In all honesty before reading “Shooting and Elephant” I was rather apathetic and slightly pessimistic. That’s why it came to my surprise as to how much I enjoyed this short story written by George Orwell. The setting takes place in Burma where Orwell, the main character encounters a difficult dilemma with the infamous elephant. Although I knew the elephant’s death was inevitable, the way in which and how he died still seemed to greatly startle me. Right off the bat Orwell makes it evidently clear that he is disliked by a great amount of Burma’s population. I could only imagine how much disrespect he received, him being a divisional police offer of the town. Being constantly “bullied’ by people can take a toll on one and although he didn’t
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When the elephant first escaped it quickly created chaos around the town. Orwell was quickly to doubt that an animal that size could easily escape from its owner but it wasn’t until he heard the shrieks of the women encountering a dead man killed, that it was clear that this was real. One thing that caught my eye was the way Orwell described the man’s death. When he states “Never tell me, the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpse’s I’ve seen look devilish” strike’s me as a dark piece of literature. Mainly because in my experience I always envision the dead as peaceful and gentle, not brutally covered in mud with such agony like the man he described. As he continues to approach the elephant he notices how the number of townspeople watching him behind are gradually increasing by the moment. As one can imagine he was put in a difficult position, with a rifle on one hand and a anticipating crowd on the other he knew what had to be done. Orwell thought deeply before shooting but killed the elephant for selfish reasoning. He shows how imperialism took the best out him. Although he had the title of power amongst the people, it was the people’s power that influenced him in shooting the elephant. He didn’t want to appear as a coward and hoped that by killing he would no longer receive the hatred that he did. But as I predicted, his actions did not change their viewpoints on
When the elephant first escaped it quickly created chaos around the town. Orwell was quickly to doubt that an animal that size could easily escape from its owner but it wasn’t until he heard the shrieks of the women encountering a dead man killed, that it was clear that this was real. One thing that caught my eye was the way Orwell described the man’s death. When he states “Never tell me, the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpse’s I’ve seen look devilish” strike’s me as a dark piece of literature. Mainly because in my experience I always envision the dead as peaceful and gentle, not brutally covered in mud with such agony like the man he described. As he continues to approach the elephant he notices how the number of townspeople watching him behind are gradually increasing by the moment. As one can imagine he was put in a difficult position, with a rifle on one hand and a anticipating crowd on the other he knew what had to be done. Orwell thought deeply before shooting but killed the elephant for selfish reasoning. He shows how imperialism took the best out him. Although he had the title of power amongst the people, it was the people’s power that influenced him in shooting the elephant. He didn’t want to appear as a coward and hoped that by killing he would no longer receive the hatred that he did. But as I predicted, his actions did not change their viewpoints on