Shooting An Elephant

“Shooting an Elephant” and “...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence” analysis George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” centers around a police officer in Burma, located in Southeast Asia, who is harassed in multiple ways. However, one day an elephant went wild and rampaged through the bazaar. Being an officer, he was requested to come to the aid of the people so he hopped onto a pony to see the elephant. After going against his own morals he shot the elephant multiple times, causing it a slow agonizing death. Thomas C. Foster’s chapter “...More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence” relates to George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” by demonstrating the many meanings of violence in literature, and how many acts of violence

In Foster’s chapter, Foster writes “It can be symbolic, thematic, biblical, Shakespearean, Romantic, allegorical, transcendent.” (Foster 95) showing how violence in pieces of writing has other meanings besides its literal interpretation. Foster goes on to explain acts of violence and the meaning behind the violence, such as when he writes “So Sethe decide to save her children from slavery by killing them, succeeding with only one of them.” (Foster 94). This sentence depicts the life of a slave and how they would kill their own offspring in order to protect the from slavery. It shows how even the murder of your own kin is an act of symbolism. In George Orwell’s short story the figurative meaning of the killing of the elephant is barbarism. “ I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony” (Orwell 6). This was an act of barbarism as the officer shot the elephant multiple times only to leave him alive bleeding to death in pain and