Shooting An Elephant

In the story, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, he is essentially powerless because even though he is an authority figure he feels he must do what the Burmese people expect him to do or he will be laughed at or humiliated. Orwell ends up shooting and killing an elephant, “a tame one which had gone must”(Orwell, p.140), which is aggressive behavior triggered by mating instincts(footnotes). He did not want to kill the elephant but he ended up doing it anyways because he felt pressured by all the 2000 plus Burmese people who expected him to do it. Even though he was in a position of power over the Burmese people he felt powerless and ended up doing what the Burmese people wanted in order not to be laughed at or spit on or seem like someone who was not in charge. In Shooting an Elephant, Orwell’s behavior demonstrates that imperialism as a political and social ideology doesn’t work because even though he is technically the one in authority he actually has no authority at all because he does things only so he doesn’t end up looking like a fool. At the very end of the story he says, “I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool”(Orwell, …show more content…
He’s saying that he killed the elephant, not because it was the right thing to do or even because he was in authority on behalf of imperialism, he only did it so that he wouldn’t look like a fool in charge to either, the burmese people, or his imperialism