Shooting And Elephant Analysis

In the story “Shooting and Elephant” by George Orwell, the essay is based on the authors experience with the Indian Imperial Police. The narrator had begun to question the presence of the British who were located in the Far East. Orwell was for the Burmese and against their oppressors the British. He described himself as being a “young ill-educated,” who bitterly hated his job. I think that the narrator was writing this story to inform about how the natives hated the British as any country would being subjected to a foreign rule. They ridiculed the British from a far off and would laugh at them when the opportunity would arise. So because off all of this the British in return hated the natives and that makes constant tension between the
two. The author is writing to his educated British colleges because in the text he uses a lot of big words and sophisticated phrases. He talks about his ideas on colonialism and how that Britain is making itself a slave to the expectations that these nations have of their British oppressor. I think that the author’s main idea is about how imperialism affects both the oppressor and the oppressed. Even though Britain is the oppressor they still are at the mercy of the oppressed. The oppressed mock them, ridicule them, and the British sense their ridicule on a daily basis. It has a lot of underlying meanings because it was written to the narrator’s educated colleges. The tone that the author is using to me is friendly, revealing and informal, the tone that he uses draws me in as a reader because he is so open about his feelings.
When he describes himself as being “young and ill-educated”, and bitterly hating his job it helps me understand his story better. He uses a lot of figurative language he talks in great comparison to the oppression and the oppressor a lot. It’s good to know that his stories are credible because he gives first hand encounters on the events. This essay is written in firsthand experience in the beginning of the text he states that he is an officer of the Imperial police working in India. The author’s main job at the time that he is narrating the story is to respond to a report of the death of a local man who was killed by an elephant. He stated that he found the man “lying on his belly with his arms crucified and head sharply twisted to the side.” so he had to have been there to give such a descripted tale. The death of the elephant is the most significant part of this essay given by the author. Throughout this whole essay the author weaves his thesis about the effects of imperialism not only for the oppressed but for the oppressor. He says the “every white man’s life in the East was one long struggle not to be laughed at,” the story basically captures a universal experience of going against one’s own humanity at the cost of a part of
humanity.