George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," is a nonfiction narrative essay about an incident that occurred during the time of Orwell’s service as a police officer in Burma. The essay is centered around an event in which he was forced to shoot an elephant, resulting in a battle between his own personal beliefs and the expectations of those around him Shooting an Elephant essay is one of the most challenging to write, and it is not only the disturbing topic and every person’s decision that has to be made but a complex view of our actions. We recommend to see our sample to ref resh your memory regarding Shooting an Elephant In the essay ‘Shooting and Elephant’ George Orwell provides a description of a task of killing a local elephant which he was forced to perform while serving an obligatory term as a police officer in Burma
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Our notes cover Shooting an Elephant summary and detailed analysis. The narrator of the essay starts with describing the hate he is confronted with in a town in Burma. He also confesses to being on the wrong side of the history as he essay shooting an elephant the inhuman tortures of the British Raj on the local prisoners.
He is told on the phone about an elephant which has shattered his fetters and gone mad, intimidating the localities and causing destructions. The mahout i. The Burmese are unable to stop the elephant as no one in their whole population has a gun or any other weapon and seems to be quite helpless in front of the merciless elephant.
After the phone call, Orwell goes out to search the elephant. While asking in the neighborhood for where they have last sighted the elephant, he suddenly hears yells from a little distance away and immediately follows it. After seeing the dead labor, he sends orderly to bring him a gun that should be strong enough to kill an elephant, essay shooting an elephant.
In the meanwhile, Orwell essay shooting an elephant informed by the local people about the location of the elephant that was in the paddy field. All of them are only interested and getting excited about the shooting of the elephant. However, when he gazes back at the mob behind, essay shooting an elephant, it has expanded to a thousand and is still expanding, essay shooting an elephant, supposing him to fire the elephant.
To them, Orwell is like a magician and is tasked with amusing them. Consequently, Orwell decides to shoot the elephant or in another case, the crowd will laugh at him, which was intolerable to him. At first, he thinks to see the response of the elephant after slightly approaching it, however, it seems dangerous and would make the crowd laugh at him which was utterly humiliating for him.
To avoid undesirable awkwardness, he has to kill the elephant. He pointed the gun at the brain of the elephant and fires. As Orwell fires, the crowd breaks out in anticipation.
Being hit by the shot, the elephant bends towards its lap and starts dribbling. As he fires the final gunshot, the elephant shouts it out and falls, fast-moving in the field where he was placed. The elephant is still alive while Orwell shot him more and more but it seems to him that it has no effect on it. Orwell, being unable to see the elephant to suffer, go away from the sight.
He later heard that the elephant took almost half an hour to pass away and villagers take the meal off its bone shortly after its death. The owner of the elephant stayed heated, but then again as he was Indian, he has no legal alternative.
For them, the life of an elephant was additional worth than a life of a coolie. On the one hand, Orwell thinks that he is fortunate that the monster murdered a coolie as it will give his act a lawful clarification while on the other hand, he wonders that anyone among his companions would assume that he murdered the elephant just not to look a fool.
George Orwell was one of the most prominent writers of the twentieth century who was well-known for his essays, novels, and articles. His works were most of the times focused on social and political issues. His work is prominent among his contemporary writers because he changed the minds of people regarding the poor.
His subject matters are; the miseries of the poor, their oppression by the elite class, essay shooting an elephant, and the ills of the British colonialism. The story is a first-person narrative in which the narrator describes his confused state of mind and his inability to decide and act without hesitation. The narrator is a symbol of British colonialism in Burma who, through a window to his thoughts, allegorically gives us an insight into the conflicting ideals of the system.
The essay is embedded with powerful imagery and metaphors. The tone of the essay is not static as it changes from a sadistic tone to a comic tone from time to time.
The elephant in the story is the representation of the true inner self of the narrator. He has to kill it against his will in order to maintain the artificial persona he has to bear as a ruler. The narrator has a sort of hatred for almost all the people that surround him. On the surface, the essay is a narration of an everyday incident in a town but represents a very grave picture on a deeper level.
Orwell satirizes the inhumane behavior of the colonizers towards the colonized and does so very efficiently by using the metaphor of the elephant. The metaphor of the elephant essay shooting an elephant be interpreted in many ways. The elephant can also be considered to stand for the job of the narrator which has created a havoc in his life as the elephant has created in the town.
The narrator wants to get rid of it through any possible way and is ready to do anything to put an end to this misery, essay shooting an elephant. Also, the elephant is powerful and so is the narrator because essay shooting an elephant his position but both of them are puppets in the hands of their masters.
Plus, they both are creating miseries in the lives of the locals. Yet another interpretation of this metaphor can be that the elephant symbolizes the local colonized people. The colonizers are ready to kill any local who revolts against their rule just as the narrator kills the elephant which has defied the orders of its master. George Orwell, in the narrative essay Shooting an Elephant, expresses his feelings towards British imperialism. The British Raj did not care for anything but for their own material wealth and their ruling personas.
The rulers were ready to take the life of any local who dared to stand or speak against their oppression. This behavior of the rulers made the locals full of hatred and mistrust. Therefore, essay shooting an elephant, a big gap was created between the colonizers and the colonized which was bad for both of them. This theme strikes the essay shooting an elephant throughout the essay.
He narrates the conditions of the prisoners in cells who are tortured in an inhumane way. This shows the behavior of the British Raj towards those who dared to stand against their oppression. He does on purpose i.
to reflect on the point that the colonizers considered the colonizing low humans or probably lower than humans. Generic filters Hidden label.
Hidden label. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Summary Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Summary Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Literary Analysis About the Author: Genre: Narration: Symbolism: Shooting an Elephant Main Themes Ills of British Imperialism:. More From George Orwell. Essay shooting an elephant Animal Farm.
Essays Shooting an Elephant.
Goerge Orwell’s Shooting An Elephant ( Part – II )
, time: 21:42Orwell's Shooting an elephant: Summary, Analysis & Essay Questions
In the essay ‘Shooting and Elephant’ George Orwell provides a description of a task of killing a local elephant which he was forced to perform while serving an obligatory term as a police officer in Burma Jun 22, · Shooting an Elephant is mainly about the tussle going on in Orwell’s conscience while working as a police officer for the British in Burma. However, apart from imperialism and its effects on local life, the essay is also about how the inherent evil of imperialism is destroying the freedom of both the oppressor and the blogger.comted Reading Time: 11 mins Oct 04, · 20th November “ Shooting an Elephant “: Orwell’s combat against imperialism “ Shooting an Elephant ” is an essay written by George Orwell, first published in the journal New Writing in In this essay, the author tells his own story about when he was working as a police officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma
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