George Orwell Tyrant

The short memoir of “Shooting the Elephant” tells the story of George Orwell’s experience as a british policeman in imperialized Burma. His experience is made up of anger, hate and resentment of conditions he feels is out of his control. Orwell makes many revelations in this story, one of them being, “when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys.” Orwell also claims, “He wears a mask; and his face grows to fit it.” These statements possess much validity and can be supported in multiple ways. I affirm these statements because as a ruler or leader, they forfeit their own feelings when are responsible for the people, he is overlooking and must do anything in his power for the greatest good, sometimes sacrificing his own needs. He also “grows into a mask” because as a ruler, he is most obligated to put on a facade for the sake of the people and again for the greater good.

In Machiavelli’s “The Morals of the Prince” the idea of a ruler’s/ tyrant’s obligation to his people is also presented. In one section, Machiavelli talks a ruler’s best way to navigate himself through leadership. Machiavelli weighs between the importance of being generous and self-preservative. A ruler risks his entire welfare for the sake of being seen as benevolent. He states, “A prince of character is bound to use up his entire revenue in works of ostentation...he will have to load his people with exorbitant taxes and squeeze money out of them...for when he is poor nobody will respect him.” In this example, Machiavelli makes it clear that a ruler’s actions are always tied to the people’s welfare. A ruler cannot act carelessly when he is no longer subject to his own opinions, but the people he watches over. This idea supports Orwell’s statement because with a ruler’s gained liability, he loses a sense of his own freedom, ironic as it may