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Shooting An Elephant

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“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 …show more content…

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

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In Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, “The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lockups, the gray, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboo.” This specific piece of evidence represents the abusive part of the authority in horrid ways to keep convicts. According to George Orwell, “ In a job like that, you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters.” George Orwell's story elaborates on how imperialism resulted in the abuse of authority. Consequentially, all of this leading the lasting factor of forced

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In the short story Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell a Police Officer who is not from Burma is forced to go out and kill a wild elephant. Orwell whom is the main character is not from Burma and when he goes about his quest to hunt down and kill the elephant he goes about the actual killing of the elephant. The local people begin to dislike him because of the way he went about putting the animal down. This story is often interpreted as an interpretation of how orwell viewed the Indian Imperial police. This story Follows the quest motif to the letter; every aspect of this story seems to fit in with the motif.

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Hannah Edmiston Boudreau AP Language Friday 25 September, 2015 Shooting an Elephant Analyzing Rhetorical Devices Shooting an Elephant, written by George Orwell in 1936, describes his experience working as a British officer located in Moulmein, Burma. He writes his essay to reveal the cruelty and disastrous outcome of imperialism he witnesses. Orwell uses strong resource of language such as symbolism, metaphors and imagery to express his disdain for British imperialism. Orwell uses symbolism to connect the character of the elephant to the effects of imperialism.

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The purpose of “Shooting an Elephant” was to show that sometimes people do things they know aren’t the right decision just to impress everyone else. The officer felt that,“It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him” (Orwell 4). As he shot the elephant he

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In George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant” Tony Early’s idea of the “thing and the other thing” manifest themselves in Orwell’s need to seem sensible and his idea of what makes him look foolish. These are both affected by the culture that Orwell was raised in and the culture he was living in at the time. Though this essay starts out talking about his situation in life and his hatred of imperialism it quickly becomes clear that the main focus is on his story about shooting an elephant and his reasons for doing so.

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In George Orwell 's short story titled “Shooting an Elephant” presented an event that changed a countries civilization. George’s life in Burma, and the prejudice placed by the people he oppressed inspired his writing through the uses of setting, style, and theme. In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” Orwell no specific event influenced this piece rather it was an accumulation of many small events of prejudice and hate by an opposing group of

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The crowds’ lust for the elephant’s flesh and adventure overshadowed the consideration of those that are grief-stricken. The narrator kills the elephant to show his dominance to the natives. Throughout this moment the narrator argues within himself about what is

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Once he finds the animal, its harmless and eating grass, so he decides to watch it for a while to make sure it stays peaceful. Once the crowd of people find Orwell and the elephant they pressure him to kill it to avenge the village. Over the next few moments, Orwell has a mental battle between what he thinks is right and what public wants him to do. After heavily debating, he chose to kill the elephant to uphold the colonial power he represents. The climax occurs when he pulls the trigger and he heard “the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd” (Orwell paragraph 11).

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George Orwell’s experience described in his essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, taught him that after you begin to imperialize, you are sometimes forced to do things against your will to earn humanity. He knew he had no intention to kill the elephant out of cold blood, for the thought of how the elephant’s mahout would feel when he returned from his journey only to find his animal dead. However, the elephant was wild during his must period and was doing outrageous things that was harming the people and the environment of Lower Burma. Orwell knew that he was not well-liked by his fellow Burmans and, therefore could not bear to fail with the face of the crowd glaring at him. The elephant in the story is not only seen as an animal that would be seen

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In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” the reader may see a sort of peer pressure on that of the white man that has been sent to kill the elephant. That peer pressure actually makes him kill the

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Slugs shot into the wrong spot make the poor creature bite the dust gradually and in incredible pain. In spite of, Orwell putting shot after shot into his heart and down his throat, the elephant lives thirty minutes after its "tormented wheezes" drive Orwell to take off. Countless years after the fact, Orwell still appears to be troubled by the way that pride, not need, made him destroy the

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To start off with, the Burmese people expect George Orwell to shoot the elephant because it rampaged through the bazaar and accidently killed a man. Later, the elephant calms down, and while Orwell does not want to kill it, he also does not want to appear weak. Orwell sympathizes with the Burmese people, but they hate him because they associate him with violence and oppression. However, they expect Orwell to take vengeance on the elephant by killing it. The situation calls for him to behave with cruelty because that is the only way he can fulfill the expectations of the Burmese people and maintain some sense of credibility in their eyes.

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George Orwell Shooting an Elephant Analysis “And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay” (Orwell 788). In George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, he describes his strife as a British Indian Imperial Police officer In Lower Burma. Nevertheless, throughout the essay Orwell construes his internal clash of hating Imperialism while also being loathed by the Burmans. Furthermore, Orwell is presented with the task of taking care of a big quandary.

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As Orwell states, “He was lying on his belly with his arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was coated with mud , the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony….The friction of the great beast’s foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit.” Orwell’s use of imagery shows just how brutal this elephant is and the type of chaos it is capable of. Unfortunately, this man was most likely an innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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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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