The police officer referring to the Burmans “others” demonstrates the postcolonial theory. He calls them that because the elephant frighten them. Although the elephant is in fact out of captivity, the animal is causing no harm. The officer learns that the elephant had escaped from his owner and made its way into town. The owner went in the opposite direction trying to track down the “beast” that was causing a scene. The officer felt the pressure to kill the elephant because his townspeople were beginning to get frightened. As a person who was supposed to protect and serve, the officer had a duty that he was required to uphold. Orwell’s job was to respond to a report of the death of a local man killed by an elephant in musth. Orwell had found the man “lying on his belly with arms crucified…head sharply twisted to the side.” The corpse grinned with “…unendurable agony.” When that began taking place, Orwell felt the pressure of the crowd bugging and pushing him to shoot the elephant. Orwell already had a certain idea that the elephant was no longer a threat and did not intend to shoot …show more content…
Therefore, he ends up giving in to the pressure and shoots the elephant. The death itself is sustained in excruciating and explicit detail. After shooting the elephant three times, the elephant still doesn’t die. Orwell then fires his two remaining bullets into the elephant’s heart, not to mention he in fact sent someone to get his small rifle, and then poured “shot after shot into his heart…down his throat.” The elephant was still alive even after all the bullets he had taken. Orwell, unable to further stand in the presence of the suffering elephant and unable to watch and listen to it, goes away. The elephant, like the Burmese people, had become the victim of the British imperialist’s need to preserve his