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Porus's Short Story: The Macedonian Elephants

956 Words4 Pages

Porus’ force consisted of around 30,000 infantry, 2,000-3000 cavalry, 300 chariot and 200 elephants. Porus deploys his force with his infantry in the center, cavalry on both flanks, chariots all on his left flank and elephants line up in front of his infantry. This may seem pretty standard at first, and for the most part it is, Except for the elephants. Elephants, prior to then, where typically used to guard the flanks against cavalry charges. Something worth noting is that horses are terrified of elephants, not just by their size but by their smell, horses not use acclimatized to the smell of an elephant often won’t go near them and have even been known to throw their riders when near one. This shows that Porus was mainly concerned about …show more content…

With their mahouts gone, many elephants start to lose control. Additionally, the Macedonian pike men, now gathering their bearings, start to find the elephant’s one weak spot. Elephants have really thick hide that is nearly impenetrable to missiles and conventional weaponry. However, they do have one weak spot, their eyes. It doesn’t take the Macedonians long to realize that their 20ft long sarissa pile can reach the already confused elephant’s eyes. Within moments the now confused, blind and in pain elephants turn and stampeded in the other direction trampling many of their own troops and throwing their whole infantry block into disarray and utterly routing …show more content…

And that is for a reason. Because of Alexander’s precarious starting position, if he even took one misstep, made one miscalculation, or had even the slightest thing go wrong, the entire plan would have come crashing down. It all hinged on everything going exactly right, and due to Alexander’s exemplar military prowess, it did. Alexander not only won the battle, but he was able to properly deceive his most worthy advisory yet, make an impossible river crossing in the middle of a torrential downpour, and come up with a non-resource based solution to beating a force that was far larger and utilized 200 of the most intimidating and formidable military instruments of the

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Jenny wants to apply lotion on the elephant, ashe wants to love the elephant, she wants to fix the broken relationship. She can’t speak with the elephant because it is angry and going through rampage breaking stuff in her apartment. For the elephant, the only way to deal with the situation is to be angry. The elephant is abusive, Hopkinson describes the elephant hitting her with her trunk and making her fly into the wall. I see this as the partner punching or pushing Jenny into the wall.

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First of all, one reason that Alexander was great was because he was a military genius. He was a genius because he conquered so much land and did not stop. In document B it states, “That Alexander made a plan to trick Porus by acting like he was going over the river by making

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This story truly shows how technical Alexanders strategies were. He found the perfect time and place to go through with his plans making sure he would succeed and he always did. A remarkable leader should be able to get his army out of sticky situation as Alexander did here. Another example of Alexander using his brainpower to succeed is this map that shows the routs he and his army took. It also exhibits the few battles fought by Alexander and the massive amount of territory he gained (Doc A).

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The tactics he used to confuse the enemy greatly contributed to his success. His ability to protect his people was a skill that would make or break his success. Without these tactics and strategies, the people who he conquered would be way more hesitant toward him because they weren’t guaranteed safety. When he was in battle against Porus, he moved and organized his army to confuse him (Document B). He was a great tactician by moving his army in a way to confuse the enemy.

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Also letting his audience know that he was influenced by the people to shoot this elephant and immediately regretted it. Therefore, the narrator fell under peer pressure by the Burma people by shooting the elephant. With that being said he should've stuck to his gut and his instinct to not kill the poor animal instead of trying to win over the Burma people and look like a hero. All in all he was trying to do the right thing and help the people, instead he killed an elephant during must in cold blood to feel

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All of those depictions related to the “immense” crown that had followed the narrator expecting him to kill the elephant. This can be analyzed from his own words: “I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind”. “And he also realizes that to shoot the elephant would be not only unnecessary but quite immoral. But he is not a free agent; he is part of the impartial system (Ingle,

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When the narrator heard the news about an elephant going wild and destroying most of the Burmese homes, he rushed to find the elephant and shoot it. During his journey, he told himself that he would not shoot the elephant. But when he arrived face to face with the large mammal, with thousands of people watching, he shot it multiple times until the elephant fell. Minutes later, he came back with a different weapon brutally killing the elephant.

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Although they believed they succeeded, the villagers were unable to fully determine the elephant’s appearance because they could not fully assess the situation; the traveler take advantage of their foolishness, as he believes he already knows the essence of the elephant. Several villagers begin to describe parts of the elephant, based on touch, as “a leather fan,” “a rough, hairy pillar,” “a cool, smooth staff,” and even an “overturned washing tub.” Eventually the villagers conclude “that the elephant was in fact an enormous, gentle ox with a stretched nose. ”(Mays 14)

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The Burmans slight acts of rebellion by spitting and laughing at the British is represented by the elephant going “must”. Orwell 's self-imposed task of upholding the British Empire’s mask of control can be related to the Empire’s goal of controlling or “taming” Burmese society. Orwell is aware that his reputation reflects that of all the other Europeans. This awareness plays a role in his deciding to shoot the elephant because if he didn’t, the Burman’s would question British authority and think of them as weak (Orwell).

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Actually he killed the elephant not because of the coolie, he killed it because he was afraid of looking like a fool in front of the natives. You may ask a question where the motive for this action comes from. Actually, this is how the oppressor becomes oppressed in imperialism. The situation which is described in the story shows us that motives for our actions do not depend on us all the time. The motives can be different depending on many factors such as others’ expectations, thinking about others’ benefits instead of yours and facing the situation in which you can be influenced by others

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