on his own. He sets the mood of this impression in the start of his essay. In the essay “Shooting an Elephant”, it is based on a man who is pressured to kill an elephant that was thought to be wild. This adventure took place in Moulmein, in Lower Burma. Could he have saved this elephant and done what his heart wanted to do? Or was the peer pressure by others to strong? Orwell withheld the…
In 1990, while receiving the Freedom of Speech award in Myanmar, also referred to as Burma, Aung Sang Suu Kyi gave a memorable speech with the title “Freedom of Fear”. In 1948, her father Aung San, the modern founder of Burma and Prime Minister at the time was assassinated, with only one member of his cabinet having survived the attack. This member, by the name of U Ne Win went on to become her father’s successor as not only the Prime Minister, but also the new Burmese Dictator. He also…
“Shooting An Elephant,” George Orwell’s famously anti-imperialist essay, brings to light the complicated idea regarding the malleability of one’s conscience and questions the stability of a moral code. He begins the essay by recounting his time in Burma as a British officer, and how his hatred of imperialism was becoming overshadowed by the Burmese peoples’ distaste for his fellow colonizers and him. He wished to gain the trust and respect of these people in order to put this cognitive…
In the story of the elephant Mr. Orwell paints a picture of another type of inner conflict that he experienced while working in Burma. That is, when one knows deep inside what they should rightly do, but due to outside pressures and influences they choose another course of action. The anecdote is about an elephant that is out of control and is ravaging a village. George Orwell is called out to neutralize the situation, but he does not know what he can do to help things. When he arrived at the…
Think Twice Before You Shoot In “Shooting an Elephant,” from The Norton Reader, George Orwell explains his personal experience in an imperialistic county where he feels as though he is forced to shoot an elephant that had escaped into a town killing a man. His thoughts were not set on killing the wild animal but under circumstances, Orwell felt as though he would be seen as a fool to the natives if he did not live up to the expectation of the natives to kill the elephant. Once Orwell shot the…
George Orwell faces multiple conflicts in Shooting an Elephant. The first is British imperialism. The British took over Burma and they are treating the natives terribly. Second, the natives aren’t taking this imperial government kindly either as they continuously mock Orwell because he’s a symbol of the government and a vulnerable “obvious target” (Orwell). Orwell hates the way the British impose their power on the Burmese. Ironically, he works for the government which represents the British…
“To be truly positive in the eyes of some, you have to risk appearing negative in the eye of others” (Criss Jami). To appear positive to some people, they have to appear negative to others. Each person has his or her own opinion; therefore, just because he or she satisfies a person, does not mean the others agree with them too. For example, in “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, the speaker ponders whether he should kill the elephant to please the people. Whether he shoots it or not, not…
factors, “transformational leadership results in performance…[and] better work outcomes” (Northouse, p.169). Suu Kyi displayed examples of these four factors throughout her career. As for the first factor, Suu Kyi was a leader who provided her “followers with a vision and a sense of mission” (Friebe). She criticized the government who was violating human rights in Myanmar, she empowered “those who feel that hope is lost” (Shaina). She gained deep respect by her followers, she was a strong role…
In 2003, the New York Times wrote, “”Orwellian” itself, is the most widely used adjective derived from the name of a modern writer … It’s more common than ‘Kafkaesque,’ ‘Hemingwayesque’ and ‘Dickensian’ put together. It even noses out the rival political reproach ‘Machiavellian’, which had a 500-year head start.” We see and hear the term "Orwellian" used to describe ideas that George Orwell identified as being destructive to a free society. In much of his work, he emphasized control by…
Taslima Nasrin’s ‘Lajja’ is a response to the anti-Hindu riots that broke out in Bangladesh after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India. Its intent is to warn the people of Bangladesh that communalism is on the rise, that the Hindu minority is badly mistreated and that the secularism they once fought for is in grave danger. Nasrin utilizes fiction's mass emotional appeal, rather than its potential for distinction and universality. Lajja is a poignant and unrelenting account of the…