George Orwell – “Shooting an Elephant” (1936)

wound an Elephant, by George Orwell, is a highly effective piece of non-fiction. Although written nigh an event m whatsoever years ago, in a society that no longer exists as it did whence, the essay still holds relevance in the ideas it contains. It is how Orwell puts crosswise his views on compoundism and hu manhood nature that I intend to investigate.The essay revolves around Orwell recounting an chance which he experienced as a military officer in colonial Burma, in the 1920s. Orwell was c alled to act when a tame elephant went must and started harry a bazaar, killing one of the indigenous Indians. However, by the time he had located the elephant, the attack seemed to devote passed, so at that place was no indigence to destroy it. unless such was the pressure from the local populace, and Orwells fear of existence mocked, that he shot the elephant.When he first introduces him self to the reader, Orwell seems to be a passably level-headed person, with his self- deprecia ting tone showing that he doesnt take himself too poorly in the great scheme of things drawing the reader to sympathise with him. This sympathy is broaden further when the reader is made privy to the ambivalence of Orwells views towards his position in Burma. In direct blood to the majority of westbounders in the East at that time, Orwell was very conscious of the hypocrisy of his position and strange opinions, and found it all perplexing and upsetting. Perplexing because he felt sympathetic towards the Burmese, and was against the Western domination of the colonial territories, and sided with the roughshod thing that was imperialism. Yet at the analogous time the Burmese took great delight in tr take him like dirt, in petty revenge for their situation making his job and life hell.These conflicting feelings are echoed in the register and style of Orwells writing the high-flowing words of Imperialism was an nefariousness thing contrasts with the slang of The sooner I chuck ed my jobthe better, to pay hold bring out Orwells profound dislike of his duties, doing the dirty work of the Empire. Yet in spite of the highly emotive wording used to describe his job, the abject prisoners and intolerable sense of delinquency, Orwell still found himself hating the Burmese. The sheer pettiness of the evil spirited little beasts, their cumulative bitterness making it impossible for him to cooperate them, led to a feeling that it would be the greatest joy in the world to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist Priests mainstay.Even the word choice and sentence structure indicate the consummation to which Orwell was in cardinal minds slightly the Burmese the contrast between the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny in soecula soeculorum lapsing into Latin, formal language with the informality of drive a bayonet into a Buddhist Priests gritstone. In addition, the sentence structure adds to this idea of being pulled in two directions the differing statements ar e separated by a semi-colon, balancing the one against the other, uncomplete dominant.Once the extent of his feelings towards the job and the Burmese have been established, Orwell starts to recount the incident involving the elephant. Originally Orwell introduces it as a tiny thing in itself, apply understatement and irony to begin the narrative. He first refers to it as something which in a round c omitly way was enlightening. Yet at the same time, it was an keenness for him into the real motives for which despotic governments act. Human nature and the reasons for our societys structure not important?However, after this hidden intensity, Orwell then continues in a plum congenial manner, of how he was informed through with(p) polite, unstressed telephone rallying cry that at that place was an elephant gone must and escaped, and would I please come and do something to the highest degree it? At which grade Orwell does go out to see what was happening solely out of curios ity, not duty.When a list of things that the elephant has done is presented, some of them moderately serious, they are ordered in such a way as to make them seem irrelevant, through anti-climax. Rather than working his way through progressively more serious offences, Orwell begins the list with destroying someones house, killing a awe then working down to stealing some fruit and finally, overturning the rubbish stack away van and inflicted violences on it. The hyperbole of inflicted violences, the exaggerated anti-climax, leads to a light-hearted, unstressed mood.However, at this orientate Orwell constructs the first of some(prenominal) arctic points in the narrative, bringing about an abrupt contrast in mood. At the beginning of this paragraph, Orwell is unsuccessfully inquiring for the elephant, and even beginning to doubt its existence, starting with questioning failed to get any(prenominal) definite information vaguer until the existence of any elephant was denied. Yet then this conservatively constructed conclusion is shattered by the sufferingful closing of a Coringhee primeval Indian, ground into the mud by the elephant.To add to the effect of this sudden distressfulness and shock, Orwell uses extremely emotive imagery and word choice to detail the straight foregoing irritation of mans goal. With the description of arms crucified there is the connotations of one of the most harrowing deaths being crucified. Also, this idea would have been imaginable to a primarily Christian Britain of 1936, when Orwell wrote the essay. A British readership would also have been able to conceive what the mans O.K. looked like, as Orwell describes the friction from the elephants foot as having stripped the skin from his bottom as neatly as one skins a rabbit. most Britons of the time would have prepared, or seen prepared, a rabbit skinned and cooked, so this imagery brought a potentially unimaginable event to an understandable level.It is at this point t hat Orwell goes on to work through the implications and factors screwing snatching the elephant, and upon discovering the creature, on the face of it calm and past its attack of must, he decides not to institutionalize it. Elephants were expensive to buy, keep and train, and as such, worth a lot of money existent dead, they were worth only the value of their tusks. In addition to the financial complications, the elephant no longer seemed to be a danger away from people, peacefully eating in a field there was no need to shoot it. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Orwell himself did not want to shoot the elephant a object lesson choice, that he felt it was wrong.However, throughout this decision making process, Orwell was becoming more and more conscious of the growing crowd of Burmese at is heels and this became another(prenominal) pivotal point in the passage. Initially Orwell mentioned feeling vaguely uneasy about the growing size of the crowd, intensifying to looking and feeling like a fool. He describes the crowd as looking at him as a conjuror about to perform a trick. The magician, the nerve of attention, if not the object of respect, at a show, usually with an audience half(a) hoping he lead fail clear parallels to Orwell, surrounded by the nettlesome Burmese. Perhaps the comparison is also apt because umteen people particularly in the time when Orwell was writing view those who work in the occult as not having a proper job, arent authentically important at all, despite the glitter and attention. Mere amusement for others an echo of British colonialism?Orwells growing feeling of helplessness is summed up in the theatrical language and imagery which he uses in this point in the passage. He refers to himself as seemingly the wind actor of the piece in reality, I was only an absurd wight. Puppets have no control over the actions they act out inanimate, passive, subjected to the will of the puppeteer. Whos actions, in turn, are dict ated by the audience else how could the puppeteer detain, without a life? Similarly, it was the will of the crowd that was beginning to control Orwells actions a puppet. This image is then furthered by Orwell drawing parallels to a Hollow, posing dummy, holding many of the same connotations, posed into the positions that its owner or dresser dictate. No choice, keep down to the will of others completely.This position which Orwell find himself in is summed up in his cooling system conclusion I perceived at this moment that when the bloodless man turns autocrat it is his own freedom he destroys. evidently paradoxical, for a tyrant, by definition, sacrifices others freedom for personal gain so why should they lose freedom as a result? Yet in the context of use of Orwell, and Britains situation at this time, the concept begins to make sense. Once people command a given set of actions or set behaviour, the peer pressure fecal matter compress those it is aimed at into the moul d so British citizens in the colonies, including Orwell, finish up losing their freedom as individuals, in order to accommodate to stereotypes they otherwise might not have followed.In Orwells case, having sent for the rifle, the Burmese bear him to use it, else seem weak and indecisive and my full life, every white mans life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. The ultimate sign of derision laughter. The only other preference for Orwell was to walk up to within 25-odd yards of the elephant, and see if it manoeuvred him if not, then he had proved the attack of must had passed, and would be justified in the eyes of the Burmese in not stab the creature. However, if still in must then the elephant would charge Orwell and at that distance, he would only get one chance to shoot before being trampled into the earth in the same painful death the Coringhee Indian had experience. Yet it is not the pain that Orwell was so anxious to avoid, plainly the fact that such a death would be incredibly humble and if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. It is this that led Orwell to conclude in that location was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim.This paragraph is clearly another pivotal section priorly Orwell had thought he was the one in control of the situation, and could therefore follow a logical train of cogitate to decide not to shoot the elephant yet is here that he realises he does not control his own actions. All Orwell cares about at this point is saving face in front of the natives realises this obsession, and doesnt care, so deeply is he concerned with the idea of being laughed at.This leads to the true climax of the narrative the scene of the elephant. By this point the author skilfully manipulates the word choice and language to convey how, when the bullet hits, a mysterious, terrible change came over th e elephant. antecedently the creature had been tall and strong, full of life and power now he seemed stricken, shrunken, immensely oldparalysed the impression of life seeping away with such speed that the elephant was left reeling in shock at the alteration, not merely the pain of the bullets.The sheer force of language shows the intense pain of the elephants drawn out death from the f honorableful impact of the bullet agony jolt his whole body until the creature finally collapsed, to lie with tortured breathinggasps. The implications behind tortured are clear, yet there is also the angle of the guilt Orwell felt coming through here tortured implies a consult act inflicted on the undeserving, as Orwell had inflicted his fears on the elephant. Yet despite or perhaps because of this guilt, Orwell still seems to convey a strange sort of self-regard to the elephants death as it lay there, Powerless to move and yet impotent to die. He was dying, yes, an excruciatingly drawn out deat h, yet he seemed to be in some world remote from here there is a surreal quality to Orwells description of the death and dignity of the beast, upstage in some way from this world. The elephant is in direct and superior contrast to Orwells frantic efforts to kill it and end its suffering, and the Burmese as they swarmed around the body, uncovering the flesh and hide even before it was dead, while it lay there, passively accepting the pain and death.Orwell also highlights his reaction to this change, first of his frantic activity, then, in the face of his inability to help the creature he had fatally wounded, his intense guilt. He writes of how In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away the overwhelming guilt at having caused such pain merely to avoid being laughed at, and then his underlying guilt at running away. Looking back on the events of this incident, which occurred ten years previous to Orwell writing the passage, it is clear that Orwells own opinion of his ac tions is not a lordly one. This feeling of self-discrimination and regret is brought out in his extended description of the elephants death, portraiture it as possessing a quiet dignity while portraying his younger self as unworthy and weak, uncertain in himself as to who he really is, or what he believes in.It is this disgust that Orwell tries to instil in his readers, towards his actions. After the death of the elephant, he writes how I was very glad that the Coolie had been killed it put me licitly in the right and gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. Seemingly uncaring as to the death of the Coolie through this shock tactic, attempting to persuade others to chafe him as Orwell condemns himself. Orwell even goes so far as to make several racist comments even though the author of 1936 was not racist, and his younger self only conforming to the accepted mould of his times, in order to survive to prompt the reader to judge him harshly. With his extended, d etailed description of the elephants death, Orwell condemns his own actions, in a tone of bitterly ironic self-derision.Orwell might seem to be being racist in the last paragraph, but in fact, this racial discrimination is dramatised to show just how integral to the colonial system it was. Orwell is not excusing, or even denying the fact that he was racist while in Burma. The point is that, in his descriptions of his younger self as young and ill-educated ironic, as he attended Eton he was forced to think out (his) problems in the express silence that is imposed upon every Englishman in the East. Expensive nurture had failed to prepare him for real life, so Orwell resorted to the customs and conventions of his peer grouping, or try complete isolation from society.In the final paragraph, Orwell puts forward two arguments concerning his reasons for shooting the elephant. When he talks about being legally in the right in shooting a creature that could be mad and a danger, it seem s as if Orwell is going to use a deontological reasoning. He was sideline the law, and his actions were necessitate by virtue of his position, so he morally did the right thing. The other lift to an argument for a set of actions, rather than the backwards looking deontological reasoning, is the forward looking consequentialist approach, of the ends justifying the means. However, it is in the last sentence that Orwell shatters all charade of having been hobby a deontological reasoning I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.When Orwell states that he was very glad that the man had been killed by the elephant, in that through it he could justify his deliverance of dignity, it might seem callous to some. Yet this desperation, this willingness to sacrifice anything also elicits a sort of sympathy in the reader, at how pathetic the situation has die perhaps reflective of the mixed feelings of contempt and pity that the O rwell of 1936 seems to feel towards his younger self.There are several possible themes to this essay the condemnation of the colonial system perhaps seemingly without significance in todays post-colonial world. Yet there are possible parallels to modern day superpowers and dictatorships, conforming to stereotypes, unwilling to back down from, say, war, for fear of changing perceptions. People still discriminate, still conform to others standards against their will. There is also the idea that if you hate an enemy viciously enough, you shame yourself to the same level as them. Even if originally justifiably angry, following reasonable logic, in hatred, you degenerate into conforming to the same behavioural patterns as your enemies hatred contaminates. Orwell himself is an example of this he seemed reasonably level headed, yet as his hatred for the Burmese grew, he gradually degenerated to similar levels of cruelty. Perhaps because he was formed by their perceptions, and the Burmese seemed to have had a cruel measure in them which coloured their expectations?Either way, it is clear that while world situations have changed radically, there are still many relevant issues that are demo in Orwells Shooting an Elephant. Perhaps it would be fair to say that it is not so much Orwells views on Colonialism that are shown in this essay, but his uncannily accurate observations of human nature.