George Orwell Shooting An Elephant Summary

Reading any story about an animal being shot is a horrible one. Especially if the animal possesses a peaceful demeanor, such as an elephant. George Orwell’s essay, “Shooting an Elephant” follows exactly what the title says -- a British officer shoots an elephant down. As awful as that sounds, Orwell is actually using his spoken experience as a metaphor. The two dominant characters, the executioner and the elephant, is used to build an argument on the position of an officer under the British imperialism in Burma. The essay itself follows a simple style making it easy to follow along, but still obtains the strong interpretations the author is trying to get across. Orwell uses his experience on shooting an elephant as a way to express his

Orwell is told that the elephant has been seen destroying the village and even killing a man that Orwell meets up with later. The elephant’s destruction on the village represents imperialism destruction -- rampaging through the streets, knocking over food shelves, and invading people’s properties. Once the officer finds the elephant, he tells the readers, “As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him” (3). The author provides insight to his moral beliefs on how shooting the elephant is immoral and remorseful. Orwell made it clear to the reader which side he wants to be on, which in this case is the elephant’s side. However, a big crowd is standing behind him, waiting for him to kill the creature he believed did not deserve to die. He knows the villagers do not like him (As mentioned at the beginning), that they made him feel small even if he was in a position of authority. One option was to leave the elephant be, and suffer the laughter of the natives. The other option is to ignore his beliefs, and shoot the

“Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly” (3), analyzed Orwell. Trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing, the author makes the acknowledgement that he has legal rights to kill the animal since the owner failed to control it. This creates the understanding that the dominant rulers are what gives the power behind imperialism. If the “owner” of the power fails to control it, then there will be struggles such like the wars the Burmese faced with the British