Shooting An Elephant Imperialism

“Shooting an Elephant,” an essay published in 1936, uses multiple devices to inform readers about imperialism and how it negatively affects the oppressed and the oppressor. George Orwell, the author of the essay, was a supporter of democratic socialism and was a strong advocate against social injustices. The essay was based on a time when Orwell was a police officer in colonial Burma. Orwell uses an elephant throughout the essay to effectively explain to the audience the relationship between the Burmese and the British. In addition, he also directly and indirectly talks about his feelings towards imperialism through the use of symbolism, metaphors, syntax, and diction . Orwell

In the very first paragraph of the story the character tells of his experience on a football field. He stated that “when a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter” (Orwell 1). The character also recounts of other experiences he has where “insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance” (Orwell 1). In his own words the character describes how he feels about these situations. He states how the Burman’s actions badly got on his nerves. He explains how overwhelming and upsetting his job makes him, so much so that he wants to quit. It is important to note the characters perception of the Burmese because it shows that his rancor towards them does not affect his longing for respect. This is a basic point that helps set up the story to show what the characters

“Shooting an Elephant” is a short anecdote written by George Orwell. The story depicts a young man, Orwell, who has to decide whether to bend the rules for his superiors or to follow his own path. George Orwell works as the sub-divisional police officer of Moulmein, a town in the British colony of Burma. He, along with the rest of the English military are disrespected by the Burmese due to the English invading their territory and taking over. Over time, Orwell, the narrator, has already begun to question the presence of the British in the Far East. He states, theoretically and secretly, he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” Orwell describes himself as “young and ill-educated,” bitterly hating his job. Orwell uses powerful imagery and diction to convey a depressing and sadistic tone to the story. At the end of the story, he faces a dilemma: to kill the elephant or not.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” Orwell retold an occasion where he was struggling to come to a final decision of whether to shoot the elephant or not. With his final decision, the elephant finally lay dying in front of thousands of people. He said that he was forced to shoot it because the Burmese people were expecting him to do that. In addition, he also explained that he had to do it “to avoid looking like a fool” in front of the crowd (14). At first glance, one would think that it makes sense for him to kill the elephant to save his face, but that was not the case. He effectively uses this incident to demonstrate the “real nature of imperialism” (3), whereas the elephant represents the British Empire.

George Orwell who wrote a narrative essay Shooting an Elephant” has a tense tone of literature towards his life. He is using a stressed tone due to peer pressure, and lack of confidence toward himself as he is an imperialist who came to protect uphold the laws. He's difficult attitude sets the scene for the story in his eyes. Throughout the story the concept of his decisions and action will be projected through the uses of diction; the write words to express his feelings.

involving an elephant. The fate of the elephant lies in his hands. Only he can

The story “Shooting an Elephant” is told by an ongoing and first person narrator, who was committed to events he was faced with and obtained insight and wisdom from these adventures even though he struggled internally and externally.

A renowned novelist and former imperial policeman, George Orwell, in his essay, Shooting an Elephant (1936), addresses the problems of imperialism. He argues that imperializing others, specifically Burma, will force the colonists to lose their own conscience and freedom. Orwell utilizes a variety of rhetorical elements throughout his essay to help bolster his claim. Firstly, Orwell uses first person perspective to showcase his experiences in order to establish his credibility. He then uses word choice to indicate his imperialistic sentiments and emotions. Lastly, he uses imagery to portray the pressure and emotions that were elicited while shooting the elephant. The purpose of Orwell’s essay Shooting an Elephant is to inform the reader about the inherent struggles that are engendered by imperialism. Orwell adopts a critical, subjective tone for his audience, the readers of his essay, anti-imperialists, and scholars studying imperialism.

In “Shooting an Elephant,” George Orwell achieves two achievements : he shows us his personal experience and his expression while he was in Burma; he use the metaphor of the elephant to explain to describe what Burma looked like when it was under the British Imperialism. The special about this essay is that Orwell tells us a story not only to see the experience that he had in Burma; he also perfectly uses the metaphor of the elephant to give us deep information about the Imperialism. By going through this essay, we can deeply understand what he thinks in his head. He successfully uses the word choices and the sentences to express his feeling. By reading this essay, Orwell succeeds us with his mesmerizing sentences and shows us the

In conclusion George Orwell essay “ Shooting An Elephant” expresses through his language that pride was something that pushed him to pull the trigger even though if it had been him alone he would have never pulled it.  He also showed  through his use of colour language and imagery the regret he feels for shooting the

The people responsible for killing the elephants throughout the time period of 1800’s -1999 is all local hunters and big game hunters. Roberts seen a group of boys torturing an innocent baby elephant who he then took back to his plane and tried to nurse it back to health but alas the baby elephant died after being Robert's care for ten days ( Hammer, Joshua.). A group of boys from some village seen that a little elephant was wandering out alone so they decided to mess with the little guy well when roberts seen this he decided that that wasn’t going work for him at all and decided to rescue the innocent baby elephant. Some of the elephants that get poached are in retaliation because they were getting all over a farmer’s crops so the farmer took it upon himself to kill the elephant that didn’t know any different not to go in that area.( The reason the elephants don’t know any different is because their land that they onced roamed freely just started being taken over by the human population. Now we are going to talk about the people responsible for killing elephants from the time period of 2000’s and above. Most of the human hunters nowadays have heavy machinery that can take down elephants like ak 47’s and other machinery such as that. With their big guns elephants don’t really stand a chance against human hunters. They also use a gps/sonar mapping to see where the elephants are located. Then they go and kill them and that is also how they find them so easily in big hordes as they do.

. By the type of language and the choice of words that the author used to write his essay, it is very likely that it was written for the British people, to make them aware of the injustice and cruelty of Imperialism in the colonies. The author’s aim is to make the reader feel disturbed and uneasy by describing in detail his negative experiences in India. This rhetorical analysis explores the success of the author in portraying the negative impact that Imperialism had on those being governed under it, but also on the impact on those in power. The way Orwell used the words for describing the scene of shooting the elephant, his aim was to get the reader’s mind to understand the injustice of Britain’s rule over the natives. While Shooting an

“For at least two generations, empire and imperialism have been dirty words” (Pagden). At one point in time the British Empire covered over 40% of the world. With this being said, Britain was greedy for more control and land. As a result, Britain sent in their troops and colonized in various countries. Imperialism took its toll on both the oppressor and the oppressed. Britain would eventually lose most of its empire; also, an ample amount of soldiers who guarded the empire borders, and police officers belonging to Britain started resenting their own country. Likewise, Britain could not maintain their large, imperialistic, empire forever, because eventually the natives of the colonized country would overthrow Britain’s dominion. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell gives an outstanding insight into the effects of imperialism. Shooting an Elephant is an nonfiction essay that describes what happens when a young police officer in Burma

In 1936, George Orwell published his short story ‘Shooting an elephant’ in an English magazine. Since then, it has been republished dozens of times and holds a place as a definitive anti-colonial piece of literature, in an era where the British Empire was at its peak and covered almost 1/3 of the Earth’s surface. George Orwell believed that “…imperialism was an evil thing...” and uses much themes, symbolism and irony to convey his strong anti-colonialist feelings.

I whole-heartedly believe that “To Shoot an Elephant” told the is a classic piece of literature. When reading it for the first time through, I felt that the narrator was the oppressing force in the narrative. But with the second read through I came to realize that he was just another victim of British Imperialism, a non-tangible force seen throughout the story. No other piece of literature has been given two different perspectives that are both right, especially not after a second read. The whole symbolism of the elephant representing imperialism while also representing a victim of imperialism was very well done. Imperialism at the time was something so menacingly big it seemed unstoppable, but at the same time it was also something that was dying slowly just like the elephant. In addition, the imagery of the elephant dying was very vivid, also displaying Orwell’s great authorship. “He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and