Essay, Research Paper: "Shooting An Elephant"

"Shooting an Elephant" is perhaps one of the most anthologized essays in the English language. It is a splendid essay and a terrific model for a theme of narration. The point of the story happens very much in our normal life, in fact everyday. People do crazy and sometimes illegal moves to get a certain group or person to finally give them respect. George Orwell describes an internal conflict between his personal morals and his duty to his country to the white man’s reputation. The author’s purpose is to explain the audience (who is both English and Burmese) about the kind of life he is living in Burma, about the conditions, circumstances he is facing and to tell the British Empire what he think about their imperialism and his growing displeasure for the imperial domination of British Empire.
Orwell’s extraordinary style is never displayed well than through “Shooting an Elephant,” where he seemingly blends his style and subject into one. The story deals with a tame elephant that all of a sudden turns bad and kills a black Dravidian coolie Indian. A policeman kills this elephant through his conscience because the Indians socially pressurized him greatly. He justified himself as he had killed elephant as a revenge for coolie.
The structure of this essay can be a role model for a perfect narrative descriptive essay. The trick in creating such effective narrative descriptive essay is to provide enough concrete detail to show readers what happened. The reader should feel what it means to be there in their experience. He almost shows the graphical representation of that event. As a very minor example, that Orwell does not say, "I took my gun"; instead, he says, "I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester....". He says of the dead coolie, "the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long." Now a writer can go too far and clutter a story or essay with needless, distracting detail, but the story will not go anywhere unless it has enough solid, specific, concrete detail for the reader to re-live the experience like Orwell does.
Unlike some other essays, which state their thesis in the first paragraph, this essay puts the thesis at the point where the narrator actually realizes the significance of the experience. He clearly signals that he's about to present his thesis when he says, "It was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness....", Then comes the thesis: "I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys." (165).
The style of this essay is generally very simple, but it is strong enough to merit numerous interpretations. Orwell uses metaphors to do this: “They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick” (165).
Oppression is shown by Orwell through the burden of servitude placed upon him by England: “ All I knew was that I was struck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beast [the Burmese] who tried to make my job impossible” (163). Though Orwell’s handling of his subject is detailed, in the end, he subtly condemns imperialism. Orwell finds himself in a moral predicament no different than the ones placed on the white men in the East. Orwell justifies his actions, “solely to avoid looking a fool,” driven by the instigation of the Burmese (165). Orwell himself, against his will, has oppressed many Burmese. In Orwell’s case, the coolie killed by the elephant represents the invasion of Burma by the British. Just as no one can predict the next victim of the elephant, also no one can predict the next victim of the British. The murder of coolie gives Orwell a justifiable reason to kill the elephant. Orwell does not want himself to be considered as British, but he does not want to be thought the fool either. George Orwell makes his decision to shoot the elephant appear to be reasonable.
Morally, I think this story clearly states that people would do anything to avoid being embarrassed. From my understanding, I think that this story teaches us that we should be open to hear people’s opinions but we should follow our instincts. We should not allow others to make the decisions for us. The police officers just shoot the elephant because people wanted him to do so. This essay is trying to help us to see that we should look at the pros and cons of an issue rather than making a quick decision that can affect someone. I cannot condemn the author for shooting the elephant, though he knew it was wrong. Nor can I condemn him for giving in to the natives and not sticking to his guns. He does not want to appear foolish to others like all of us do.


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