Orwell's Preface to the Animal Farm and his Short Story Shooting an Elephant
Comparative essay on Orwell’s Suppressed Preface and Shooting an Elephant
“Shooting an elephant” is autobiography of Orwell’s life and the duty he experienced as a police officer in a British colony in Burma. In this story, the writer tells us about how the British were viewed as intruders and how it felt to execute orders without wanting to do so. In the preface of “Animal farm”, we can see more obvious and relevant fact about how hard it was to publish the book and the amount and the gravity of censorship that was present when the Catholic Church, wealthy businessmen and the government were not agreeing with the contents of the press. This preface, I think, shows us more about how totalitarianism worked than the story “Shooting an elephant”.
“Shooting an elephant” there are not many facts or mentions about the views that Orwell had on totalitarianism as it more of a story and it uses many figures of speech such as emotional texts and the mode of writing is very descriptive. This can be seen when Orwell describes how the elephant was slowly dying “He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open...”
Orwell didn’t like the imperial job he was having and this can also be seen from his writing “As for the job i was doing, i hated it more bitterly than i can perhaps make clear”. Taking this text and comparing it to the preface we can see how the preface has more strengths in showing the totalitarianism regime than “Shooting an elephant”.
The preface that Orwell wrote about the fable “Animal farm” is showing us very clearly and understandable how totalitarianism worked and the method of writing this is argumentative and backed up with facts unlike “Shooting and elephant” that has very little to almost no fact that can checked or backed up. We can see the political fear that was almost omnipresent in the British government at the time. Orwell was rejected by 4
“Shooting an elephant” is autobiography of Orwell’s life and the duty he experienced as a police officer in a British colony in Burma. In this story, the writer tells us about how the British were viewed as intruders and how it felt to execute orders without wanting to do so. In the preface of “Animal farm”, we can see more obvious and relevant fact about how hard it was to publish the book and the amount and the gravity of censorship that was present when the Catholic Church, wealthy businessmen and the government were not agreeing with the contents of the press. This preface, I think, shows us more about how totalitarianism worked than the story “Shooting an elephant”.
“Shooting an elephant” there are not many facts or mentions about the views that Orwell had on totalitarianism as it more of a story and it uses many figures of speech such as emotional texts and the mode of writing is very descriptive. This can be seen when Orwell describes how the elephant was slowly dying “He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open...”
Orwell didn’t like the imperial job he was having and this can also be seen from his writing “As for the job i was doing, i hated it more bitterly than i can perhaps make clear”. Taking this text and comparing it to the preface we can see how the preface has more strengths in showing the totalitarianism regime than “Shooting an elephant”.
The preface that Orwell wrote about the fable “Animal farm” is showing us very clearly and understandable how totalitarianism worked and the method of writing this is argumentative and backed up with facts unlike “Shooting and elephant” that has very little to almost no fact that can checked or backed up. We can see the political fear that was almost omnipresent in the British government at the time. Orwell was rejected by 4