Shooting An Elephant – George Orwell Orwell begins his essay by describing the intense hatred of the Burmese for their European masters. In Moulmein‚ in Lower Burma‚ I was hated by large numbers of people‚ the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. Europeans were spit at‚ jeered at‚ and insulted. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. I feel his sympathies were on the side of the Burmese‚ and
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Messages in Short Stories (Three Messages from‚ “Shooting an Elephant” and “No Witchcraft for Sale”) George Orwell was born in India and was extremely familiar with elephants. He joined the police force in 1923 and resigned only after five years. His story‚ “Shooting an Elephant”‚ is his most famous writings and is based on one of his experiences during his career as a policeman. On the other hand‚ Doris Lessing‚ wrote the short story‚ “No Witchcraft for Sale.” Lessing wanted to influence
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George Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant’’ first appeared in 1936. The British public already knew Orwell as the socially conscious author of Down and Out in London and Paris (1933)‚ a nonfiction study of poverty‚ homelessness‚ unemployment‚ and subsistence living on poorly-paying menial jobs‚ and Burmese Days (1934)‚ a novel of British colonialism. Shooting an Elephant’’ functions as an addendum to Burmese Days. The story and novel share the same setting‚ and draw on Orwell’s experience as a colonial
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1 “The Allegory of the Cave” and “Shooting an Elephant” seems like two completely different stories. Both of them have their own ways of showing enlightenment and ways of perceiving realities. After reading both of these tales multiple times‚ I’ve drawn some conclusions on the different ways of enlightenment that are described throughout each story. In “Shooting an Elephant‚” Policeman Eric Blair is asked to kill the elephant that was ravaging the village. Many times he would describe how he
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An Elephant-Sized Dilemma Everyone‚ of all ages and time periods‚ faces a moral dilemma. This may be about a smaller problem or matters of life and death that have a far more wide-ranging impact‚ such as imperialism. In George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant‚” an unnamed narrator‚ despite his initial reluctance‚ succumbs to collective pressures to shoot a marauding elephant in Lower Burma. Orwell comments on the dangers of collective pressure and the horrors of imperialism in order to explore the
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In Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants‚” Jig undergoes a transformation enabling her to realize and declare her own feelings. At the story’s beginning Jig is passive‚ unaware of her own feelings‚ and in the habit of looking to the American direction. She soon comes to realize her own desires and struggles to assert herself for the first time. The story is structured around the two sides of the valley‚ the division symbolizing the opposition between the American’s values and Jig’s. “The two
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The character that I identify with the most is Orwell in “Shooting an Elephant” because of his struggle to do what is morally right when society wants him to be or do something different. I think I sometimes struggle to do what is morally right when an entire world pushes me to conform. For example‚ what if I know a friend has cheated on a test but I cannot say anything to the teacher because after all he or she is my friend. Or‚ when a coworker gets reprimanded by our boss for something I did and
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Shooting an Elephant is one of the most famous essays by George Orwell that presents the situation of preindependence era in Burma. There are very subtle instances that act as a window for the readers into the social setup of that time. One could see that the Burmese hated the British in a pity and helpless manner. One of the few opportunities they had to express their anger was during the soccer game where the rules of society were over ruled by the rules of the game. The psychology of the author
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"Shooting an Elephant‚" by George Orwell is a first person view on living and working as a European police officer in Moulmein‚ Lower Burma. There was a bit of tension between the locals and the foreign law enforcement since the British had taken over the country‚ so Orwell was not thought fondly of. The climax of this essay was when a otherwise tame elephant starts rampaging because is had gone into "must" a term used on page 118 that means in heat. The owner loses track of the animal in the
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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
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