George Orwell - Shooting an Elephant
Author Battles an Internal and External Struggle With Himself
Mar 26, 2009
George Orwell first published the essay entitled “Shooting an Elephant,” in New Writing First series No. 2 in 1936.
In the beginning, there is an immediate notion of honesty and credibility from the narrator. That is, the essay opens with the line of, “In Lower Burma, I was hated by a large number of people.” By making this admission early in the essay, the audience is more willing to believe him, and even sympathize with him as an imperial officer.
The narrator then expands upon this idea by providing a specific encounter he has with some Burmese people during a football game. He states that every time a player would trip him, the referee would look the other way, and the crowd would immediately burst into a hideous laughter. In the end, his main point is to show that “sneering yellow faces of young men” met him everywhere he went, and that the insults made towards him were getting on his nerves.
Empathy for the Author
This particular essay seems to accentuate the idea of “sympathy.” The narrator has clearly shown his discontent with colonial Britain: “I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better.” From this, there is a definite internal struggle that the narrator has to constantly grapple with: “All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible.”
Narrator’s Struggle
When the narrator receives the call to investigate a situation involving a “mad” elephant on the loose, he does not realize that he would have to kill the elephant. His original intentions were not to harm the animal at all. Throughout this ordeal, a massive amount of Burmese people are following him. They seem to be pressuring him into killing the elephant. The narrator is expected to follow the strict rule of ridding a dangerous animal from society. While all of this chaos is happening, the reader cannot help but feel apart of the story--as if switching places with the narrator himself.
In the end, the narrator succumbs to the pressure of enforcing the laws of the land and shoots the elephant. “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.” This particular sentence is the epitome of what this essay solidifies. That is, since the narrator did in fact follow the rule of exterminating a reckless animal, he is also relinquishing his own freedom by not doing what is deemed morally right to him.
The overall language used throughout this essay was very easy to read. The narrator does well to illustrate this traumatic event clearly and concisely. On the other hand, one can sense that the narrator is holding back some of his emotion concerning the events around him. While it may be his personal sensibilities preventing him, this character may have more credibility if he would simply let loose against the British monarchy and the Burmese locals who trouble him.
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