Shooting

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…

white officer for miles to come. You are in a foreign land still learning the language, and constantly mocked by the locals, but then an opportunity comes so that you can become a hero. George Orwell had the same exact experience and shares it in shooting an Elephant where he is forced into a situation that can cause him to be praised or hated. In this story we see how Orwell is placed into a situation where he torn between pleasing the people of Burma, his personal morals, and the safety of…

“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…

Orwell's Values In The Killing Of The Elephant Orwell is struggling with his two very different values that come into conflict about shooting the elephant and how they impact his decisions. We first see that Orwell values the life of the animal. When he is first asked to come deal with the situation he grabs a small gun to just scare the animal but not big enough to kill it. To him he see’s the elephant as a living creature just like anyone else who deserves to live. He says “somehow it always…

story, but for what reason? What purpose does it serve? George Orwell uses the journey in his autobiographical short story, Shooting an Elephant to develop our awareness of life's struggles, through the inner conflict faced by Orwell. The book is set in the British colony of Burma, and it details Orwell's physical and mental journey of completing the aforementioned task of shooting an elephant. The story is written in first person, and is a reflective piece of writing, both of which give the…

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…

in. Everyone deals with their values differently. Both stories are more different than similar , where one character gives up his value to support another value while the other character gives up everything to maintain his values. “Shooting the elephant” depicts the story of a young officer who has to decide whether to follow his own path or the path that the majority wants him to follow. Orwell says “I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward”, which shows how he…

often 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…

Could you shoot an animal to save your pride or to not look like a fool to others? Some of you may say yes and some may say no. In Orwell’s “Shooting and Elephant” he puts his personal experience as a police officer in Burma and an insight on the imperialism during this time. Orwell goes into detail how he hated his job and he was against the corruption and inhumanity that was going on. Until one day an incident happened, which Orwell was called to take care of an aggressive elephant that had…

period in which 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.…