What Is The Main Idea Of Shooting An Elephant By George Orwell

Shooting an Elephant is a self-identity essay written by George Orwell recounting his time as an Imperial guard in Burma. He describes the ways that he was treated and how he was hated and seen as a symbol of the oppressive Imperials that he worked for. Orwell discussed how he had grown disenfranchised with imperialism and decided that it “was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out the better.” Orwell described his job in terms where he was on the front line, and wrong side, of a tyrantical fight. This essay is describing what would become the final request from the oppressive government that completely severed his dedication to the job. Orwell was ordered to kill an elephant that had gone on a rampage, but who “attack
He describes in detail the moral complications that troubled his mind, and allowed for the reader to transport themselves to a cross roads where there was only no-win solutions. He described how, no matter how illogical and immoral the decision was to make, that he made the choice for self preservation. He described how he knew right from wrong stating, “I ought to walk up to within, say twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him”. Unfortunately he discounted that option almost as soon as he said it, because he was a bad shot and couldn’t risk being humiliated in that “the sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see [his being attacked and killed, and that] it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.” In Orwell’s description, he was not afraid of the animal, nor was he afraid for the villagers nor of the trauma of them watching him die, only of not looking a fool in front of those who he was supposed to be oppressing. For he realized in that moment that he was the one being oppressed in that “when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” Orwell realized that he would have to shoot the elephant because “the people expected it of me and I had got to do it”. In the end he realized that in the end that “in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.” Orwell had no power and the tyrant’s gun turned upon