Shooting an Elephant
A.P English
10-1813
Shooting an Elephant essay
Have you ever been influenced by others to do something you do not want to do? A lot of people have, including George Orwell in his essay Shooting an Elephant. Being influenced by others, also known as peer pressure is a thing that happens every day, not only in high schools like most people think but outside of schools and in the real world. In Orwell’s essay he did something because he did not want the people of the town to think poorly of him. There have been many moments in my life where I only did something to avoid looking a fool.
In Shooting an Elephant Orwell really creates a perfect example of peer pressure. He says in the passage “I often wondered whether any of grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.” In that sentence Orwell means he only did because he did not want the people of the town to dislike him and he was peer pressured into shooting the elephant. Most of the passage Orwell did not want to shoot the Elephant and he had basically convinced himself not too. When he finally found the Elephant calmly grazing in a field, he saw that the elephant was no longer hurting or killing anyone, he thought of how nice a creature the elephant was and he was positive that he did not want to shoot, but the people of the town were watching him and telling him to kill it, and the people of the town got there way because Orwell shot the Elephant and the people of the town cheered and were very happy but Orwell was not. In fourth grade I had a lot of friends and they all loved to have fun and I did too. One snowy day I was walking to school and there was at least two feet of snow on the ground and my friends loved to have snowball fights. I never really took interest in these snowball fights. They were throwing snowballs at each other before school, but I went inside. It was a lot warmer inside and I did not enjoy the cold. All day in class my friends were talking about having a snowball
10-1813
Shooting an Elephant essay
Have you ever been influenced by others to do something you do not want to do? A lot of people have, including George Orwell in his essay Shooting an Elephant. Being influenced by others, also known as peer pressure is a thing that happens every day, not only in high schools like most people think but outside of schools and in the real world. In Orwell’s essay he did something because he did not want the people of the town to think poorly of him. There have been many moments in my life where I only did something to avoid looking a fool.
In Shooting an Elephant Orwell really creates a perfect example of peer pressure. He says in the passage “I often wondered whether any of grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.” In that sentence Orwell means he only did because he did not want the people of the town to dislike him and he was peer pressured into shooting the elephant. Most of the passage Orwell did not want to shoot the Elephant and he had basically convinced himself not too. When he finally found the Elephant calmly grazing in a field, he saw that the elephant was no longer hurting or killing anyone, he thought of how nice a creature the elephant was and he was positive that he did not want to shoot, but the people of the town were watching him and telling him to kill it, and the people of the town got there way because Orwell shot the Elephant and the people of the town cheered and were very happy but Orwell was not. In fourth grade I had a lot of friends and they all loved to have fun and I did too. One snowy day I was walking to school and there was at least two feet of snow on the ground and my friends loved to have snowball fights. I never really took interest in these snowball fights. They were throwing snowballs at each other before school, but I went inside. It was a lot warmer inside and I did not enjoy the cold. All day in class my friends were talking about having a snowball