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Shooting An Elephant By Geoge Orwell

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“Shooting an Elephant” is an essay written by Geoge Owell in 1936 that describes a specific experience he had while serving as a police officer in Burma. Orwell wrote about this encounter because it was extremely memorable and made him question his morals and position of power. This essay uses Orwell as the narrator and describes the instance where he was faced with killing an elephant to please the public despite his personal beliefs. The essay begins by explaining Orwell’s job as a police officer and the hate he recived for being in that posiiton. He desperately wanted out of his job because he saw the terrible things that the government did to people and the constant imperialism he disagreed with. The main plot line of the story begins when Orwell received a call from the police station that told him an elephant was wrecking havoc in the village and called on him to go take care of it. …show more content…

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). In the end, he didnt regret killing the animal, but felt sorry for

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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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Well known author and journalist, George Orwell, in his essay, Shooting an Elephant, describes his experiences as a Policeman in Moulmein, Burma during European Imperialism. Orwell’s purpose is to convey the ideal that what is right and what is accepted don’t always align. He adopts a remorseful tone in order to convey to the reader the weight of his actions. By looking at George Orwell’s use of imagery and figurative language, one can see his strongly conflicting opinions on Imperialism. Orwell begins his essay, Shooting an Elephant, by explaining the actions of the Burmese people and by expressing his contempt for imperialism.

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In his essay, “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell describes his experience of killing an elephants when he was an officer in Burma. He explains how the local Burmese hated him and saw him as the authority of the repressive white British. He mentions that he also had the same feeling about the local Burmese. Even though he hated the Thyestean imperialism but he also hated what he called the yellow-faced and evil-spirted Burmese people. One day, he was told that an elephant was destroying the bazaar and killing people.

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