The British Empire was like a vicious lion hunting for its supper, and Burma was this country’s prey. The British oppressed the Burmese people. The actions of the British Empire resonated with a theme of cruelty, controlling and simply being unmerciful to the Burmese. Was tyranny a necessary tool for Britain to effectively rule the Burmese? While there will probably never be a consensus on the correct answer to this question, the people of Burma were set on a course to be fearful and bitter while under British rule. The Burmese were consumed with hatred for the British Empire and anything that represented its tyrannical rule. Resentment was like second nature for the Burmese people. Any person representing the authority of British government gained zero-respect from the Burmese. While working as a British police officer “in Moulmein, in Lower Burma”, George Orwell was no exception to this rule. Orwell dealt with anti-European hatred by the Burmese, his own hatred for the British rule of Burma, and ultimately succumbed to peer pressure and shot an elephant.
The Burmese judged and mistreated George Orwell because of the uniform he wore. Orwell “was hated by large numbers of people” because of his association with the British government. Being a sub-divisional police officer was the ultimate betrayal in the eyes of the Burmese public. This
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Orwell had made up his “mind that imperialism was an evil thing”. He loathed the British Empire’s tyrannical rule of Burma. Imperialism was not what Orwell imagined it to be. His job as a “sub-divisional police officer of the town” gave him a “better glimpse…of the real nature of imperialism-the real motives for which despotic governments act”. The British Empire wanted to be “an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples”, inflicting this wrath upon the residents of Burma