What Is The Quest Motif In Shooting An Elephant

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. The first aspect of the quest motif is to identify who the quester is(Foster, Thomas C. "How to Read Place in Literature with the

In this breakout the elephant destroys property, and kills a cow, and man. With that happening Orwell is forced to put down the elephant weather he likes the idea of it or not, to do so he must track the elephant and hunt it down in order to kill it. This is an example of the second step in the quest motif which is having to travel in order to succeed in the quest(Foster, Thomas C. "How to Read Place in Literature with the Body."Literature’s Sensuous Geographies (2015): 6-8. Web). In the Story Orwell had to go to the Bazzar to start his tracking of the elephant. “...I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful in terrorem.” (Orwell, George. Shooting an Elephant (1936): n. pag.

"How to Read Place in Literature with the Body."Literature’s Sensuous Geographies (2015): 6-8. Web). In shooting an elephant the wild elephant has destroyed huts, killed a cow and killed a man which means that the elephant must be killed. The Elephant had run his tusk through the man and then trampled him it was a very brutish death the man’s skin was enem pulled up from where the elephant trampled him. “ As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend’s house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelled the elephant.”(Orwell, George. Shooting an Elephant (1936): n. pag.