Shooting an Elephant

The oppression faced by the Burmese in Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant" and by the African natives in Lessing's "No Witchcraft for Sale" made them virtually defenseless to the whims of the whites with whom they lived. In "Shooting an Elephant", the persecuted Burmese sneered and mocked the British officers, including the narrator. This is because it is all they could do. If they tried to rebel to any greater extent, they would be severely punished, possibly even killed. As seen in the story, the…

“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…

George Orwell saw fist had the good and the bad that comes with imperializing a country. Three important symbols that come together to give a vivid description in Orwell’s “shooting an Elephant” are , the rifle, the elephant, and the villagers. A rifle can be week, powerful, large, or small. The rifle in Orwell’s “shooting an Elephant” fistly represents England 's power. England was losing its power as a rifle can as it ages. A rifle can be improved, it can be fitted with new parts therefore…

different tones in the two essays, Shooting an Elephant and A Hanging. In Shooting an Elephant he expresses his anger towards the Burmese people, referring to them as, “evil little spirited beasts who tried to make my job impossible.” In A Hanging Orwell shows how the people around him take their job seriously and it's a very grim tone, but after they hang the man the tone lightens as they make jokes and laugh together. Orwell’s life influenced his essay Shooting an Elephant, an example is…

writes about an attack on the evils of tyranny. Very often his writings have an entity that rules over all. These writings show that a system of tyranny creates a society that does not progress, rather, it regresses. For example, his essay “Shooting An Elephant” portrays the idea about imperialism, another prime example of a system of tyranny. Due to imperialism, Europeans have been driven to thoughts of anger and hatred towards the anti-Europeans, which consist of Burmans and Buddhists. In…

Shooting an Elephant was a short story written in 1950 by George Orwell. The story is an excerpt from his book called, “1984”. In this story, Orwell explains a situation in which he was working as an officer in Lower Burma, where he was forced to shoot an elephant that was having an attack of must. In this story, he uses very good symbolism, including the elephant, the gun and multiple shots he fired, and a dead unskilled worker, called a coolie. In the excerpt, Orwell uses the elephant…

own, but you would not be forced to anything; you would overall make smart choice to better yourself and even others around you. The essay, Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell vividly allows one to analyze the question, "How free is the will of the individual within society?" Orwell presents the issue of whether or not a police officer should shoot an elephant. Various reasons go along with this, allowing one to determine whether the shooter is “free” or if he is…

In George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant the narrator finds himself forming to the mask or role of an idol, a police officer. His previous identity attempts to prevent the drastic transformation, but with the influence of society, change is hard to abstain. The narrator feels like he has little say in the matter of the elephant; his original opinion on the matter is influenced by common sense, he "... [has] no intention of shooting the elephant... [he has] merely sent for the rifle to defend…

Orwell had to decide whether to kill the elephant or let it live was a very crucial stage. The second paragraph of the essay he states that he had no intention to shoot the elephant only to simply scare it away “I had no intention of shooting the elephant — I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary”. The pressure from the crowd of “yellow” skinned people played a vital role in this by crowding behind him and waiting in excitement for the elephant to be shot. He wanted to fit…

In “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, the author explores his feelings and blameworthiness towards a tamed yet potentially dangerous frenzied elephant whom he shot in Moulmein, Burma. In this situation, Orwell deplores his actions and elicits his depth of regret towards murdering the elephant, of which he later justifies as, in short, preserving the legacy of British power and authority in front of the Burmese natives (through irony and narration). Although confession does not justify…