Essay On Social Pressure In George Orwell's Shooting An Elephant

Superior Essays
“Social pressure often causes people to change their picture of reality.” This quote is one of many ways that social pressure changes how we act in the heat of the moment. Even those of us considered having the best grasps of reality are vulnerable to our reality being alternated due to social pressure. The essay “Shooting an Elephant” wrote by George Orwell is about how at the age of nineteen, and as a police officer, he saw firsthand the corruption of imperialism. In the essay, Orwell is pressured into shooting an elephant even though deep in his gut he doesn't want to. In the essay “Salvation” wrote by Langston Hughes he attends his aunt's church revival and is pressured into claiming he was saved by Jesus even though he had not seen him …show more content…
From them being pressured by different compositions of groups, to them having different experiences and predispositions of beliefs and morals. Then finally, how the culmination of all these traits affected their feelings by the end and how they reacted to themselves and others. “Peer pressure is a tricky thing. The very human desire to be accepted or, at the very least, to avoid being marginalized can deeply skew our perception of ourselves and the world around us.” This quote is another very intuitive way of saying that as humans we are inclined to follow the actions of those around us because of our very nature. As a college student, I can safely say that I belong to this category for a number of reasons. Since I have to worry about pleasing my family, instructors, and counselors by getting good grades, my behavior changes in reaction to what they ask of me. Perhaps down the road we can have more people from any category and age group read essays or stories like these, and bring more light to the issue and turn pressure into a more positive thing in life. On a final note we should also take into account not only how we are pressured by others, but how ourselves also pressure those around us because its a double edged

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