Shooting An Elephant Imperialism Essay

Shooting an Elephant: Imperialism When the word“dictator” comes to mind, humans are dolorous and empathetic. A great proof of this fact was observed during the early parts of the 20th century when oppression and iron fisted rule was established as a social normalcy in much of the world. The oppressive days of totalitarianism have passed and were marked by the death of the infamous and grandiose era of imperialism. Nonetheless, it left a bad imprint upon the countries and people that were involved.To understand the conflict and struggles entailed by imperialism and its oppression, Shooting an Elephant written by George Orwell in the early 1900s uses the example of British controlled Myanmar, an area at the time known as Burma. This event affected the
As a result of his personal experiences within a moral dilemma, George Orwell conveys to the reader the evils of imperialism and the double-edged sword that runs in the direction of both the conqueror and the conquered. In addition to imagery, Orwell uses a negative tone to portray an environment to the readers of repulsion towards to the figure of imperialism and it atrocities. The tone of the essay set by Orwell delineates the setting to be “a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains” (Orwell 286). Orwell’s depiction gives the readers a sensation of a dark atmosphere. It also attributes to the author’s ideas against imperialism. Orwell’s use of great imagery while depicting the finding of the elephant, “it was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palm-leaf, winding all over a steep hillside” (Orwell 286) seems to illustrate neighboring sentences together to stress his stance and render the readers the sense of poverty of the Burmese people since the oppressors arrived. His word choice such as “cloudy”,