Shooting an Elephant

Orwell’s essay is very insightful regarding his hatred of imperialism. It leaves readers with an adrenaline rush due to the intensity of the situation. I was extraordinarily absorbed into the story and immediately wanted to know what was going to happen next. I kept asking myself, “Is he really going to kill the elephant?” Orwell was able to get his main point across that, in an imperialistic society, the foreigner of a country always seems to feel pressured by the people born there.

            This narrative/descriptive essay is intended towards a more adult audience. Before he starts the essay, Orwell states that this story took place during his years of serving as an Imperial policeman in India. This information serves the purpose of explaining his role in the story as to why he had to take action when the elephant was causing violence throughout the town. The narrative grabs the attention of the readers from beginning to end and is very well organized. The story does not have much dialogue, and does not call for it, because the story did not include dry material and is lively enough without it.

The description of this essay was more vivid than any essay I have ever read. Not only could I picture that story, but I felt as though I were the characters in the story. The description of this essay was so well written that I can actually feel the pain of the poor Indian man being stomped to death by the elephant. I also felt the pressure of the crowd of Burmans following and watching Orwell’s every step and the pain it gave Orwell to watch the elephant suffer. Orwell uses a first person point of view to  tell this story so that the readers can get inside his head and know his thought process when deciding whether to kill the elephant or not. There are examples of similes and metaphors in Orwell’s essay. “But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skywards like a tree.” The first simile in this sentence compares the elephant falling to the ground to a huge rock collapsing. The second simile in this sentence compares the trunk of the elephant that is now facing upwards, to a tree. “The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theater curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats.” The metaphor in this sentence compares the two thousand Burmans following him as he is preparing to shoot the elephant to people in a theater who become excited as they see that the show is about to start.

Orwell shoots the elephant because he is pressured by the Burmans around him to do so. If he did not shoot the elephant, Orwell would be ridiculed even more than he was already and would have looked like a fool. When being followed by the two thousand Burmans, he felt as though he had no choice but to shoot the elephant because that’s what they expected him to do. Imperialism is the power and control of a country and that countries people, over other countries and those countries people. Orwell has strong feelings towards his hatred of imperialism. He feels as though imperialism should be taken out of all countries. We should not mock or have stereotypes against one another just because of where we are from. The anecdote illustrates these feelings because his decision to shoot the elephant was not based upon what he thought was morally right but based upon what the Burmans would have thought of him if he did not shoot the elephant. He felt as though he needed to impress the “natives” by showing that he is capable of killing the animal and able to protect the Burmans from the violence caused by it.