Imperialism In Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

The short story, “Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell, tells his story of an encounter with a loose elephant. He struggled through a dilemma in which he were to kill the elephant, or let it be. Politically, George Orwell was against an imperialistic run government, and used his writings to portray the many negatives he saw through imperialism. In the story, the elephant is a metaphor of imperialism, and its effects on the people. The actions of the elephant and the reactions of the civilians reflect on the outcomes of imperialism. At first, Orwell uses the physical damage caused by the elephant to compare it to the actions of imperialism. It says, “it had already destroyed somebody’s bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock” (page 2). This portrays the destruction caused by the imperialistic forces. Orwell describes the demolition of the
The death of the elephant seemed like a source of entertainment for a large mass of people. Orwell wrote, “I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes- faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun” (page 3). The immense amount of entertainment from such a violent event shows the disgusting state of morality that the people had. However, according to Orwell, this abominable behavior did not come from lack of parenting or any other source of bad behavior; it came from the actions of imperialism. The violent actions of the imperialists rubbed off against its civilians, almost teaching them that it is normal to kill and destroy. Overall, Orwell claims that imperialism causes people to have poor morality because they learn from the actions of their government. The people believe that if the government can kill and destroy, then they have every right to act just the same. To conclude, the direct result of that society's poor behavior reflects based off the actions of