Why a British Officer Murdered an Elephant?
This summary is about the journey of a police officer in Burma. Its based on the short story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. It’s all about just how this police officer killed the elephant and how he arrived at his decision. This story it about roles, feelings, morality and inconsistency of a man and his power.
One of the most important aspects of this story is how this young man felt about his job. At the beginning, he makes it very clear that he does not approve of imperialism in fact he states that it is evil. He regards his job as a police officer in Burma with utmost contempt, displayed when he says, "I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear (Orwell 312)" this clearly showed …show more content…
He thinks that the elephant isn't much of a risk yet he takes steps to kill it. He uses the death of the young native as validation towards his action being the right one. When he's thinking over do I kill the elephant or not he goes through the actions of what he would do it for him it always comes back to self-preservation. He knows 100% what he shouldn't do "I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him (Orwell 315)" he shows in his thinking that he does understand morality but decides not to use it. When he makes his final decision to kill the elephant he makes it with the thought that "I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the east" with this he believes he is weak, so he becomes weak and murders the …show more content…
“He thinks that the natives will laugh at him and ridicule him, he wants to seem more powerful instead of weak (315)”. He lets his decision of the governed by the weight of what all the people around him want, they want the elephant dead so the officer kills the elephant. He killed for power and in so doing became powerless under the will of everyone else. In the end, what he wanted he lost by doing the wrong thing.
So, a young British officer lost his way, he had a choice in his life and decided to make the easy wrong choice. At first you see goodness and self actualization within the officer when he thinks about the morality and evil that his job entails, but he still turns away from the better choice. Throughout this tale, you see him go back and forth between his thoughts to kill or not kill the elephant. His end in the story was to chose power and mold himself to the role of an evil officer. The saddest closure to the story is it makes you wonder what could have happened if the right decision had been
This summary is about the journey of a police officer in Burma. Its based on the short story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. It’s all about just how this police officer killed the elephant and how he arrived at his decision. This story it about roles, feelings, morality and inconsistency of a man and his power.
One of the most important aspects of this story is how this young man felt about his job. At the beginning, he makes it very clear that he does not approve of imperialism in fact he states that it is evil. He regards his job as a police officer in Burma with utmost contempt, displayed when he says, "I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear (Orwell 312)" this clearly showed …show more content…
He thinks that the elephant isn't much of a risk yet he takes steps to kill it. He uses the death of the young native as validation towards his action being the right one. When he's thinking over do I kill the elephant or not he goes through the actions of what he would do it for him it always comes back to self-preservation. He knows 100% what he shouldn't do "I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him (Orwell 315)" he shows in his thinking that he does understand morality but decides not to use it. When he makes his final decision to kill the elephant he makes it with the thought that "I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the east" with this he believes he is weak, so he becomes weak and murders the …show more content…
“He thinks that the natives will laugh at him and ridicule him, he wants to seem more powerful instead of weak (315)”. He lets his decision of the governed by the weight of what all the people around him want, they want the elephant dead so the officer kills the elephant. He killed for power and in so doing became powerless under the will of everyone else. In the end, what he wanted he lost by doing the wrong thing.
So, a young British officer lost his way, he had a choice in his life and decided to make the easy wrong choice. At first you see goodness and self actualization within the officer when he thinks about the morality and evil that his job entails, but he still turns away from the better choice. Throughout this tale, you see him go back and forth between his thoughts to kill or not kill the elephant. His end in the story was to chose power and mold himself to the role of an evil officer. The saddest closure to the story is it makes you wonder what could have happened if the right decision had been