Rhetorical Analysis Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

In his essay, “Shooting an Elephant”, well known writer, George Orwell, recounts his experience where his morals and ego were challenged by the Burmese natives. He finds himself struggling with an internal conflict over his attitude toward the empire he serves and the natives he oversees. Orwell uses diction to reveal an attitude of bitterness and resentment towards the Burmese natives, despite having to prove his strength and dominance as a British soldier. Orwell opens his piece by revealing his antipathy toward imperialism and the British regime. This is evident when he claims that he “was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British” (285). Although he is always mocked and jeered at by the Natives, he strongly opposes …show more content…
He describes his undesired emotions by saying that it would make him cowardly to have “two thousand people marching at my heels, and them to trail feebly away, having done nothing” (288). He uses “feebly” to stress how the natives make him feel a sense of humiliation, which weakens his ego and thus further pressures him to shoot the elephant and prove his dominance as a British officer while being confined within his own morals. He finally gives in to the natives’ pressure and depicts the experience by saying that he heard nothing but the “devilish roar of glee” (290) when he pulled the trigger. His use of “devilish” conveys a tone of bitterness and resentment because he did everything that they wanted him to do. His outer ego-the one that represents the British Raj-is satisfied because he succeeded in proving his superiority;however, his inner ego is crushed since he went against his ideology. This infuriates him and it is implied that he can only side with the Burmese in terms of being against imperialism, since he is bothered by everything the natives encompass which is why he describes their glee in a negative