“Shooting an elephant” details the adventure of a white man, split between his dislike of the natives and hatred towards the British tyranny, in his pursuit of a rampaging elephant. As he goes around gathering information he attracts a large crowd that essentially “forces” him to shoot the elephant against his will to avoid looking like a fool. The elephant perhaps represent his ability to think for himself. His decision to shoot the elephant symbolizes the lost of that ability as he falls victim to mob mentality. In doing so, he ends up being a bigger fool because he betrays his own values in favor of the majority opinion. The defenselessness of the elephant may also represent the European’s lack of awareness that in, becoming a tyrant they are losing a part of their own freedom. After all, at the end of the day they are at the mercy of the Indians that they have to please to uphold their image and rule. A question that I would like to explore is whether you think it was right for Orwell to shoot the elephant.
In George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant,” he was hated by Burmans and he hates his officer position with the natives. Orwell was later then enrolled to another headquarter to control an elephant that has escaped and wrecking the village. They counted on him to get rid of the elephant. Orwell was conflicting whether to kill the elephant or not. In order to satisfy the crowd, he did what they desire. So Orwell shot the elephant three times, but it showed strong will to survive. The elephant strive for half an hour. After it died, he thought that shooting the elephant was the best thing to do. By shooting the elephant, Orwell feels that he returned respect from the civilians and became more apart of the Burmans. Does shooting the elephant gain his pride?
In “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell is a reluctant foreigner in the midst of British-controlled Burma. His position as a soldier constantly reminds him about two aspects of his situation; while he despises imperialism and is on the side of the Burmese in theory, his experiences with inhospitable natives have made it difficult to sympathize with them. These two ideas of whether something is morally right or emotionally feasible are put to the test when Orwell is given an assignment to deal with a rampaging elephant. When Orwell arrives at the scene, a person has already been killed, and the elephant is calm. Though Orwell crafts a logical plan in which he would test the elephant’s agitation prior to shooting it, he is unable to withstand the pressures of the natives who are present at the scene wishing for the elephant’s death. He shoots the elephant multiple times, but it refuses to die until after he leaves the scene. Orwell makes the deduction that his main reason for the shooting was to “avoid looking like a fool” (pg 55).
One of the main points that Orwell focuses on is just how powerless he is, even though he is a British man in a country controlled by Britain. The great show of power (in Orwell’s case the murder of the elephant) is an act to give off the image of control. Orwell didn’t trust himself and his own authority to follow the course of action that would make sense in other situations. With the eyes of thousands of natives on him, he is too intimidated to do something contrary to what they want. In the end those who he is supposed to hold power over force him into action. By taking the position of the strong, he is in turn controlled by the “weak. It is as Orwell says himself in the story, “…when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys” (pg 52).
A discussion point that I would be interested in pursuing is what would have happened had Orwell cautiously approached the elephant and found it to be non-hostile. Is there a chance that the natives would have turned on him?
George Orwell’s “Shooting and Elephant” explores the human desire to be liked and to feel good. In the story, Orwell describes his time serving as an officer in colonial Burma. Orwell expresses his disapproval of imperialism and the colonial order yet serves in the colony. He justifies his serving there by stating that this is a common imposition on an Englishman of the day, and by informing us that secretly he was for the Burmese. This is his human desire to feel good and feel justified in his actions. When Orwell is called up to take out a marauding elephant, he says that he begins to understand the imperial mentality. In a long moment, he is made to consider the costs and benefits of appeasing the natives or protecting a valuable asset, the elephant. He is overcome by the mob around him and the human desire to be accepted and liked, especially after his negative experiences with the locals, and so decides to shoot the elephant. Shooting the elephant was also symbolic of his rejection of the colonial power, and the affirmation of his secret feelings of solidarity with the Burmese.
In light of his derogatory and angered language used about the Burmese though, a good question to pose about Orwell is: Does he truly feel he supports the Burmese because of admiration/emotional bond to them or because he simply feels that its the right thing to do? And how do his feelings change after the decline of British power in light of his latter understanding that “[British power] was a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it?”
Shooting an Elephant is about a white policeman in Burma. Burma is under the control of Europeans. Although no Burman would rebel against the European, they treat any European with extreme hatred. The narrator told that story of the time that he was called to do something about a runaway elephant. At the presence of the elephant, our narrator is held with a dilemma. He does not wish to kill the elephant but there is a crowd of Burman that is cheering for him to do so. Being hated by everyone for this race/skin color, not killing the elephant would make him appear weak.
I guess anyone that was once in a new environment can relate to this story. The narrator was alone in a land where he was hated by everyone. The event of when he had to kill an elephant was the only time that he felt that those who disliked him liked him, at least for that one moment. Many of us can relate to this, for example our first day in a new school, or a new city. We always try to gain acceptance or respect when we are the stranger in a new place. Our narrator is the stranger and the event of the elephant was his chance of gaining the respect. The last thing that the narrator said was “I had done it solely to not look like a fool.” He doesn’t want to appear weak for it will hurt him in the future. There are many time that we are left with two decision but one would make us appear inferior. The choice that makes us appear superior is not always the right choice.
It seems that everything returned to normal after the event. I wonder would there even be any difference in his life had he not kill the elephant.
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” illustrates how people are willing to go against their own desires in order to satisfy those of the crowd around them. Orwell describes his experiences as a police officer in lower Burma, where he is exposed to the “dirty work of Empire at close quarters.” Although he detests the concept of imperialism and is secretly on the side of the Burmese, he also feels anger towards the natives who are constantly trying to make a fool out of him and all other Europeans. When a destructive elephant is on the loose, Orwell grabs his rifle, heads towards it, but finds it peaceful and harmless. He doesn’t come with the intentions of killing the elephant, however he is unable to stand strong against the wishes of the mass of people around him. He wants to gain their approval and therefore makes the decision to shoot the elephant. Although Orwell is seemingly the leader of the crowd, in reality, he is the follower.
The fact that Orwell is trying to justify his actions shows that he feels somewhat guilty about what he did. I keep changing my mind as to whether or not Orwell had the right to shoot it. The elephant was somebody’s valuable possession and wasn’t doing harm at the time of the shooting. However, on the other hand, it did kill someone and cause a lot of damage beforehand. If an animal goes wild but then returns to its normal state, is it legal to kill it? He himself said that it seemed like it would be murder if he shot it. This story showed me that even if you think you’re the leader in the situation, there’s always something or someone else that will influence your decision. We shouldn’t care about what others think about us to the point that it controls our lives.
Was killing the elephant worth it for him? Does anyone think he was treated differently afterwards?
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” is a clear example of peer pressure. Although the elephant did not appear to be dangerous and made no attempts to harm anyone, the crowd made Orwell feel as if the elephant needed to be shot. Longing for the feeling of acceptance and recognition Orwell shoots the elephant in order to satisfy everyone surrounding him. I thought this was a sign of weakness rather then strength although I can understand why Orwell felt this was a necessary action to take. In situations like this, I feel that it is always better to go with your gut feeling. I do not think Orwell had any intentions of killing the elephant meaning he went against what he felt was right. Trying to justify his actions, Orwell shows signs of remorse. Even though Orwell is viewed differently now by all the natives, he is not proud of what he has done. He broke down under peer pressure and conformed to satisfy the ones around him.
Do you think Orwell’s action affected him overall as a person or do you think it will be something that is easy for him to forget about?
“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell explores the highly conflicted state of an officer in colonial Burma. As an “Englishman in the East,” the narrator witnesses firsthand the cruelty of imperialism. However, his job entails upholding Britain’s rule over Burma, and so he must continue in silent protest. The Burmese contribute even further to his problem by their desire to make the life of the British in Burma as difficult as possible. He describes their anti-European sentiments as aimless and petty, without considering how futile battling the British Empire might be for the natives of Burma. The narrator proceeds to give an account of another, less grand conflict, which shed light on his distressing condition. A rampaging elephant had escaped from his owner and was terrorizing a Burmese town. As a police officer, the narrator was responsible for bringing the situation under control. On his journey to find the beast, he discovers a Burmese man trampled by the elephant. Upon finding the elephant he observes that it no longer poses a threat as long as a safe distance from it is kept. However, a crowd of Burmese natives staring intently on him and his rifle compel him to shoot the elephant, lest he look like a fool. It is then that he realizes the contradiction in the empire’s rule over the various colonies. The imperialists, in their fixation on impressing the natives, become the subjugated rather than the subjugators.
I do not believe that this conclusion is completely accurate. It is too great a generalization to claim that his experience with the natives and the elephant reflect how the rest of the empire is controlled by its colonies. The experience is more reflective of his character. He did not have the conviction to leave a post that forced him to compromise his principles, just as he did not have the conviction to allow the elephant to live after it had already reached a peaceful state. My question is to what degree is the narrator a coward? To what degree is he mired in his position, regardless of cowardice?
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” centers around one’s struggle in conforming to society. Orwell, a colonial official in Burma, a region of the British Empire, is split between his loyalty to the British and sympathy for the Burmese. He begins the story by telling the readers that due to an intense anti-European feeling felt among the Burmese, he was not favored by them as their police officer and gets treated with a great lack of respect. Nonetheless, he secretly despises imperialism, including the British who were oppressing the Burmese. Orwell’s mental division truly starts when he was called upon to deal with “an elephant [that] was ravaging the bazaar.” The roaming elephant has caused a substantial amount of damage to the town so the indigenous residents demanded that the elephant be shot. Although he is obligated to shoot the rogue elephant, he does not want to perform the deed. He reasons within himself as to why it is not necessary to shoot down the elephant as well as the rationale of doing what the huge crowd of Burmese are urging and expecting him to do. The decision he has to make by himself is a test of his conscience. His self-conflict is whether to allow the natives to think of him as indecisive or cowardly by not killing the elephant or to kill the elephant to appease them. After some debate and the compelling crowd, he gives up on his own perception of the situation and kills the elephant just as the natives wanted. This entire event represents the hostility between the officers of the British Empire and their native subjects, filled with hatred, cynicism, and bitterness.
While reading this essay, I put myself in Orwell’s shoes. When debating whether or not to kill the elephant, I would have asked myself if receiving pride from the natives was worth killing a potentially harmless animal. Would I really be seen and treated any differently by the Burmese if I do them a favor? I understand the pressure that Orwell was going through, having to fight between himself and the Burmese but after all, he was the one in position as the officer so technically, he is more powerful than the Burmese in terms of control. I felt that he wasn’t as authoritative as he could have been. He didn’t have to be subservient to the wants of others. It was clear that he was thinking thoroughly about the situation while the Burmese were simply running on rage and excitement. Sometimes, we have to think ahead and not focus on the current outcome. Will killing the elephant really bring about change to his relationship with the Burmese for the long run?
In conclusion, will conforming to society in Orwell’s case really bring about any benefits for him? Do you agree or disagree with the statement that Orwell has exercised his free will through his decision to conform in choosing not to exercise his free will?
“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell depicts the life of an English sub-divisional police officer in Burma. The narrator says that the Burmans always cheat and tease him whenever they have a chance. He understands their detest for Europeans, but what the Burmans don’t know is that the narrator is also against the British imperialism. He notes that he hates his job and that the annoyance from the Burmans makes his job even more miserable. One day he hears about an elephant is loose at the bazaar. On his way to the bazaar he learns that the tamed elephant has gone mad and that the tamer is too far away from town. By the time he finds the elephant, the elephant is eating grass peacefully. The narrator does not want to kill the elephant, however the Burman mass behind him wants him to. Evenutally he makes up his mind and goes over to shoot the elephant. He shoots it several times but it does not die. After a few shots more, the narrator is unable to watch it suffer, and leaves. He later learns that it took another half an hour before the elephant died. He discloses that he was lucky that he had the legal right to kill the elephant, because the real reason he killed it was to avoid looking like a fool. Orwell is trying to express his dislike of imperialism. It is a constant theme throughout the essay. Firstly the Burmans are being oppressed in their own country. They are treated socially lower than the Europeans in their own home land. Furthermore, the officer reveals that he hates his job of enforcing imperialism upon Burma. In the end of the essay the officer reveals that to avoid making himself and his country look like a fool in front of a mass crowd of Burmans, he kills the elephant. Killing the elephant was against his own conscience, and he was only forced to do it due to the imperialist rule over Burma. By the end Orwell’s opinion is clear. A question that came up during my reading was what would happen if he had not killed the elephant.
“Shooting an Elephant” written by George Orwell describes the story of a British officer living in lower Burma. The essay begins by giving the reader some background on the political tension between the natives and the Europeans. The Europeans are looked down upon and mocked. When an elephant got loose in the town, the officer was called to see if he could help. After passing the dead body of a native, he called for an elephant rifle so that he would be able to defend himself from the wild animal if need be. After getting the rifle, a crowd of natives began to follow the officer to the elephant. The officer had no intention of killing the animal but he quickly realized that all the people were expecting him to do so. He could feel their excitement and he knew he would kill it. The author then explains how he was acting like a puppet and even though the elephant was no longer a threat, his actions were being influenced by the people’s watching eyes. He then shoots the elephant many times and does not see it die but hears its pained breathing and tries to shoot it many more times to kill it but it does not die until a half hour later. The essay ends by telling the reader of the discussions that occurred after the shooting.
It struck me while I was reading the essay that the officer seemed extremely feeble minded. He explains how he is acting solely because of the natives. He so strongly does not want to be laughed at that his decision to kill the elephant was almost made for him. At one point it even says that they would be laughing at him after his death and even this bothered him. This seems irrational to me. Why should he care if he would already have been dead? This portrayed to me the strength of the influence of others. As humans we strive to fit in and to feel a sense of belonging and it is so important to the officer that he is even thinking about how people will think of him after his death.
Did the officer have a choice whether or not to kill the elephant? ( Because he seems to imply that he doesn’t )
In Shooting an Elephant the officer has to make an important decision between shooting the elephant that has escaped or not. However this decision is not merely only about whether or not he should kill the elephant but it also shows his values and how society is based on his decision. He shoots the elephant not because he found it dangerous at the moment but because of societal pressure. He felt their eyes on him and felt like he was expected to shoot the elephant since the moment he picked up the rifle. He himself thought to himself that it would be a waste to shoot the elephant and he could have just waited for the owner to come back and take care of it. His story shows us how people are judged in society. From the very beginning of the passage there is this emphasis of social class. The officer and the people are two different types of people and the citizens don’t really accept the officer and they hope he’ll mess up. Another example is the man who died who is referred to as a coolie. Some people thought that the elephant was worth more then the “coolie” and that he shouldn’t have killed the elephant just because a coolie died. I wonder what have happened if the officer had made the decision to follow his heart and didn’t shoot the elephant. Would he have been booed at or would the citizens not have cared.
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” depicts a white British officer that was the laughing stock of Burmese. Later on in the story we learn that an elephant owned by an Indian had broke loose of his chains and was “rampaging” through the town. The British officer now had to bring down the elephant, but as he gets closer to locating it, the clues become more confusing than before until someone actually tells him where he is headed for sure. Now he has found the elephant along with having the rifle in his hand. Only now he has a horde of people behind him expecting him to shoot the elephant.
This is a really simple case of peer pressure upon the officer, because he has a struggle in his head whether or not to shoot the elephant or not. He didn’t want to shoot it, but the crowd behind him did. After he decided to shoot the elephant, he wondered if he did it not to be a fool. Humans act upon other’s expectation when they feel pressured to do so.
Why wouldn’t he just listen to his own instinct? What would’ve been the outcome if he had actually tamed the elephant? Would the people have more respect for him, after all it would’ve been a more difficult task.
“Shooting an Elephant” is a story of a European policeman living in Burma, torn between what he truly feels to be right and what he believes he is opt to do. He begins by stating that the people in Burma hate him for being European because Europeans oppress the Burman people. Even though he didn’t agree with the acts of the British, he still had a European background and therefore had to take the harshness of the people. The incident with the elephant was a moment of reality for him, where he had to decide between life and death, choosing between keeping the elephant alive like he wanted or killing it to satisfy the people who were watching him, even though they would still dislike him. When he decided to kill the elephant, and constantly shot it until he couldn’t take the noise anymore, I started to wonder why he completely killed the elephant instead of hurting it so it wouldn’t be able to create more destruction. I believe the elephant symbolized the position that Orwell was in. The people of Burma thought Orwell was horrible because of the place he was from. There was nothing he could do but act like a white man, even though he did not accept their imperialistic behavior. The elephant was in a “must” stage and could not do anything but act in his natural behavior. His killing of the elephant shows that he cares more about outside opinions rather then true beliefs.
George Orwell’s Shooting an elephant tells the story of a man living in Burma, while he hates the civilians there that make his job miserable he at the same time hates the tyranny of the British empire. I thought it was very interesting the way the mob mentality/peer pressure worked in forcing him to shoot the elephant. I liked the last line where he says that he did it solely to not look like a fool because i feel as though that is the driving force behind peer pressure, people simply don’t want to look stupid in public and will do most anything to avoid the embarrassment.
In this essay, the narrator is caught between two contrasting decisions: to appeal to the crowd or doing what he thinks is right. He is a white Police Officer who was stationed in Moulmein, Burmese in order to retain order; however, he abhorred his job. Two reasons for this sprouted from the fact that he was working as someone holding the order of oppressiveness all while being hated by the Burmese. Eventually, the narrator has to use his power to take control over a situation with a rampaging elephant. By the time, he reached the elephant who stopped running amok and was only grazing on grass, there were thousands of villagers waiting in eager anticipation of seeing an elephant getting shot down. The officer chose to shoot down the elephant in order to appeal to the crowd.
What interested me was the general thematic concept throughout the entirety of the essay: the desire to become accepted. The reason why he shot the elephant was for this sole reason. There was never a time where he was liked by the Burmese; therefore, by doing this he knew that he would get a few moments of acceptance from the people. This is very similar to peer pressure found in schools; something that I can relate to.
I want to know why the narrator would even work as a police officer even though he hated the oppressiveness of imperialism against the Burmese.
George Orwells Shooting Elephants is an exilent example of peer pressure. Someone being forced to do some thing just because their are people around him or her that want them to do it. This is a tale of a white man living in lower Burman and hes a subdivisional police officer . One day he gets a call about an elephant. he grabs his rifle and he gets on his horse to go see what the situation is. Knowing that the rifle will not kill an elephant he mearly takes it for self defense. Trying to find the animal is the hard part because people argue over which way they say they saw the elephant and some say they never herd of it. He failed to get any substantial information as to where the elephant was. Some Burmans had arrived and said that the elephant was in the paddy feilds only a few hundred hards away. The people in the town had seen him walking with the rifle and got excited that he was going to shoot it. but hehad no intetion on harming the animal. as soon as he saw the animal he knew that he shud not shoot him. He compaired the animal to a valuable piece of machinery. He decided that he was going to watch the beast for a while so he didnt turn into a savage and then go home. Then a crowd started to come and watch the shooting of this animal so he knew he had to do something even though he didnt want to shoot the animal. He decide to go close to it and test its behavior. If the animal charged him he cud shoot it because it would be defending himself. He was more afraid of what the people would think of him if she shot and missed the animal andthen got killed by it. Once he had pulled the trigger it seems almost like time had stopped and he did not hear the band or the kick back of the gun just the crowd behind him. The first bullet mearly paralized the elephant. And so he fired again into the same spot and he still did not collapse so he fired a third shot that for sure did it and down he came onto his belly.I was obvious that the elephant would not rise again but he was not dead. He waited a long time but the brathing did not weaken. So he fired the two remaining shots into the spot he thought his heart would be. In the end he could not stand it any longer and went away. Only to hear that it took a half hour later for the beast to die. only the young boy realized that he had shot the elephant for the sole purpose of looking cool and fiting it. Almost everyone can relate to this story because peer presure is something that goes on in all of our lives. Its the fact of weather we give in to it or not. If it causes us to do something we dont want to do then we shudnt do it because we will regret it for the rest of our lives.
Orwell takes us into a first person narrative, making the reader feel like they are included in the story. Orwell, a policeman in Burma, is belittled by the native people and feels a little bit of hatred towards his job. After an incident regarding an elephant that goes free and wild, Orwell, is called to stop the elephant. Although he personally does not have any intention of killing the elephant, he grabs a gun and goes off to look for the elephant. At first he asks around and no one answers him frankly for he gets different accounts from all of the people surveyed. At one point he finds a man flat on his stomach. The man is in a horrible condition and Orwell at this moment disagrees with all that say that the dead seem peaceful because in his personal experience they seem to look devilish. He goes off with a bigger gun that could actually kill the elephant. Even at this point he cannot find it within himself to kill an elephant. The people follow him in anticipation of seeing the elephant killed and either taking the tusks or the meat off of it. Orwell feels the weight of the pressure of all the spectators on his shoulders. Although he does not want to shoot the elephant, he feels he must because that is what the people want. He is willing to do something he does not believe in, in order to feel important. In the end he shoots the elephant numerous times waiting for it to die but all he hears is the elephant suffering. He cannot handle the sound so he leaves and later hears that it took half an hour for the animal to die. There is an investigation of the shooting and the opinions of all the people are given. Some say that Orwell was justified while others disagreed.
This story reminded me of one of the generalizations we made in class when we were discussing the chapter Hell; the idea that mobs act out of character. Although Orwell was not really part of the mob, he had the mob mentality of pleasing all of the natives so that they would not think poorly of him. This story also made me dislike the narrator since I do not believe it proper for a person to go against his beliefs and values for such a selfish reason. Orwell went against his beliefs and shot the elephant thinking he HAD to please the people or face ridicule. I did not feel this reasoning to be logical enough to shoot down the elephant.
I was wondering if the class thought that Orwell made the right call or not. Should he have shot the elephant for killing the man and causing chaos or should he have stuck to his original beliefs and let the elephant roam and feed until the owner got back?
Orwell, writing in first person, has the narrator set as a police officer in Burma. He has had negative experiences with the job and people in his time there. One day, an assignment is given to him. And elephant is causing major problems in the village. He rode on a horse with a rifle to the part of town where the elephant was seen. The damage was caused in a variety of ways, but people couldn’t seem to put their finger on exactly where the elephant was. He sees that a man has very recently been killed by the elephant and hunts it down. He wants to wait it out and to see if the elephant will behave itself. If it does, the owner can take it back and all will be well. But the crowd of people sees him and is expecting him to shoot it. He doesn’t want to look like a fool and shoots it several times, causing it a long, painful death.
The narrator seems to take to easily to what the people want. The elephant, at the time, was not causing a problem. Maybe it had destroyed and killed in the recent past, but as he said, elephants go through periods of savage behavior. If he had waited for the elephant’s owner to return, then he could have avoided wasting a life an taking someone’s property just for the sake of looking good.
This story made me teary and very upset. I think that animals lives are precious and even if they do misbehave, so do humans. It’s not humane to shoot and kill a human that is standing calmly even if they’ve caused problems before, so why would it be humane to do so to an animal?
Shooting an elephant addresses many themes such as the role of British Imperialism. We see a young George Orwell positioned in Burma as a police officer. He exists in a delicate balance with the natives of the village. He is often at the receiving end of much anti-european sentiment. While he hates the villagers and their animosity, he also hates being part of the British Raj and what its doing to the natives. He points out the people rotting away in prison and the acts of cruelty he has witnessed in silence. One day an elephant goes on a rampage through the town and kills a man in the process. He sends for an elephant gun and confronts the elephant. He realized the elephant was calm and was forced to make a decision. He could kill the elephant and bow to the will of the people or let the elephant live. He eventually shoots the elephant.
A first I saw the elephant as a representation of the British Empire. It was a powerful force, conquering and trampling until it was at the height of its power. When the empire started enjoy its spoils, the people it oppressed destroy it. The death of the elephant is also a slow progression into senility and Orwell is equating that to the slow collapse of the British Empire. There is also the issue of the free will of Orwell. He falls to the calls of the natives. Orwell seems to have his position in society defined by the people around him. He incorporates his European descent and how everyone else views him into his actual identity. He was afraid to look like a fool.
One thing I would like everyone to discuss is what everyone thought about his decision to shoot the elephant.
‘Shooting an Elephant’ by George Orwell introduces us to the life of a English sub-divisional police officer living and working In a place called Moulmein in lower Burman. He is hated by the natives there, as they seem to hate all Europeans. This is mainly because they were being oppressed by the British,at the time.The natives displayed what he defined as Imperialism towards him. He the tells the story of receiving a phone call early one morning about an elephant on the loose in town and the natives needing his help. He then rides into town on his pony and with his riffle that was too small for killing an elephant. When he arrives there the people start telling different stories which gave him no clear direction as to where the elephant had gone. While there listening to the confusion he realizes that the elephant had not only destroyed huts and fruit stalls but it had also killed a Coolie man. As soon as he saw this he sent for an elephant rifle and cartridges that he received shortly after and set out to find the elephant. While on his journey by foot with the rifle on his shoulder the impression that he was definitely going to shoot the elephant was given off to the people. All wanted to see this and so they followed him, by the time he found the elephant a crowd of two thousand had gathered behind him. They all were exciting to see the shooting of the elephant, while his intention for the rifle was purely for self- defense. The elephant was in the fields eating grass as peaceful as could be.It was harmless at this point so he did not want to shoot it. It now seemed to him like he had no choice. The reason for this was that two thousand people were now awaiting the shooting and if he did not then they would take him for a fool and possibly hate him more than before. He decided that he did not want to risk making his situation worse with the natives so he shot the elephant several times. It did not die immediately but an half an hour later,when they realized the elephant was finally dead they took his meat. The shooting of the elephant although pleasing to the crowd, upset the owner and sparked mixed opposing views among the older and younger natives.
My question was why didn’t he just try to explain to the people why he had the gun so that they would not get their hopes up? also do you believe that he didn’t want to shoot the elephant and if not ,wasn’t standing up for what is right worth being seen as fool,after all it doesn’t say they liked him after he did it,so what did he gain?
The essay “Shooting an Elephant” reflects on a British police officer’s time spent working in Burma, a place he was not welcomed in. It particularly focuses on the event that led to him shooting an elephant. The officer begins the essay by detailing who he is, where he is, and how he is viewed by the people of Burma. He is disliked by the people in the area and claims to understand why and see their justification for it.
One day he is called due to an escaped working elephant. The elephant went mad, broke free, ad ravaged the bazaar which led to the death of a man. The officer feels compelled to shoot and kill the elephant after crowds of people cheer him on to do it. The elephant calms down but instead of keeping watch until the owner came he shoots it so that he does not end up looking like a coward in front of everyone.
I think this essay showed how much people care about what others think about them. Some people are willing to do anything for a little bit of recognition and popularity for however long, including doing selfish things. I don’t think it was necessary to kill the elephant and I think the narrator knew that since he uses the fact that the animal killed a man as an excuse and justification for why he killed it even though he admits that he did it to avoid looking foolish. The elephant may have killed a man but humans seem to forget that they drive animals to do the things they do by chaining them up and using them for work despite knowing how dangerous they can be.
In George orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” described the incident the English Police Officer was dealing with while being in Indian city, Burma. He abhored his job by the reasons that he closely observed all the affects of tyranny by Empire he served for but at the same time he was barely able to stand the mean behavior of Burmese citizens that he had to protect. “He was all for Burmese, and all against there oppressors, the British” Thus the imperialism that was established in city equally terrorized the minds of citizens as they had to obey to British tyranny and as well as the pride of Orwell, who needed to extinguish the disobedience of the indian natives felt toward foreigners. Shortly after, Orwell experiences the “real imperialism” where Orwell deals with a rampaging loosing its chains elephant. Orwell is the one who all the native’s excitement falls on. They wait for intrigue and it’s clear they want the elephant to be killed. But at the same time, conscious Orwell argues whether or not he should shoot an elephant as he understands that it;s quite wrong to kill a big animal likewise to destroy a huge working machine. Orwell, the white man, is hated by indian natives but would be hated even worse if he leaves the wild elephant behind. There’s nothing left but “to wear the mask and grow the face to it” (52). He doesn’t want to be laughed at thus kills an elephant with multiple shots and leaves the place before an elephant is dead.
To my opinion this is quite debating question whether he should have killed an animal or not. Orwell didnt want to seem a coward in front of people whom he protects thus it was important for him to be a hero. He had a role of an police officer and thats why he more cared about his reputation whereas no one cared about the death of elephant. From point of nature its harsh to deprive someone of his life without giving on it better reason but for a government there is always some benefit.