Burma Road

The conflicts experienced by the young British law enforcer in George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant” was by the pre existing tension between the British Empire’s imperial rule over Burma, and the Burmese’s disrespectful actions towards his authority being enforced of the Empire. Orwell displays this conflict and tension as we see his use of symbolism and irony throughout the essay. As a matter of fact, Orwell’s symbolic use of the elephant shows both sides of the confliction between…

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…

In The Guest by Albert Camus and Shooting An Elephant by George Orwell, both authors explore colonialism and its effect on the oppressed and the oppressors. In Shooting an Elephant, Orwell recounts his experience in Burma as a police officer. Despite Orwell’s contempt towards imperialism and support for the Burmese, he is often caught between his hatred towards the British Empire and personal resentment of the Burmese. Similarly, in The Guest, Daru, a French-Algerian school teacher, is often in…

man turns tyrant…” consequently, “it is his own freedom that he destroys" (Orwell, 184), in the struggle for dominance. George Orwell, a sub-divisional officer under the British Crown stationed in their colony of Burma, in his essay, confronts the fact that the…

A Hanging by George Orwell is a short story focusing on a hanging taking place in a Burma Jail. The story is narrated by a jail guard as he witnesses an all too common hanging taking place against a Hindu prisoner. On the surface, Orwell is trying to show the audience the horrible mistreatment and inhumane actions of guards and prison staff again the prisoners. The slightly deeper theme of the story is appreciation, respect of human life and how Orwell feels about a man deciding the fate of…

George Orwell is considered one of the greatest political authors of his time. Throughout his works, he scrutinized various corrupted governments, exposing their flaws to the public. With the help of satirization, he was able to ridicule these governments in his stories. He was able to achieve mainstream success with his two novels Animal Farm and 1984, both of which dealt with communist themes. Orwell’s writings were inspired by social and economic conditions in Britain in the early 1930’s, his…

an Elephant” “Shooting an Elephant” is a story written by George Orwell that takes place in Burma where the British government has sent military officers to the colonies it has there. The story is written through Orwell’s point of view as one of the officers who is strongly disliked by the Burmese that live in the colony. By writing about his experience as a military occupier in a British colony in Burma, Orwell tries to show that imperialism does not just negatively impact it’s victims but…

Give 3 facts about George Orwell: Orwell's parents were members of the Indian Civil Service After college he joined the Indian Imperial Police in Burma now called Myanmar He wrote his first called “Down and Out in Paris and London” What is George Orwell’s real name? Why do you think he wrote under a pseudonym (pen-name)? Eric Arthur Blair, because he didn't want people to know his real name In what year was Animal Farm published? 1945 Historical Background: What is democracy? How did…

Boundaries imposed upon individuals can greatly impact their lives. Individuals that are forced behind boundaries in their everyday lives can often see negative outcome as a result of these boundaries. George Orwell’s (1945) Animal Farm and Jean Marc Boujc’s (2003) World Press image, Iraq child & prisoner of war are two pieces of work that portray the impacted lives of individuals resulting from imposed boundaries. Orwell and Boujc expresses how boundaries imposed upon individuals impact lives…

Having fought against the fascist regime during the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell found himself astounded and distressed by the sheer volume of his contemporaries that so easily accepted Stalin’s totalitarian dictatorship. The focus of the novel, the character Winston Smith, seeks to demonstrate the importance of maintaining a balance between internalising individualism with oneself and conforming with the ideals of a society which seems absurd. As a social democrat, Orwell placed great…