Importance Of Values In Orwell's Shooting An Elephant And Shooting An Elephant

Superior Essays
Value Every person valued something in their lives. These two stories make a great argument about values and how people act on them. Values are important, but sometimes you have to be willing to give up something, to achieve the thing that you want . In real life, it is hard to make the right decision if other people have an opposite point of view. In some cases people expect a different outcome from you. It is hard to make each person happy when two groups’ values are dissimilar. In Shooting An Elephant, Orwell had to decide between killing an elephant or not killing it. He followed the opinion of the people and gave up everything that he believed to meet their needs. Vicente was a homeless man who had experienced a miracle when a …show more content…
The characters in the two stories manage their values in unexpected ways where one gives up their life for everything and the other gives up his values to support another. Vicente, lives poorly, but happily. He was an ambitious boy 60 years ago and worked as a porter on the quays of Barcelona. When the rich American came to him, he gave him work carrying his luggage. When he dropped the amphora into the sea, he made it his mission in life to right his wrong. Since he could never make five hundred dollars that the amphora had cost the American, “Vicente knew that he would never have the money to buy, but what was to prevent him finding one” (Wuorio), Vicente spent his life searching for a replacement. “Vicente was an honorable man and he wanted to make amends”(Wuorio) so Vicente sold all his belongings, to learn to swim in order to find the amphora. His journey ended when he dove into the water on a windy day and his boat washed ashore and he was never found. George Orwell’s values were the opposite to Vicente. He was a sub-division police officer of the town. Orwell had to make a decision between two values. One was to not shoot the elephant because he felt that the elephant was old, it didn’t do any harm and it was worth a lot. The other decision was to shoot the elephant because he needed to maintain his image or the people would look down on him. George Orwell said, “As soon as I saw the elephant I …show more content…
Orwell was the character who gave up his value to pursue other’s values and Vicente gave up his life to pursue something materialistic. Vicente and Orwell both have values, but the values they had were different; one was more life struggle than the other. Vicente went missing after searching all his life to find an amphora while Orwell chose to kill the elephant to show that he was strong because it was his role to spend his whole life impressing the natives of Burma. Vicente’s values brought happiness to his life and his love for the sea became stronger when he chose to keep his promise to find the amphora. Orwell is the opposite. For him it was about a sense of belonging, knowing that he mustn't be frightened in front of the natives. They both had a change of lifestyle, especially Vicente who had spiritual happiness and found satisfaction in other things rather than money. Orwell struggled to make a decision to kill an elephant or leave it be and he was able to see the Burmans and the imperialism in their society and how they valued humans. After seeing that he was able to make decisions where both parties were satisfied. “It is not what one finds, yon know but the search itself that is important. Only the

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