“Shooting an Elephant” is an essay written by George Orwell in 1936. “Shooting an Elephant” is written chronologically and is a 1st person narrative. The tone of the essay is discomforting. The story takes place in Burma in the 1920’s. It depicts a situation in which the main character‚ a young Englishman‚ who is serving as a police officer‚ encounters a ravaging elephant while he is on duty. The anonymous narrator is a questioning colonialist that throughout the story struggles with three
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“Shooting an Elephant” In “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell is not liked by the Burmese people because he is the representation of their oppressors‚ the British. He gets his chance to be the hero when an elephant gets loose and causes destruction and the people need him to kill the beast. What would have happened if he didn’t shoot the elephant? Why Orwell feel so awful about killing the elephant? Orwell decides to kill the elephant‚ but does he do it for the right reason? In Orwell’s essay
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Shooting an Elephant Sarig T. Cohen George Orwell is the author of “Shooting an Elephant”‚ a short story that uses the small incident of the murder of an elephant to portray the horrors of British Imperialism. Due to the fact that George Orwell writes a short story in the form of an essay‚ it contains a thesis‚ which is the argument about the nature of imperialism. The great thing about George Orwell’s essay is that the theme is represented throughout the plot and can be analyzed from any
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SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT (JOURNAL) This story begins in Moulmain‚ in lower Burma. The author speaks about his experiences while he was working as a police officer. In this time‚ Orwell was a young inexperienced soldier. He was in that place to protect the Queen’s interests. He had to do unethical things that made conflicts himself. When he mentions that he killed an elephant I feel his pangs of conscience. The elephant destroyed a village before it died. The villagers were furious about all the mess
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Imperialism in ‘Shooting an Elephant’ by George Orwell Shooting an elephant is a short story about the speaker’s experience in working as a colonial officer in Burma‚ a previous conquered province by Britain‚ and facing a pressure to shoot an innocent elephant to please a large Burmese crowd. Throughout the story Orwell makes clear to readers how Imperialism causes misery and pain. To a clear definition for Imperialism‚ I sum up the important points according to my understanding as
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In George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant” (1936)‚ he reveals that he despises the very idea of imperialism. Orwell shows this by using an extended metaphor throughout the entire essay. The metaphor is shown through the story of him shooting an elephant. He is representing the entire British nation‚ and their imperialistic values. He shows that he does not really want to shoot this elephant if it is not necessary but the Burmese people keep pressuring him to do something and to do it right
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George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant‚” deals with the evil side of imperialism. The shooting of the elephant in Orwell’s story is the central focus from which Orwell builds his argument through the two dominant characters‚ the elephant and the British officer. The British officer‚ acts as a symbol of the imperial country and the elephant is the victim of imperialism. Together‚ the solider and the elephant turns this into an attack on the evils of imperialism. The shooting of the elephant shows the different
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Analysis The reading‚ "Shooting an Elephant" takes place in Moulmein. He starts of the story in spectacle as to why the locals have so much hatred toward the Europeans when in all reality his main goal was only to help and protect the townspeople from any hurt‚ harm or danger that may come their way. In this story‚ the police officer’s duty was to respond to a report of the death of a man who was killed by a stray elephant. Upon approaching the dead man‚ he finds the man "lying on his belly with arms crucified
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reading the essay “Shooting an Elephant”‚ it gives away many symbols and a very important life lesson. The essay has many symbols‚ but three stick out like a sore thumb. These include the gun‚ the Burmese people‚ and the elephant. A main symbol that is easily noticed is the gun he uses. A small powerful rifle against a huge elephant. Orwell even noted “an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant” (324). The gun isn’t mad to kill a giant beast like this elephant. It was all he had
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One day there was a rampaging circus elephant going through the town‚ and Orwell went with his old .44 Winchester so he could go scare it away. During the elephants rampage throughout the town it destroyed a hut‚ killed a cow and raided some fruit stalls. Later on they realized the elephant trampled a man to death and that’s when Orwell went and got an elephant rifle from a friend because he thought it was needed at the moment. Orwell tracked down the elephant and the whole town followed because they
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