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Literary analysis on shooting an elephant
Shooting an elephant essay analysis
Literary analysis on shooting an elephant
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In the passages How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’Brien and Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, there are many similarities and differences between the two passages, but the differences exceed the similarities. While both sections talk about a shooter, human death, and animal death; they differentiate in the shooters motives, pacing, and narration structure. Just as How to Tell a True War Story has the death of Curt Lemon, Shooting an Elephant also has the death of the coolie. In Tim O’Brien’s story, Curt Lemon is killed by a boobytrapped bomb in which O’Brien leads himself to believe is the sunlight. The passage goes on to describe the events leading up to Lemon’s death and how O’Brien believes that Curt Lemon would have thought the sunlight killed him and not the 105-round, “It was not the sunlight.
Even though Orwell did commit the crime of shooting an elephant, throughout the story he used ethos, pathos, and figurative language to convince the audience if given the opportunity he would never shoot an elephant again because the elephant represents the innocence of people. First and foremost, Orwell establishes his ethos. As stated in Everything’s an Argument, ethos is described as the author's credibility. He establishes his ethos right from the beginning of the story when he states he works for the British but he despises them.
Grann and Orwell's writing uses empathy to create perspective, putting the reader in the place and mind of the protagonist. In Shooting An Elephant by George Orwell, the narrator is faced with the task of killing an elephant that has gone wild. He does not want to kill the elephant, yet the roaring crowd leads him to ending the animal's life. He even calls the elephant grandmotherly. To shoot a peaceful, living creature seems wrong.
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.
There are numerous themes in this short story such as British imperialism and colonial resentment however the most prominent theme in this story is fear of humiliation and the effect peer- pressure has on an individual. The setting of Burma helps work with this theme as it provides an area for the plot to take place and develop. After marching miles to the destination of the elephant, a crowd had surrounded George Orwell and encourages Orwell to kill the elephant. George Orwell is compelled to kill the once ravaging elephant due to the fact that Orwell wants to avoid looking like a fool. George Orwell is willing to sacrifice his role of doing the right thing and fulfilling the Burmese wishes in order to save himself from
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).
3) Orwell initially hesitates to kill the elephant because the elephant was not hurting anyone. In fact, the elephant was calmly eating food, while ignoring the crowd of people. Also, Orwell knew the elephant’s owner would be angry if his or her elephant got shot and died. The reason being, the elephant is worth much more alive than dead. However, Orwell decides to kill the elephant because the crowd of people were anticipating on him to shoot the elephant.
Peer pressure is what really killed the elephant in “Shooting an Elephant “written by George Orwell. The pressure of being the towns fool or getting laughed at is what caused Orwell to pull the trigger. We all unfortunately been pressured to do/say something that made us uncomfortable. People love entertainment whither its good or bad they want to see something happen. In line 122-124 Orwell states how the town expected him to kill the elephant.
A person who is getting peer pressured to do a deed, is often most likely to commit it. This is often because the person doesn't want to seem weak, or any of those sorts, and wants to appear the opposite. People have their own reasons, and sometimes selfish, to be motivated to do something. In Orwell's "Shooting in Elephant," Orwell himself acknowledges and shows evidence of this through the instances of his self consciousness, and my own personal observations. Orwell accepts that humans have their own selfish reasons to be motivated to do an act through the fact of his self consciousness.
In George Orwell’s, “Shooting an Elephant,” he is working a very difficult job in an even more difficult environment. He is put in a complicated situation where he has to make a complex decision that will torment him for the rest of his life. The decision not only affects him individually, but it also affects how other people around him view him. Orwell ultimately made the right decision to shoot the elephant. Orwell is trained to handle dangerous situations because of his work, the people around him are judgmental, and the elephant killed a human-being.
Before the elephant dies, he gasps for air to try and stay alive and has become helpless to prevent his death. This symbolism represents a weak nation’s inability to help themselves. The weaker nation no longer boldly opposes the imperialistic nation, but rather maintains a quiet murmur of opposition. Imperialism silences an oppressed nation’s speech because the oppressed nation tries to voice revolt against the stronger nation. Thus, the stronger nation limits the content of the speech of nation to ensure no public uprising
At this moment, Orwell’s conscience nagged him against shooting the elephant, but he “was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (Orwell, 2014, para 7). The Burmese culture influenced Orwell to act against his will and shoot the elephant, despite his conscience nagging him against the
This narrative piece is an effective expository technique that describes the narrator’s thoughts and tone. Orwell uses oxymoron such as “grinning corpse” and paradox phrases such as “the story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the scene of events the vaguer it becomes”. Another paradox statement is shown in “I perceived this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys”. Orwell’s decisions were briskly altered as he was deciding on whether to kill the elephant or not. His mind altered from “I ought not to shoot him” to “I had got to do it” and also to “But I did not want to shoot the elephant”.
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.
The Burmans slight acts of rebellion by spitting and laughing at the British is represented by the elephant going “must”. Orwell 's self-imposed task of upholding the British Empire’s mask of control can be related to the Empire’s goal of controlling or “taming” Burmese society. Orwell is aware that his reputation reflects that of all the other Europeans. This awareness plays a role in his deciding to shoot the elephant because if he didn’t, the Burman’s would question British authority and think of them as weak (Orwell).
