Shooting An Elephant And The Rocking-Horse Winner By D. H. Lawrence

“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell and “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence are both interesting pieces of modern British Literature. Regarding the plot, there is little in common between both stories. In theme however, both stories focus doing something to please others. The main characters are forced to give up a piece of themselves (or all of it), so that others around them will feel satisfied. In both stories, this theme progresses the plot of the story, but each in very different ways. The plot of “Shooting an Elephant” focuses on, as the title suggests, the protagonist’s inner conflict of whether or not he should kill the elephant that has ravaged through the Burmese town and killed a man. The protagonist, a British police officer, does not want to kill the elephant that turned calm, but is forced to do so anyway because he has a crowd of Burmese natives waiting to laugh at him: “To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing – no, that was impossible. The crowd …show more content…
Lawrence, shows the consequences of acting in order to please others through the death of Paul. Paul, a young boy to a family with expensive tastes (though not able to afford them), rides his rocking-horse in fury and bets on horses to find “luck” and to pay his mother’s debts for her infinite desires. Knowing that his mother does not love him- nor any other of her children for that matter- he does this to please her, in hopes that she will love him. His last cry shows his despair to get his mother to love him: “I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I’m absolutely sure--oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!” After another one of his rocking-horse trips, he falls unconscious, turns ill, and later, quickly dies. Ironically for Paul, his luck is not lucky enough for