Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

Paper 4

25 April 2023

Caroline Milhorn

Shooting an Elephant and Burmese Days

Within the 19th and early 20th centuries, the British had many justifications for their colonial rule in the Indian Subcontinent as well different regards for this type of rule that George Orwell will highlight within his works. The most commonly known justification was the notion of the “White Man’s Burden”, this being introduced by Rudyard Kipling and consists of the British being willing to take up a ‘burden to help the native groups and change them into a more civilized society. Within both the fictional novel, Burmese Days and the short story, Shooting an Elephant, Orwell offers an insightful complexity of this period of British rule. The main significance

Orwell stated, “... when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys… He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy… he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him (3). The significance of this concept within Shooting and Elephant reveals to the reader that imperialism, due to the way it is set up, causes the British individual to lose free will and follow the pressure that comes with this type of rule. Orwell stated, “As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters” (1). Orwell explains the truth about British rule and imperialism is being revealed within this

Orwell stated, “What was at the centre of all his thoughts now … was the ever bitterer hatred of the atmosphere of imperialism in which he lived” (68). However, he fails to do what is right because of the expectation that comes with imperialism and what other members of society within this source believe. An incident within Burmese Days to show this effect is when Ellis writes a notice that implies that it is simply the worst time to elect a native to the European Club and Flory’s efforts pertaining to this issue reveals his dilemma that imperialism has forced onto him. Orwell stated, “Meanwhile, Flory had signed a public insult to his friend … Flory had been fifteen years in Burma, and in Burma one learns not to set oneself up against public opinion” (63-64). This reveals that Flory also has trouble doing what is right because of Orwell’s approach to show the loss of one’s freedom that comes with imperial rule for the British and having to conform to the pressures of what expected British rule looks like. Both Shooting an Elephant and Burmese Days reveal through the characters and lifestyle they are forced to live, the true nature and effects that imperialism forces onto these members of