George Orwell’s essay “How to Shoot an Elephant” can be seen as a commentary and critique about imperialism in which the elephant is a metaphor for the colonized people and the British police officer is the colonizer in colonial Burma. Orwell’s essay helped readers to see that imperialism and empires are not clear cut and black and white as it seems to be, there are shades of grey, muddled, and a middleman between the two sides of the colonized and the colonizer. Orwell critiques about empire is all explained and commented in his essay. One of his critiques is that being a conqueror does not mean the person will have total control over his subjects or colonists. While the narrator has higher authority and military supremacy, he is still powerless
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The reason why he hates the native is because they make his job not easier just harder and hated him because of their anti-European views and he hates the empire because he does not get any benefit from it. Orwell critiques this as imperialism is mainly the government’s interest, but not the people’s interest. The narrator is the middleman in between this and cannot do anything with his alignment, because he is merely an agent of the empire and does not have a choice even though he does not like what he is doing. He stated “Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (Orwell, 1936, 3), showing that he nothing more than a puppet – in-between the conqueror and conquered and that he does not have actual control over …show more content…
Comparing with Franz Fanon’s work, his viewpoint and perspective seems more neutral while Fanon’s perspective is siding with the colonized people stating how the people will benefit from decolonization where they can be free and “it focuses on and fundamentally alters being… It infuses a new rhythm, specific to a generation of men, with a new language, and a new humanity” (Fanon, 1961, 2). Fanon’s work is so distinct and separate while Orwell’s work of the colonized and the colonizer are intimately weaved and connected together. Fanon believes decolonization should be violent because colonization itself was violent where the oppressed and the colonized should stand up for themselves. Orwell, however, shows that the Burmese people although do not have weapons still are able to control the colonizer in their own ways that do not cross the line such as using psychological and social factors to pressure him not knowing they have this power, but unintentionally wielding it. One similarity both writers agree is that the colonized are seen as animals by the colonizers. Fanon sees the colonial world a Manichean world that
The reason why he hates the native is because they make his job not easier just harder and hated him because of their anti-European views and he hates the empire because he does not get any benefit from it. Orwell critiques this as imperialism is mainly the government’s interest, but not the people’s interest. The narrator is the middleman in between this and cannot do anything with his alignment, because he is merely an agent of the empire and does not have a choice even though he does not like what he is doing. He stated “Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind” (Orwell, 1936, 3), showing that he nothing more than a puppet – in-between the conqueror and conquered and that he does not have actual control over …show more content…
Comparing with Franz Fanon’s work, his viewpoint and perspective seems more neutral while Fanon’s perspective is siding with the colonized people stating how the people will benefit from decolonization where they can be free and “it focuses on and fundamentally alters being… It infuses a new rhythm, specific to a generation of men, with a new language, and a new humanity” (Fanon, 1961, 2). Fanon’s work is so distinct and separate while Orwell’s work of the colonized and the colonizer are intimately weaved and connected together. Fanon believes decolonization should be violent because colonization itself was violent where the oppressed and the colonized should stand up for themselves. Orwell, however, shows that the Burmese people although do not have weapons still are able to control the colonizer in their own ways that do not cross the line such as using psychological and social factors to pressure him not knowing they have this power, but unintentionally wielding it. One similarity both writers agree is that the colonized are seen as animals by the colonizers. Fanon sees the colonial world a Manichean world that