Shooting of an elephant:Personality Confict of a Britisher
“On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.”
-George Orwell
Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell is a story how a young Orwell, while stationed in Colonial Burma, became disillusioned with Imperialism. On one occasion he was faced with the dilemma of having to destroy a wild elephant that had gotten loose in the town he was stationed in. Throughout the story the reader will be able to see two alternating voices of Orwell. The first voice is a justification of his actions, while the other voice cites an honest excuse of why he shot the elephant. More than that the story talks about power and authority, pride v/s responsibility, ethical decision making and being morally correct or incorrect.
Upon reading the text, we see that author is compelled to kill the elephant. "In times of war, circumstances dictate action."-Batman. I would take the paradigm of batman and joker. Here batman is the “good man” standing by the right and doing everything morally right, standing for the weak. Joker speaks for the chaos and evil and believes that “everyone can go insane, all they need is a little push..” symbolizing insane as insanity and evilness. Coming to George Orwell ,there is a war within his mind, an internal conflict going on continuously, but the question is whether or not will he give in to the insane joker within him or will he be the epitome of goodness and symbol of everything right-the batman?
Being the “white man”, being the supposed leader, he should have been independent enough to make the decision on his own without being influenced by the natives. This story gives an example of how sometimes to fit in, we give up our ethics. To conform, to fit in, to be liked, to not look foolish/stupid and to be respected we end up doing stuff that we do not intend to do. The author here justifies that he gave in, that is, he killed the elephant to avoid being looked as foolish. But I think more than that he was trying somehow
-George Orwell
Shooting an Elephant, by George Orwell is a story how a young Orwell, while stationed in Colonial Burma, became disillusioned with Imperialism. On one occasion he was faced with the dilemma of having to destroy a wild elephant that had gotten loose in the town he was stationed in. Throughout the story the reader will be able to see two alternating voices of Orwell. The first voice is a justification of his actions, while the other voice cites an honest excuse of why he shot the elephant. More than that the story talks about power and authority, pride v/s responsibility, ethical decision making and being morally correct or incorrect.
Upon reading the text, we see that author is compelled to kill the elephant. "In times of war, circumstances dictate action."-Batman. I would take the paradigm of batman and joker. Here batman is the “good man” standing by the right and doing everything morally right, standing for the weak. Joker speaks for the chaos and evil and believes that “everyone can go insane, all they need is a little push..” symbolizing insane as insanity and evilness. Coming to George Orwell ,there is a war within his mind, an internal conflict going on continuously, but the question is whether or not will he give in to the insane joker within him or will he be the epitome of goodness and symbol of everything right-the batman?
Being the “white man”, being the supposed leader, he should have been independent enough to make the decision on his own without being influenced by the natives. This story gives an example of how sometimes to fit in, we give up our ethics. To conform, to fit in, to be liked, to not look foolish/stupid and to be respected we end up doing stuff that we do not intend to do. The author here justifies that he gave in, that is, he killed the elephant to avoid being looked as foolish. But I think more than that he was trying somehow