. One external conflict being the Burmese and how they mock him because he is a representative of the British Empire, but he will do what it takes to show them he is not a fool. "I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.
George Orwell held a unique perspective on Britain’s involvement in Burma. Through his own experiences in Burma, he developed an inner struggle between following orders and opposing imperialism, that he expressed in the story Shooting an Elephant. Orwell was born under the name Eric Blair in colonial India. As an adult, he joined the Imperial Police stationed in Burma, where he soon discovered a conflict brewing within himself. He was naturally a reflective person, analyzing what he saw to be obvious disparities in the two sides of an Imperialistic relationship.
